Germany's Citizens: the African-German Community in The

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Germany's Citizens: the African-German Community in The Carol Aisah Blackshire-Belay, ed.. The African-German Experience, Critical Essays. Westport and London: Praeger, 1996. xiii + 136 pp. $52.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-275-95079-8. Reviewed by Daniel J. Walther Published on H-Africa (August, 1997) Usually when discussions arise about the fu‐ by their fellow German citizens because of their ture of Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall skin color. and unification, they include debates about the It is precisely the objective of Carol Aisah cost of unification, the apparent differences be‐ Blackshire-Belay's edited volume to illuminate the tween East and West Germans (along with calls plight of this community as it attempts to fnd its from both sides to raise the Wall again), and the place and identity in the New Germany. Heavily rise of German nationalism. Without a doubt, influenced and inspired by the ground breaking many focus on what is Germany now and what it work, Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women will be as well as what it means to be German and Speak Out, published originally in German in who is German. These conversations, especially 1986,[1] the contributors aim "to analyze the way those that take place in Germany, more often than African Germans have presented themselves and not make certain assumptions about who and the way others have viewed them" (p. ix). In doing what Germany is. so, they address issues of "identity, ethnicity, and Unfortunately, such discussions fail to recog‐ self-perception found in the African-German com‐ nize that Germany and Germans are not from a munity" (p. ix). single "nationality" and general look the same. In‐ They approach this by looking at the various deed, this is far from the truth. In fact, despite of‐ ways members of this community, either individ‐ ficial political statements to the contrary, Ger‐ ually or collectively, have sought to express them‐ many is a multinational, multiethnic country. This selves and the ways their white compatriots have is most readily apparent in the existence of the seen them through self-reflection, their relation‐ African-German community, a collection of indi‐ ships to each other, in the popular media, the sim‐ viduals who feel German inwardly in many re‐ ilarities and differences to the African-American spects but outwardly are not quite often accepted experience, and the effects and significance of his‐ tory. Thus, they endeavor to answer the following H-Net Reviews questions: "(1) Precisely to what and whom are This cultural dislocation, Asante continues, is fur‐ we referring when we talk about African Ger‐ ther exacerbated by the fact that "because they do mans or black Germans? (2) Is this group any dif‐ not know their African roots, they may feel Ger‐ ferent from other African-descended people man" (p. 5). Thus, they are rejected by one aspect throughout the world living in predominantly of their double consciousness and are unfamiliar white societies?" (p. x). with the other. Asante nevertheless offers a solu‐ Therefore, they not only discuss the African- tion by asserting that the African Germans have German experience using the voices of the to "become connected, attached, and situated in African Germans themselves, but they also at‐ the historical place of the African people by a con‐ tempt to situate it in "the struggle of all blacks in scious commitment to the discovery of self in ev‐ the diaspora in general" (p. ix). Ultimately, this ery dimension" (p. 10). book challenges the assumption held by German Marilyn Sephocle, in her essay "Black Ger‐ politicians and other members of the German mans and Their Compatriots," similarly examines comity that their nation is not a multiethnic one. the position of African Germans through her in‐ The frst essay, Molefi Kete Asante's "African vestigation of German institutions and other Ger‐ Germans and the Problems of Cultural Location," mans view them from the perspective of contextualizes the African Germans within Ger‐ the"objects" and history. More importantly, she man society by exploring the problems encoun‐ picks up where Asante left off when she looks at tered by African Germans in "cultural location" the initiatives and goals pursued by African Ger‐ because of the racist construction of identity and mans in search of their own identity and place nationality in Germany. Asante states that "one is within a "hostile" or "unwelcoming" German soci‐ culturally located at all times and the idea that we ety. In fact, this becomes the primary focus of the can be culturally dislocated, a possibility emerg‐ piece since her historical overview is primarily ing from being on the fringes of a strong core cul‐ superficial. This may be because such historical ture, helps us to define the meaning of cultural lo‐ surveys are explored elsewhere in greater detail. cation in the case of the African German" (p. 1). Specifically, she examines two organizations, Asante argues that this is a result of the Ger‐ namely the Black German Initiative [Initiative man conceptualization of race and nation. In Ger‐ Schwarze Deutsche (ISD)] and the IAF, Intressen‐ many, culture and nationality are merely expres‐ gemeinschaft der mit Auslaendern verheirateten sions of race (pp.7-9). Because the dominant cul‐ Frauen [The community of interests of women ture in Germany is white, the African Germans who are married to foreigners]. While the IAF is a are "forced to live their lives on someone else's political organization with a broader mission terms than their own" (p.5). In other words, to be than the ISD, the Initiative Schwarze Deutsche is considered German, "one had to be German, not the foundation of the African-German movement German and African, or German and Chinese, but which was founded in 1986 by thirty African Ger‐ German and German" (p. 5). The upshot of this is mans who realized the similarity of their situation that despite the fact that they are German citizens (p. 15). This realization brought about a incipient and carry German passports, they are not consid‐ recognition of who they were individually and as ered "truly German because they do not have a community within the context of a New Ger‐ pure German ancestry" (p. 5). many where they still face many problems. Their skin color is, therefore, a statement of Sephocle's states that these African Germans the "impurity" of their ancestry and thus other were emboldened by contact with Audre Lourde, Germans perceive of them as foreigners (p. 9). an African-American poet, to feel more positively 2 H-Net Reviews about themselves and "empowered with a new African Germans, however within in the realm of sense of mission" (p. 16). They began to see them‐ popular culture, namely in flm and television selves as a "potential challenge for the rest of Ger‐ since the early days of the Federal Republic in or‐ many, the challenge of rethinking German identi‐ der to reveal "the function of culture as a histori‐ ty in a less ethnocentric way" (pp. 16-17). The ISD cal construct" (p. 29). Specifically, she contrasts is not a political organization, though, but rather a the trend between 1952 and 1991. She focuses pri‐ cultural one which "stresses the specificity of the marily on the 1952 flm Toxi, "the story of the fve- African-German identity. In addition it has a so‐ year-old daughter of a black American soldier and cial and psychological mission vis-a-vis its mem‐ a light-skinned German mother" (p. 29), and Cher‐ bers and the rest of German society." (p. 17) no Jobatey, the African-German anchor of a popu‐ Sephocle concludes that this organization still lar early morning news show in Germany since has much to do, for through personal accounts 1991. and a quick historical overview she illustrates While she starts off strong with a detailed the‐ that "to some, having an African-German identity oretical foundation and provides a good overview is not an issue, it is an impossibility; to others it is of the German public's response (including from an incompatibility; and to a small minority it is a the African-German community) to various black fragment of a multicultural and multiracial soci‐ German entertainers, her ultimate contention, ety (p. 26). In Sephocle's view, though, this latter namely that "ethnic and national identity are not group is not even dependable in making Germany always connected" (p. 29) remains underdevel‐ a hospitable place for African German and other oped. In fact, the lack of a more thorough critical ethnic groups (p. 26). She ends by stating that "for analysis and follow-up is the major detraction the three hundred forty thousand African Ger‐ from an otherwise interesting subject matter. mans living in Germany today, certain walls--un‐ Meanwhile, Leroy Hopkins and Tina Campt like the Berlin Wall--certain walls remain hardly continue to investigate what it means to be an movable." African German by situating them in the larger While I agree with Sephocle's last statement, I context of the African diaspora, building upon believe her previous comment does not give Sephocle's reference to African-American influ‐ enough credit to the initiatives of the new "Multi- ences . Both compare and contrast the African- Kulti" movement sweeping through Germany in German and American experiences. response to violent attacks against foreigners. Ad‐ Specifically, Hopkins in "Inventing Self: Paral‐ mittedly, though, these individuals tend to advo‐ lels in the African-German and African-American cate friendship and acceptance vis-a-vis foreign‐ Experience" examines "the problem of identity in ers, while not addressing specifically that there the [African] diaspora ... from the comparative might actually be non-white skinned German citi‐ perspective of its American and German perspec‐ zens.
Recommended publications
  • World Directory of Minorities
    World Directory of Minorities Europe MRG Directory –> Russian Federation –> Russian or Volga Germans Print Page Close Window Russian or Volga Germans Profile According to the 2002 national census, there are 597,212 Russian or Volga Germans in the Russian Federation. Volga Germans are primarily Lutheran and Mennonite in religion. Their number has fallen by almost half since 1989, as many have taken advantage of naturalization opportunities in Germany. Historical context Large-scale German settlement in Russia first occurred in the sixteenth century following Catherine the Great's decree of 1763 granting steppe land along the Volga River to Germans. In 1924 the Soviet regime created the Volga German ASSR with German as its official language. The republic was disbanded during the war and its German population (895,637) deported to Siberia and Central Asia. The Germans were not allowed to resettle in the region despite being rehabilitated in 1965. They settled instead in Siberia, the Ural mountains and the republics of Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan. From the late 1980s, a number of German organizations were established: Revival (Wiedergeburt, Vozrozhdenie); Freedom (Freiheit, Svoboda); and the Interstate Organization of Russian Germans (Zwischenstaathischer Verein der Russlanddeutschen). These organizations have campaigned for the restoration of their homeland but have faced strong opposition from the local populations of the Saratov and Volgograd oblasts. The German Government has allocated significant funds for the creation of German cultural centres and schools in Central Asia and Russia. This has not, however, deterred hundreds of thousands of Germans from emigrating to Germany. Ethnic Germans, their spouses and their descendants have been able to naturalize as German citizens through the Law of Return, in spite of often lacking even rudimentary knowledge of the German language.
    [Show full text]
  • Jantzen on Wempe. Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations
    H-German Jantzen on Wempe. Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations. Discussion published by Jennifer Wunn on Wednesday, May 26, 2021 Review published on Friday, May 21, 2021 Author: Sean Andrew Wempe Reviewer: Mark Jantzen Jantzen on Wempe, 'Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations' Sean Andrew Wempe. Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 304 pp. $78.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-090721-1. Reviewed by Mark Jantzen (Bethel College)Published on H-Nationalism (May, 2021) Commissioned by Evan C. Rothera (University of Arkansas - Fort Smith) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=56206 Demise or Transmutation for a Unique National Identity? Sean Andrew Wempe’s investigation of the afterlife in the 1920s of the Germans who lived in Germany’s colonies challenges a narrative that sees them primarily as forerunners to Nazi brutality and imperial ambitions. Instead, he follows them down divergent paths that run the gamut from rejecting German citizenship en masse in favor of South African papers in the former German Southwest Africa to embracing the new postwar era’s ostensibly more liberal and humane version of imperialism supervised by the League of Nations to, of course, trying to make their way in or even support Nazi Germany. The resulting well-written, nuanced examination of a unique German national identity, that of colonial Germans, integrates the German colonial experience into Weimar and Nazi history in new and substantive ways.
    [Show full text]
  • Were German Colonies Profitable?
    Were German colonies profitable? Marco Cokić BSc Economics 3rd year University College London Explore Econ Undergraduate Research Conference February 2020 Introduction In the era of colonialization, several, mainly European, powers tried to conquer areas very far away from their mainland, thereby creating multicontinental empires. One of these European powers was the German Empire which entered the game for colonies in the 1880s and was forced to leave it after World War I. Still, these involvements had a significant impact on several aspects of the German Empire. This essay discusses the question if the colonial policy of the German Empire until 1914 was an economic success. The reason for this approach is twofold. Firstly, economics can be seen as one of the main motivations of colonial policy (Blackbourn, 2003). Hence, looking at the economic results of this undertaking as a measure of success seems reasonable. Secondly, economic development can be measured relatively accurately and is a good proxy for defining success of the German colonial policy. Therefore, economic data will be used and tested against the economic hopes of advocates of colonialism during that period. The essay is split up into three main parts. In the first part, the historical background behind German colonialization and the colonies is introduced. After a brief explanation of the empirical strategy for this paper, data will be used to show if the German hopes were fulfilled. Theoretical background The German economy of the 1880s and German aims in the colonies In the 1880s, Germany was an economic leader. Several branches such as the chemical industry were worldwide leaders in their sectors and economic growth was, compared to other countries, very high (Tilly, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Heimattransgressions, Transgressing Heimat
    Vanessa D. Plumly Heimat Transgressions, Transgressing Heimat Black German Diasporic (Per)Formative Acts in the Decolonization of White German Heimat Landscapes Black/Afro-Germans1 embody the fear of sexual transgressions and miscegeny that racist discourse in the former German colonies instilled in white Germans and that Wilhelminian Germany legally sanctioned through the ius sangui- nus definition of German citizenship.2 The Third Reich further exploited this through its enactment of the Nuremberg laws, which once again considered Black Germans non-members of the imagined national German community. Today, Black Germans remain excluded from the reunited Berlin Republic, even though a new citizenship law passed in the Federal Republic in 1999 signaled a transition away from Germany’s blood-based definition toward a more civic one, and despite the fact that some Black Germans can trace their German ancestry over three or more generations.3 White Germans’ constant questioning of Black Germans’ origins because of their racial constitution and visible diasporic roots performatively enacts this resolute denial of their na- tional identity and belonging.4 1 The word Afro-German is used most often to denote Black Germans with one white German parent and one black or African/African diasporic parent, and Black German is most often used to denote anyone who chooses to identify with the term and has had similar experi- ences of racial exclusions. See Katharina Oguntoye, May Ayim (Opitz), and Dagmar Schultz, Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte, Frankfurt a.M. 1992, p. 10. 2 El-Tayeb makes clear that »›German blood‹ meant explicitly ›white blood‹«, in Fatima El- Tayeb, »We are Germans, We are Whites, and We Want to Stay White!« Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik (2004), 56.1, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • GERMANS from RUSSIA Why Did They Come to North Dakota?
    GERMANS FROM RUSSIA Why did they come to North Dakota? The region surrounding the Black Sea port of Odessa, Russia, figures heavily in North Dakota’s history. In the early 1900s, thousands of German Russians immigrated to the U.S., with large numbers settling in the state. SHSND 0169-03 It all began with German-born Catherine the Great, who married the future tsar of Russia, Peter the Third, when she was 16. When she became empress of Russia in 1762, Catherine issued a manifesto to her native Germany offering free land, financial help, and freedom from military service for Germans who would come to Russia to develop the land. Hundreds of thousands of Germans answered the call, to leave the crop failures in Germany, as well as lack of living space and high taxes. By the end of the 1800s, the Germans had created thriving agricultural colonies. When Alexander II became tsar, he wanted Germans to become Russian. The lives of Germans living in Russia were increasingly threatened. When Germans were forced to enter the Russian military to fight their native country, a new mass migration began – this time to the United States. Free land provided by the Homestead Act enticed many to move to the United States, especially SHSND 2005-P-021-00004 the Great Plains states. By 1910 about 60,000 Germans from Russia (immigrants and their American-born children) lived in North Dakota. Nearly all German-Russian settlers in North Dakota came here from colonies near the Black Sea, in what is now the Ukraine. They mostly homesteaded in the central part of the state with heaviest populations in Emmons, McIntosh, and Logan counties.
    [Show full text]
  • Multilingual Development in Germany in the Crossfire of Ideology and Politics: Monolingual and Multilingual Expectations, Polylingual Practices
    UC Berkeley TRANSIT Title Multilingual Development in Germany in the Crossfire of Ideology and Politics: Monolingual and Multilingual Expectations, Polylingual Practices Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9gp0f163 Journal TRANSIT, 7(1) Author Pfaff, Carol W. Publication Date 2011 DOI 10.5070/T771009760 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The massive changes in its demography resulting from the economic and political transitions in the 20 th and early 21 st centuries have changed Germany’s linguistic topography, resulting in increasing societal and individual multilingualism or plurilingualism. In the wake of these changes, language and the expression of language ideologies have come to the forefront of political, academic and popular discussions. Increasingly, the formulation of and arguments about social policies have been couched in terms of language. This paper focuses on countervailing ideologies that underlie the discussion of the political and social debates focused on language. As we will see, both German-only and multilingual policies have expanded in the first decade of the 21 st century. Multilingualism, Plurilingualism, Polylingualism In 2008, the Council of Europe introduced a terminological distinction to clarify discussions of multilingualism, proposing multilingualism for the presence of more than one ‘variety of language’ in a society in which individuals may be monolingual, and plurilingualism to refer to the repertoire of varieties of language used by individuals. Germany is multilingual, encompassing social groups which use German, but also groups which use regional minority languages or migrant minority languages. It is also plurilingual, in that individuals from all such communities may (and often do) use more than one language.
    [Show full text]
  • 3. Germany in the 1920S
    3. Germany in the 1920s The shadowy figures that look out at us from the tarnished mirror of history are – in the final analysis – ourselves. DETLEV J. K. PEUKERT OVERVIEW Few events in history are inevitable. Most are determined by real people making real decisions. At the time, those choices may not seem important. Yet together, little by little, they shape a period in history and define an age. Those decisions also have consequences that may affect generations to come. Chapter 2 looked at the way three nations – the United States, France, and Germany – decided who belonged in the nineteenth century and who did not. It also considered the outcomes of those choices. This chapter marks the beginning of a case study that examines the choices people made after World War I. It highlights Germany’s efforts to build a democracy after the humiliation of defeat and explores the values, myths, and fears that threatened those efforts. It focuses in particular on the choices that led to the destruction of the republic and the rise of the Nazis. The 1920s were a time of change everywhere in the world. Many of those changes began much earlier and were speeded up by the war. Others were linked to innovations in science that altered the way people saw the world. In 1905, Albert Einstein, a German physicist, published his theory of relativity. By 1920, other scientists had proved that time and space are indeed relative and not absolute. The theory quickly became a part of the way ordinary people viewed the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Research Notes Naming Differences in Divided Germany
    Research Notes 2005 8 Naming Differences in Divided Germany Denis Huschka Jürgen Gerhards Gert G. Wagner IMPRESSUM © DIW Berlin, 2005 DIW Berlin Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Königin-Luise-Str. 5 14195 Berlin Tel. +49 (30) 897 89-0 Fax +49 (30) 897 89-200 www.diw.de ISSN 1860-2185 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Abdruck oder vergleichbare Verwendung von Arbeiten des DIW Berlin ist auch in Auszügen nur mit vorheriger schriftlicher Genehmigung gestattet. Research Notes 8 Denis Huschka * Jürgen Gerhards ** Gert G. Wagner *** Naming Differences in Divided Germany Berlin, December 2005 * Free University of Berlin and DIW Berlin, SOEP, [email protected] ** Free University of Berlin, [email protected] *** Berlin University of Technology (TUB), DIW Berlin, SOEP, IZA Bonn, [email protected] Research Notes 8 Contents Contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 2 Hypotheses on naming differences between East and West Germany........................... 2 2.1 Ideologies, societies and naming ................................................................................... 3 2.2 Role models, reference points and the media ................................................................ 3 3 The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) ......................................................... 6 4 Naming practices in East and West Germany.................................................................. 8 4.1 Individualization
    [Show full text]
  • Community Information Summary Historical Background
    Germany-born Community Information Summary Historical Background Germans were at the forefront of Australia's early European settlement and exploration. Germans comprised a significant and enduring part of the settlement in South Australia, and German missionaries were among the first Europeans to settle in what is now Moreton Bay in south-east Queensland. The first significant group of 517 migrants were Lutherans pursuing religious freedom and settled in South Australia in late 1838. Along with other Germans who arrived that year, they were considered by themselves and the British as founding pioneers. The 1850s gold rush in Victoria also drew large numbers of fortune- seeking adventurers from Germany with about 10,000 German migrants working the goldfields by 1861. German-speaking people in Australia came under suspicion during both World Wars. At the end of World War I, hundreds of Germans were deported and migration from Germany did not resume until 1925. During World War II, anti-German sentiment was high resulting in settlers being interned in Australian camps. More than 2000 Jewish refugees from Germany were also interned for short periods. The two World Wars had a marked impact on the number of Germany-born in Australia, with numbers falling from approximately 45,000 at the 1891 Census to a low of 14,567 at the 1947 Census. Australia's post-war immigration program, which was founded on settling Europe's displaced persons, saw the Germany-born population increase again to 109,315 by the 1961 Census, peaking at 112,000 in 1991. By 2001, this number dropped to 108,240.
    [Show full text]
  • German’ Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War
    EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLORENCE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION EUI Working Paper HEC No. 2004/1 The Expulsion of the ‘German’ Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War Edited by STEFFEN PRAUSER and ARFON REES BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI) All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author(s). © 2004 Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees and individual authors Published in Italy December 2004 European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50016 San Domenico (FI) Italy www.iue.it Contents Introduction: Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees 1 Chapter 1: Piotr Pykel: The Expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia 11 Chapter 2: Tomasz Kamusella: The Expulsion of the Population Categorized as ‘Germans' from the Post-1945 Poland 21 Chapter 3: Balázs Apor: The Expulsion of the German Speaking Population from Hungary 33 Chapter 4: Stanislav Sretenovic and Steffen Prauser: The “Expulsion” of the German Speaking Minority from Yugoslavia 47 Chapter 5: Markus Wien: The Germans in Romania – the Ambiguous Fate of a Minority 59 Chapter 6: Tillmann Tegeler: The Expulsion of the German Speakers from the Baltic Countries 71 Chapter 7: Luigi Cajani: School History Textbooks and Forced Population Displacements in Europe after the Second World War 81 Bibliography 91 EUI WP HEC 2004/1 Notes on the Contributors BALÁZS APOR, STEFFEN PRAUSER, PIOTR PYKEL, STANISLAV SRETENOVIC and MARKUS WIEN are researchers in the Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence. TILLMANN TEGELER is a postgraduate at Osteuropa-Institut Munich, Germany. Dr TOMASZ KAMUSELLA, is a lecturer in modern European history at Opole University, Opole, Poland.
    [Show full text]
  • "We Germans Fear God, and Nothing Else in the World!" Military Policy in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914 Cavender Sutton East Tennessee State University
    East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Student Works 5-2019 "We Germans Fear God, and Nothing Else in the World!" Military Policy in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914 Cavender Sutton East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd Part of the European History Commons, and the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Sutton, Cavender, ""We Germans Fear God, and Nothing Else in the World!" Military Policy in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3571. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3571 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “We Germans Fear God, and Nothing Else in the World!”: Military Policy in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914 _________________________ A thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of History East Tennessee State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History _________________________ by Cavender Steven Sutton May 2019 _________________________ Stephen G. Fritz, Chair Henry J. Antkiewicz Brian J. Maxson Keywords: Imperial Germany, Military Policy, German Army, First World War ABSTRACT “We Germans Fear God, and Nothing Else in the World!”: Military Policy in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914 by Cavender Steven Sutton Throughout the Second Reich’s short life, military affairs were synonymous with those of the state.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparison of the Medieval German Settlement of Prussia and Transylvania
    Issue 4 2014 Sword, Cross, and Plow vs. Pickaxe and Coin: A Comparison of the Medieval German Settlement of Prussia and Transylvania GEORGE R. STEVENS CLEMSON UNIVERSITY The German medieval settlement of Eastern Europe known as the Ostsiedlung was carried out by Germans and the Teutonic Order in both Hungary and Transylvania, but with vastly different results. Of the regions settled during the Ostsiedlung, Transylvania offered colonists some of the strongest incentives to settle there; in addition to an agreeable climate and fertile soil, those who settled in Transylvania also stood to enjoy generous expansions of legal and economic freedoms far beyond the rights they held in their homelands. Yet the Ostsiedlung in Transylvania was arguably a failure compared to the success of the movement in Prussia. Much of this contrast can be explained by comparing the settlement process in each region, conducted largely by peaceful means in Transylvania but by the sword and cross in Prussia. Conquest and conversion supported by secular and ecclesiastical authorities allowed Germans to dominate Prussia and cement the primacy of German language and culture there. By contrast, peaceful settlement left Transylvania’s large indigenous populations intact and independent. This cultural plurality, along with the long journey required to reach Transylvania and inconsistent support for settlement there, ensured German settlers in Transylvania never became more than a minority population. The medieval settlement of Prussia and Transylvania, from here on referred to by its German name, Ostsiedlung, was carried out by Germans and the Teutonic Order in both regions, but to vastly different ends. The German settlement of Transylvania was mostly peaceful, with the majority of settlers being miners, merchants, and peasants.
    [Show full text]