German Minority Research Articles

BgHSt 20, 22 und die Neubürger-Klausel des deutschen Strafanwendungsrechts – ein deutsch-polnischer Fall schreibt Rechtsgeschichte bis heute

In its judgment of the 4th September 1964 the German Federal Court of Justice had to deal with a German-Polish case of murder. The accused persons were members of the German minority in Poland and lived in the Western part of Poland, when German troops occupied that territory in the autumn of 1939. Short after the invasion they killed the members of a Jewish family living in the same territory. Both, the perpetrators as well as the victims were Polish nationals, when the crime was committed. The perpetrators have got the German nationality in the following. It is not clear, whether they have been naturalized by German authorities during WW II, but if not, they were seen as German nationals with the Getting-into-Force of the German Basic Law (Constitution), because they were refugees from Poland to Germany. Therefore, Article 116 § 1 Basic Law naturalized them as German nationals. For the criminal case it was crucial whether the later naturalization can give the German Justice system jurisdiction over a case which happened before the perpetrator has reached the German nationality, as it was (and still is) stated in section 4 (resp. today section 7) of the German Criminal Code. The paper should deal with the implications of this so-called "New Citizenship Clause" and with the circumstances of the case and the following cases at Western German Courts against German people for committing murder in the occupied Polish territories during WWII. Shortly after the named case, the Auschwitz trial started in Frankfurt. On that background, the paper reflects on the situation between West and East Germany as well.

The extension of the application of Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in the Czech Republic

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a treaty of the Council of Europe which aims to protect and promote the historical regional or minority languages of Europe. The Czech Republic ratified the Charter on the 15th of November 2006. The Charter was enforced on the 1st of March 2007 and applies to five languages: Part II (Art. 7) and Part III (Art. 8-14) of the Charter apply to Polish and Slovakian, while only Part II applies to German, Moravian Croatian and Romani. On the 18th of July 2019, one of the two umbrella organisations of the German minority - with support of the other umbrella organisation - applied in a letter to the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic for the application of 42 provisions of Part III to the German language. The Czech authorities have set up a working group to examine the application. The present analysis assesses the application of the German minority from the perspective of the Charter. It first considers the procedure, in general terms, for adopting further provisions of the Charter and then the suitability of the German language in the Czech Republic for the application of Part III in the light of its situation.

Memories (Un)told – Identity Construction Through Practices of Transgenerational Storytelling

The memories of the end of World War II play a significant role among the German minority in Poland. These memories are not only important for the generation who experienced that time, but they also influence the following generations to whom these memories were passed onto by their families. This article presents the end of World War II from the perspective of the young generation of the German minority in Opole and its surroundings, who were born in the 1980s and 1990s and whose narrative resembles the narrative of German post-war history. Both narratives circulate in family memories, and each generation developed a characteristic approach to the culture of remembrance based on the different political systems after 1945. Therefore, the war generation that grew up in communist Poland, also known as the ‘lost generation’, and the generation of grandchildren living in democratic Poland have to face family memories together. At the same time, it becomes clear how, in what form and whether or not the memories are spoken about and what emotional statements they contain about the time immediately after World War II. The freedom of today's generation of grandchildren provides access to the many years of untold experiences of their grandparents and breaks their silence. This also affects the way a minority identity is created among the young members of the minority and influences their place between a minority and a majority.

INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF THE LANGUAGE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES IN THE 19th – THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY

The article discusses regulatory efforts of states to protect the rights of national minorities. The focus is on the role of the League of Nations and the treaties on minorities concluded with Poland (1919), Czechoslovakia (1919), the Serbo-Croat-Slovenian state (1919), Romania (1919) and Greece (1920), as well as the peace treaties that formed the basis of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations in Europe in 1919– 1922 (the 1919 Peace Treaty between the Allied and United Powers and Germany, the 1919 Saint-Germain Peace Treaty, the 1919 Neisk Peace Treaty, the 1920 Trianon Peace Treaty, the 1920 Sevres Peace Treaty). The contribution of the Permanent Court of International Justice to the protection of minority rights is noted (the case of minority rights in Upper Silesia, the case of minority schools in Albania, the case of eviction of German minorities in Poland).

Z Borów Tucholskich na Warmię. Dokumenty i fotografie Bronisława Chabowskiego (1892-1942) ze zbiorów Domu "Gazety Olsztyńskiej"

The article was prepared in connection with the 90th anniversary of Polish education in Warmia and Mas�uria. It shows the collections of the Museum of Warmia and Masuria in Olsztyn, related to the professional and social activity of Bronisław Chabowski (1892–1942), who in 1929–1934 worked in Polish schools in Warmia. De�scriptions of documents and photographs are a pretext to present applicable legal provisions, which in the interwar period regulated the functioning of education in the Polish state as well as the education of the German minority, enabling these to be presented in a broader historical context. At the same time, they enable the fate, professional career, educational and cultural and social activities of Polish teachers to be reconstructed through the prism of individual life events. The analysis of B. Chabowski’s team also gives a picture of the typical personality of a Polish teacher who decided to work in schools founded in Warmia from 1929. In the vast majority of cases they were people with pedagogical and organisational skills, who had artistic and social passion.

The Appearance of German Direct Investment in Connection with the Presence of German Minority in Hungarian Small Towns

International online peer-reviewed open-access journal offers a possibility for the international community of professionals working in the fields of regional and rural development or tourism to exchange their ideas and research results or practical achievements as it publishes results of both theoretical and applied research in these fields.

Karl Haushofer as a “Pioneer” of National Socialist Cultural Diplomacy in Fascist Italy

AbstractThe relevant historiography has largely overlooked the role of Karl Haushofer as a cultural-political actor in National Socialist-Fascist relations. From 1924 to 1944, the German geopolitician dealt extensively with Italy, with an eye to both its geopolitical role in Europe and to the political system of Benito Mussolini's regime. On behalf of Rudolf Hess, he began visiting Italy during the 1930s, aiming to overcome ideological and political misunderstandings between Rome and Berlin. He established a network of contacts with Italian scholars and politicians, passed information back to the so-called deputy Führer, and attempted to influence official German policy toward Italy. He eventually promoted the development of an Italian geopolitics, and, in so doing, achieved one of the most significant cultural-political transfers from National Socialist Germany to fascist Italy. This article analyzes the contacts between Haushofer and Italy, both his political activities and his geopolitical theories. It is a case study of a history of contradictions: a man committed to Pan-Germanist culture and to the defense of German minorities abroad, Haushofer also attempted to improve relations between Berlin and Rome. Moreover, he considered the Axis from a geopolitical point of view—as a realization of the European imperial idea—and from a trilateral perspective, i.e., he viewed Japan not only as an ally, but also as a cultural and political model. The reconstruction of Haushofer's relations with Italy is, therefore, an opportunity to rethink the antinomies, as well as the global dimension, of the National Socialist-Fascist alliance.

„Ukryta opcja niemiecka” – mniejszość niemiecka i śląska grupa etniczna w przestrzeni publicznej. Studium przypadku

<p>Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie narzędzi ochrony grup mniejszościowych przed dyskryminacją w przestrzeni publicznej ze względu na pochodzenie etniczne lub narodowe. Jako przykład posłuży studium przypadku określenia „ukryta opcja niemiecka” i jego konsekwencje dla mniejszości niemieckiej i śląskiej grupy etnicznej. Pytanie badawcze zostało ujęte w następujący sposób: jak kształtują się instrumenty ochrony prawnej przed dyskryminującym językiem w przestrzeni publicznej w odniesieniu do grup niedominujących o różnym statusie prawnym? Struktura artykułu obejmuje wprowadzenie do problematyki mniejszości niemieckiej w Polsce oraz śląskiej grupy etnicznej, analizę aktów prawnych oraz kontekstu społeczno-politycznego funkcjonowania obu wymienionych grup w przestrzeni publicznej. Konkluzja artykułu wskazuje, że zarówno mniejszość niemiecka, jak i śląska grupa etniczna w przestrzeni publicznej podlegają różnorakim przejawom dyskryminacji, związanej przede wszystkim z ograniczaniem prawa do kultywowania i manifestowania swej tożsamości. Mimo to istniejące instrumenty prawne nie wystarczają, by zmienić ten stan rzeczy, co więcej – aktualne ich stosowanie jedynie go pogłębia.</p>

The Censorship Praxis and the Press Law in the First Czechoslovak Republic and the German and Hungarian Minorities

The Censorship Praxis and the Press Law in the First Czechoslovak Republic and the German and Hungarian Minorities

The Glory of Death? German Memorials of the Great War in the North-Western Czech Borderlands after 1945

War memorials (in German, Kriegerdenkmaler) were built after World War I in almost every village and town in Czechoslovakia that had a German population, to commemorate those who had been killed in the war. After 1945, these memorials were either destroyed or recycled. The author shows how the new Czech inhabitants who replaced the traditional population of the borderlands coped with these memorials. Focusing her research on the Cheb and Marianske Lazně regions, she considers the destruction of the monuments to be an example of managing a “dissonant heritage.” Some of the monuments were demolished altogether; others were re-used for new purposes as parts of new objects. Applying Reinhart Koselleck’s theory that war memorials serve the living more than they do the dead, by creating communal attitudes toward common social issues, the author analyzes patterns in the erection of German memorials of the Great War in the Czech lands. She also refers to Bernhard Bottcher’s analysis of German war memorials in Czechoslovakia, which regards them as monuments commemorating a country which had ceased to exist. Her main thesis is that the “new life” given to war memorials after 1945 is connected to a new and different perspective among Czechs on World War I, to their hostile attitude towards the German heritage of Czechoslovakia, and to a different perception of memorials inherited from the past. Keywords: World War I; war memorials; dissonant heritage; Czechoslovakia; German minority DOI: 10.14712/23363231.2019.10 © 2019 The Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License , which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Vereinnahmung von Geschichte und Literatur durch rumänische Kulturpolitik. Die Kronstädter Publikation Karpatenrundschau (1968-1970)

Abstract The present study takes two tendencies into account that have shaped the cultural contact between the Romanian culture and the culture of the German minority in Romania. On the one hand, the re-writing of history respectively of the historical discourse according to cultural policy of the Romanian communist state is envisaged, on the other hand, the selection of articles on Romanian culture and literature published in the weekly Karpatenrundschau are analysed in order to trace tendencies cultural transfer.

Historiografski tekst i historijski kontekst

Rad zavisno od vremena i mjesta nastanka analizira historiografsku literaturu koja je nastala o Nijemcima (folksdojčerima) na teritoriju koji je obuhvaćala Jugoslavija posljednjih sto godina.

Heinrich Rauchberg (1860–1938): A Reappraisal of a Central European Demographer's Life and Work

In the small, idyllic German Evangelical Cemeteryin Prague-Strašnice, a simple tombstone stands in the back row of graves, dedicated to the memory of “Dr. Heinrich Rauchberg, Professor at the German University in Prague, 1860–1938” and his wife Freia (1874–1939) (see Figures 1 and 2). When the Viennese-born demographer passed away, he left behind him an impressive professional career in the Habsburg monarchy and later in Czechoslovakia: he published a massive body of professional studies in population statistics and was an important figure at the German University in Prague, where he founded the Institute of Political Science in 1898 and served as dean of the Faculty of Law (1902–3, 1916–17, and 1926–27) and as university rector (1911–12). Outside the academic realm, Rauchberg was also involved in a broad range of activities. In 1890, for instance, he headed the Austrian census, in which the Hollerith electric counting machine was employed for the first time in Europe; Franz Kafka, his student in 1905, would later craft a literary monument to Rauchberg, the machine expert, in the short story “In the Penal Colony.” Especially after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Rauchberg became a familiar figure among the local German minority, particularly because of his radio broadcasts on legal questions; his frequent articles in the German-speaking press on current issues; his numerous public lectures on social topics; his tireless engagement with housing assistance, tenant protection, and social insurance; and his involvement in the German League of Nations Union in the Czechoslovak Republic, which he cofounded in 1922. In short, he was a scholar very much in the public eye.

¿Autodeterminación o autonomía cultural? Debates ideológicos en el Congreso de Nacionalidades Europeas (1925-1939)

Tras el establecimiento de los Tratados de Minorías en la Conferencia de Paz de Versalles (1919) y la articulación de un sistema de protección de las minorías nacionales europeas en el seno de la Sociedad de las Naciones, los representantes políticos e intelectuales de varias minorías de Europa Centro-Oriental convergieron a partir de 1925 en una organización de coordinación de sus iniciativas y que pretendía convertirse en su intermediario ante la Sociedad de las Naciones, el Congreso de Nacionalidades Europeas (CNE). En sus congresos anuales, celebrados hasta 1938, y sus publicaciones e informes, el CNE se convirtió en un foro de discusión acerca de las posibles soluciones de la cuestión de las minorías nacionales en la Europa de entreguerras, y para ello articuló un programa común que hacía hincapié en la necesidad de separar los conceptos de Nación y Estado, y asimismo de diferenciar la esfera de la política de la esfera cultural, a fin de permitir la convivencia de diferentes grupos étnicos dentro de un mismo Estado mediante una aplicación generalizada de la fórmula de la autonomía cultural. La autonomía cultural obedecía a su vez a varias tradiciones de pensamiento político presentes en Europa Centro-Oriental desde finales del siglo XIX—desde las propuestas de la socialdemocracia austríaca hasta las formas de organización corporativa autónoma de las minorías germanas en el Báltico—, pero su plasmación en la Ley de Minorías estonia de 1925 la convirtió en fórmula exportable a otros países. No obstante, dentro del CNE se fueron dibujando con claridad dos modos diferentes de enfocar la cuestión de las minorías, que se personalizan en las propuestas de Paul Schiemann y de Werner Hasselblatt.

Space – landscape – home – homeland

This article endeavours to analyse the subjective experience of the landscape and its embracement by two groups of people (the Czech majority and the German minority) in the Czech lands during the first half of the 20th century. It considers the landscape to be an optically perceivable sector with its own distinct elements, structures, important places and landmarks. It simultaneously perceives it as a space with a history and symbolic value. The Czech geologist Cilek states that “we age together with the land and trees in our home landscape”. How specifically do we create this home landscape and what strategies do we choose if forced to abandon it? The actual topic of the paper and the study is therefore the relationship between the landscape and home within the meaning of a place we have assimilated with, one that evokes an emotional relationship, i.e. the origin and function of the anthropological dimensions of the Czech landscape, the interconnection between the landscape and a specific group, and the spatial map that originated as a result of new political-social conditions, and new territorial borders and even state borders.

The German minority

The German minority

Die rechtliche Lage der deutschen Minderheit im Ungarn der Horthy-Ära

This publication seeks to provide an overview of the German minority in Hungary during the era of Regent Miklos Horthy (1920–1944), mainly with regard to its legal situation but also beyond. After delivering some background knowledge and facts concerning this minority, its legal status is shown by the examples of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon (forming part of public international law) as well as concerning the laws governing the Hungarian school system (legally on the national level). Moreover, the rising degree of organization within Hungary‘s German minority from the 1920s onwards, exemplified predominantly by the Ungarlandisch-Deutscher Volksbildungsverein and the Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn, is thematized. Lastly, also the legal effects of the “Volksgruppenabkommen” of Vienna from 1940 as a minority protection agreement between Hungary and the “Third Reich” are addressed. Thereby, this article proves that minority law was a highly political issue and that the legal situation of the Hungarian Germans during the Horthy’s period of office was strongly dependent on the foreign relations between the German Reich and Hungary.

Dual Citizenship for German and Ladin Minority Groups of South Tyrol. Some remarks from an Italian legal perspective

Dual Citizenship for German and Ladin Minority Groups of South Tyrol. Some remarks from an Italian legal perspective

Основные составляющие проблемы немецких меньшинств в Восточной Европе по итогам Первой мировой войны

Основные составляющие проблемы немецких меньшинств в Восточной Европе по итогам Первой мировой войны

From Romania to Germany: A complex motivation of post-Communist ethnic migration: Case study: Germans of Romania

Starting from the Romanian Revolution this article gives an insight to the reasons of emigration movements from Romania to Germany between 1989 and 2017. Different emigration periods are portrayed by regarding the given political events and its effects on the people. Connecting official statistical data and a case study considering reasons, locations, and circumstances, an overview of the diversity of motivation for emigration to Germany is depicted. Furthermore, the role of the German Minorities of Romania, respectively, the Transylvanian Saxons and the Banat Swabs, as an important cohort within the emigrating people, is examined.