page_title: Germans
section_title: 1918–1945
hierarchical_section_title: Germans / Identity / 1918–1945
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Nach dem Feldzug der 18 Tage begann die bisher großzügigste Umsiedlungsaktion der Weltgeschichte. Alle Volksgruppen, die Draußen ihre Aufgaben erfüllt haben, rief der Führer zurück in die Heimat ihrer Väter. Sie helfen jetzt mit beim Ausbau und der Festigung des großdeutschen Reiches. In besonderem Maße werden beim Aufbau des Warthegaues ihre kolonisatorischen Fähigkeiten wirksam werden.
context_page_description: Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture, and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans.
  The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire back in the 16th century, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide.
  Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, South Africa, the post-Soviet states, and France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied.
  Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities which were earlier part of the Holy Roman Empire, most often subscribe to their own national identities and may or may not also self-identify as ethnically German.
context_section_description: Following the defeat in World War I, influence of German-speaking elites over Central and Eastern Europe was greatly limited. At the Treaty of Versailles Germany was substantially reduced in size. Austria-Hungary was split up. The German-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary were reduced to a rump state called the "Republic of German-Austria" (German: Deutschösterreich). On 12 November, the National Assembly declared the rump state a republic and Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day, it drafted a provisional constitution which stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2) with the hope of joining Germany. The name "German-Austria" and union with Germany were forbidden by the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Versailles. German-Austria lost the territories of the Sudetenland and German Bohemia to Czechoslovakia, South Tyrol to Italy, and southern Carinthia and Styria to Yugoslavia and the rump state was renamed "Republic of Austria". With these changes, the era of the First Austrian Republic began. These events are sometimes considered to be a pre-Anschluss attempt.
  During the 1920s, the constitutions of both the First Austrian Republic and the Weimar Republic included the goal of union between the two countries, which was supported by all different political parties. In the early 1930s, before the Nazis seized power, popularity for the addition of Austria to Germany remained strong and the Austrian government looked at the possibility of a customs union with Germany in 1931 but this was stopped by French opposition. In 1933, after Austrian-born Hitler came to power, support for an Anschluss grew. The Austrofascism era of Dollfuss/Schuschnigg between 1934-1938 accepted that Austrians were Germans and that Austria was a "German state" but was strongly opposed to Hitler's desire to annex Austria to the Third Reich and wished for Austria to remain independent.
  The Heim ins Reich initiative (German: literally Home into the Reich, meaning Back to Reich, see Reich) was a policy pursued by Nazi Germany which attempted to convince people of German descent living outside of Germany (such as Sudetenland) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Poland in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet pact. This policy began in 1938 on 12 March when Hitler annexed Austria to the Third Reich.
  Volga Germans living in the Soviet Union were interned in gulags or forcibly relocated during the Second World War.
caption: Heim ins Reich
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