Ethnic minority in Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1938
The German-speaking population in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, 23.6% of the population at the 1921 census,[1] usually refers to the Sudeten Germans, although there were other German ethno-linguistic enclaves elsewhere in Czechoslovakia (e.g. Hauerland or Zips) inhabited by Carpathian Germans (including Zipser Germans or Zipser Saxons), and among the German-speaking urban dwellers there were ethnic Germans and/or Austrians as well as German-speaking Jews. 14% of the Czechoslovak Jews considered themselves Germans in the 1921 census, but a much higher percentage declared German as their colloquial tongue during the last censuses under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[2]
The terms Carpathian Germans and Sudeten Germans are relatively recent and were not traditionally used in the past. The former was coined by historian and ethnologue Raimund Friedrich Kaindl[de] in the early 20th century. The latter was coined in 1904 by journalist and politician Franz Jesser[de] and was used mostly after 1919.
Historical settlements
There were several subregions and towns with German-speaking absolute or relative majorities in the interwar Czechoslovakian Republic.
Linguistic map of Czechoslovakia (1930) German-speaking majority in purple (popularly referred to as the Sudetenland)
In Slovakia there were two German-speaking enclaves in Hauerland and Spiš. In the Austro-HungarianSzepes County (Spiš), there were according to censuses 35% Germans in 1869, 25% in 1900 and 1910. There was also a relative German-language majority in the border city of Pressburg/Bratislava: 59.9% at the 1890 census, 41.9% in 1910, 36% in 1919, 28.1 in 1930, 20% in 1940.[4]
In Moravia and Silesia, like in Bohemia, Jews (ethnic and of faith) mainly resided in towns, but unlike in Bohemia they did not live primarily in large towns. Historically the degree of assimilation into the Czech language environment and culture and the effort to advance this process were significantly different. During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 82–90% of Jews declared German as they [sic] colloquial tongue, but during the First Republic a dramatic change occurred, as 47.8% claimed Jewish ethnicity in 1921 and 51.67% in 1930. This fundamental shift in orientation was understandably accompanied by a decline in the share of Jews who identified themselves as ethnic Germans (to around 34–29%)[6]
German-language education in Czechoslovakia
Bohemia
German University in Prague (Karl-Ferdinands-Universität), first bilingual, from 1882 to 1945 two separate universities, a German-language and a Czech-language one
German Polytechnic University in Prague, first bilingual, from 1869 to 1945 two separate institutes, a German-language and a Czech-language one, from 1874 on different locations
Subcarpathian Ruthenia
In 1936, there were 24 German-language schools in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, grouping 2,021 students.[7]
German-language press in Czechoslovakia
Prager Tagblatt. Front page 1914-07-29Pressburger Zeitung, 1869Westungarischer Grenzbote, 1891
Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century the Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state both geographically and politically.
The First Czechoslovak Republic emerged from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October 1918. The new state consisted mostly of territories inhabited by Czechs and Slovaks, but also included areas containing majority populations of other nationalities, particularly Germans (22.95 %), who accounted for more citizens than the state's second state nation of the Slovaks, Hungarians (5.47 %) and Ruthenians (3.39 %). The new state comprised the total of Bohemia whose borders did not coincide with the language border between German and Czech. Despite initially developing effective representative institutions alongside a successful economy, the deteriorating international economic situation in the 1930s gave rise to growing ethnic tensions. The dispute between the Czech and German populations, fanned by the rise of Nazism in neighbouring Germany, resulted in the loss of territory under the terms of the Munich Agreement and subsequent events in the autumn of 1938, bringing about the end of the First Republic.
The military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany began with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, continued with the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and by the end of 1944 extended to all parts of Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia had a peak population of 15.6 million, mainly composed of Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romani people, Silesians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and Jews. The ethnic composition of Czechoslovakia changed over time from Sudeten Germans being the most prominent ethnicity to Czechs and Slovaks making up two-thirds of the demographic. Amongst this demographic there was also a diverse range of religions with Roman Catholic being the most prominent. This population has been found to have had an increasing growth rate that had a declining trajectory. The population density was approximately 121 persons per square kilometre with the highest population density being in Moravia of 154 persons per square kilometre.
Transcarpathia is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast.
Carpathian Germans are a group of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe. The term was coined by the historian Raimund Friederich Kaindl (1866–1930), originally generally referring to the German-speaking population of the area around the Carpathian Mountains: the Cisleithanian (Austrian) crown lands of Galicia and Bukovina, as well as the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and the northwestern (Maramuresch) region of Romania. Since the First World War, only the Germans of Slovakia and those of Carpathian Ruthenia in Ukraine have commonly been called Carpathian Germans.
German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constituted about 23% of the population of the whole country and about 29.5% of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electoral territory of the Holy Roman Empire, from the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of what was later called the "Sudetenland", which was named after the Sudeten Mountains.
Carpathian Ruthenia was a region in the easternmost part of Czechoslovakia which in September 1938 became an autonomous region within that country. On 15 March 1939 it declared its independence as the "Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine"; however, on that same day it was occupied and annexed by Hungary.
There are various communities of Germans in the Czech Republic. After the Czech Republic joined the European Union in the 2004 enlargement and was incorporated into the Schengen Area, migration between the two countries became relatively unrestricted. Both countries share a land border of 815 kilometers (506 mi).
The coat of arms of Czechoslovakia were changed many times during Czechoslovakia’s history, some alongside each other. This reflects the turbulent history of the country and a wish to use appropriate territorial coats of arms.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century. Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 16th and 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 2,300 Jews estimated to be living in the Czech Republic.
The Second Czechoslovak Republic, officially the Czecho-Slovak Republic, existed for 169 days, between 30 September 1938 and 15 March 1939. It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus', the latter being renamed Carpathian Ukraine on 30 December 1938.
This article describes ethnic minorities in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1992.
The Carpathian German Party was a political party in Czechoslovakia, active amongst the Carpathian German minority of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus'. It began as a bourgeois centrist party, but after teaming up with the Sudeten German Party in 1933 it developed in a National Socialist orientation.
Franz Karmasin was an ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia, who helped found the Carpathian German Party. During World War II he was state secretary of German affairs in the Slovak Republic, and rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer.
The Holocaust in the Sudetenland resulted in the flight, dispossession, deportation and ultimately death of many of the 24,505 Jews living in the Reichsgau Sudetenland, an administrative region of Nazi Germany established from former Czechoslovak territory annexed after the October 1938 Munich Agreement. Due to harassment and violence, including during Kristallnacht, ninety percent of the Jews had already left the Sudetenland by mid-1939. The remaining Jews were subject to property confiscation and eventually deportation. During the later years of the war, tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews were forced laborers in a network of concentration camps in the Sudetenland.
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