1 German global soft power, 1700-1920 Nicola McLelland
[email protected] Abstract: This article provides the first overview of the reach and ‘soft power’ of German language and culture in Europe and beyond, from 1700 to 1920, shortly after the end of the First World War. Besides the role of the state (weak, until deliberate policies began to be formulated from the late nineteenth century), the article shows the role of language societies, religious, educational and scientific institutions, and other sociocultural and political factors, including migration and colonization, in promoting German ‘soft power’ in other parts of Europe, in the Americas, Africa and China. The changing status of German language and culture in these parts of the world and the extent of local and ‘home’ support, through explicit policy or otherwise, for German as a first, foreign or additional language abroad is also considered. Keywords: German as a foreign language (GFL), German colonialism, German migration, Philanthropists, language societies, Togo, Namibia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Jiaozhou Bay concession (Kiautschou). In 2013, Monocle magazine ranked Germany top in its global soft-power index, beating the USA (2nd) and the UK (3rd).1 With about 100 million native speakers (sixth behind Chinese, English, Hindustani, Spanish, and Russian), German also has some claim to be a world language. Its advocates point to its global reach; a map titled Weltsprache Deutsch ‘World Language German’ in a recent textbook for English learners of German suggests that German is spoken in Europe, Africa, Australia, North and South America, and Asia2. A series of high-profile publications reflect concern about German’s status on the world stage: Thierfelder’s Die Deutsche Sprache im Ausland (‘The German language abroad’, 1957), Ammon’s comprehensive Die Stellung der deutschen Sprache in der Welt (‘The status of the German language in the World’, 2014, updating his earlier Die internationale Stellung de 1 Germany lost the top spot to the USA in 2014, however.