Abstract
Clearly, the preservation of the ethnic identities and the Volkstum (folkdom) of a minority group is always immeasurably easier for the one group with a powerful outside protector, whether the latter be the erstwhile mother country or a racially related nation. Such was the case with the German minorities, the Volksdeutsche. The level of their kind-consciousness and national spirit truly reflected the climate of the day in Germany and Austria. However, to believe — as critics of Germandom often do — that there was a persistent policy, or, as it appeared to some, conspiracy even in pre-Hitler Germany to use the Volksdeutsche abroad as vanguards and outposts for an eventual German expansion would be a gross and misleading over-simplification.
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References
A celebrated alumnus of this group was Stephan Ludwig Roth, the idealistic and able Transylvanian Saxon leader of the stormy period of 1848, who — because of his alliance with the Austrian imperial forces — was tried and executed by a Hungarian revolutionary military tribunal. It should be noted that he was the only member of the German minorities who met such a tragic fate in pre-1945 Hungary’s entire history.
Taylor, op. cit., pp. 132–33.
Note the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
Location of the Reich’s foreign office in Berlin.
The Germanisten (Germanists) were learned persons who specialized in Germania, that is in matters relating to the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and socio-economic fabric of Germandom in and outside the Reich. Beginning with the renowned professor Fritz R. Kaindl, outstanding in the latter category in the first half of this century were the Berlin professors Max Hildebert Boehm (who headed the Institute for the Study of Germans in Foreign Territory and was the acknowledged theoretician of the concept Volk and Volkstum) and Karl von Loesch of the Institute of Politics (an expert on the Schutzbund [Protective Alliance] and other instruments of German nationalism). Leading figures were also Wilhelm Stapel (editor of the Deutsches Volkstum); Hermann Ullmann, Eduard Statler, Heinrich von Gleichen and in the inter-war era Fritz Valjavec and Otto Isbert. Quite a few of the top-echelon Germanisten (inter alia Max Hildebert Boehm and Wilhelm Stapel) were greatly influenced by the ideas of the so called Juniklub (June Club) founded in 1919 by Heinrich von Gleichen and Moeller van den Bruck, an informal organization which believed that Germany must be rejuvenated and revolutionized after the defeat of 1918. The ideas and men of the June Club were regarded by many of a later generation as the (idealistic) forerunners of National Socialism. Cf. Ralph F. Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp. 63 ff. Many of the Germanisten, particularly the early ones, may be paralleled with the Slavophils, the later ones with the Neoslavs in Russia.
A German writer says of the Pan-German League: “Well as it may have acted as a national leaven amongst the Germans at home and abroad, it has greatly injured the reputation of Germany abroad by its fulsome boasting of the power of the Empire and its naive depreciation of foreign nationalities” (Otto Hamman, Der Neue Kurs [1918], p. 104).
See W. H. Dawson, The German Empire, 1867–1914 and the Unity Movement (New York: Macmillan, 1919), p. 899.
Particularly in connection with the so-called “Slavic peril” which the League stressed greatly. The concept of the superiority of the German people over all peoples of the world (the Herrenvolk idea) which was the basic Weltanschauung of Hitler, was also much accentuated by the League.
See Mildred S. Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University, 1924), pp. 95–96. The League’s purpose and constitution is from the Handbuch des Alldeutschen Verbandes (1908), p. 30, in Wertheimer’s translation.
See Mildred S. Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University, 1924), pp. 94–95.
Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University, 1924), pp. 161, 163, 164.
Stenographische Berichte des Reichstags, X Legislaturperiode, 2the Session (1900–1903)287te Sitzung (March 19, 1903), pp. 8722 et seq.
Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University, 1924), p. 141.
The (Nazi) Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn of Basch (see Chapters VIII, IX), the V.D.U., adopted the initials of this society. However, this was only a coincidence, since there was no spiritual relationship whatsoever in this case. The original V.D.U., whose headquarters were in Vienna, was well known as politically quite harmless in character, and its membership consisted mostly of the talkative Swabian barbers, hence its then nickname: Barbierverein (Barbers’ Association).
“And finally, that the great ‘Pan-German Plan,’ by which it was plotted that the meshes of German influence should be spread from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, was initiated or received support from the Pan-German League is totally unsupported by any evidence. Though the Pan-German League was interested in the Bagdad Railway as it was in all expansionist schemes, it was much more interested in German African affairs and especially in Morocco, and expanded its energies in agitation in that field.” The Kaiser had no connection with the League, and except as a symbol of the monarchic principle in which it firmly believed, the League had no regard for the Kaiser. Nor did the League have any connection with the German government. No documentary proof has come to light that the government ever made use of the League, except as it used any political agency which supported its policies. And the governmental policies which met with the approval of the League and were supported by it were the exception, not the rule. There was no such thing as a great ‘Pan-German plot.’ Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University, 1924), p. 216. Word reached the author after he finished this study that there are newly available German documents which are likely to contain clues to possible connections of the League with governmental circles. Though he immediately started out to check in this, up to the time of the publication of this study he failed to receive any confirmative news.
Stresemann started the project on March 23, 1926, by dispatching a personal memorandum to all cabinet members in which he proposed the disposition of 30 million Reichsmark for credits to the agrarian German populations (bodenständiges Deutschtum) outside Germany. Of this sum the needs of the artisans and craftsmen were to be met also, but not those of the industrial enterprises, for which it was not sufficient. The cabinet meeting on March 31 having approved of the matter, a new institution, the OSSA G.M.B.H. was founded with the backing of the government for the transaction of the financing. On December 29 of the same year Stresemann repeated his request, stressing the situation of the Sudetendeutsche, the Germans of Danzig and of east-upper Silesia and the Austrian-German ties. This time he asked and was granted the augmentation of the original 30 million to 100 million Reichsmark. R 43 I-546.
The role of Stresemann in German and world politics has received an entirely new assessment recently, especially since the files of the German Foreign Office were opened to research in 1953. His established image as a true internationalist (not his constructive statesmanship) is now much challenged in such recent works as Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., Stresemann and the Politics of the Weimar Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963);
Hans W. Gatzke, Stresemann and the Rearmament of Germany, 1914–1018, (New York: Bookman Associates, Inc., 1963);
Henry L. Bretton, Stresemann and the Revision of Versailles (Stanford, 1953);
and Annelise Thimme, Gustav Stresemann (Hannover: 1957).
A little known aspect of Stresemann’s interests has been his strong attraction to the so-called German cultural idea (deutscher Kulturgedanke), a concept completely distorted from its original meaning later, by the Nazis. The noted Germanist, Gustav Manz was dispatched on January, 1929, by Stresemann himself to Rumania and Bulgaria to lecture in the German schools and organizations on this theme and to promote the idea in southeastern Europe. VI a, Deutschtum, Band 8.
The best comprehensive German work on the Wandervögel is perhaps: Gerhard Ziemer und Hans Wolf, Wandervögel und Freideutsche Jugend, (Bad Godesberg; Voggenreiter Verlag, 1962).
“They grouped into the Wandervögel… and gathered around campfires to forget the exasperating present in recollections of the days of glory.” “Their romantic, quasi-mystical reactions had something of the ideals of medieval knighthood. Deeply affected by the decline and misfortunes of their nation, desirious of authority they looked for a savior.” Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans. A Study of Czech-German Relations, 1933–1962 (New York: New York University Press, 1964), pp. 62, 63.
Some of the Wandervögel and similar groups received, not necessarily as a rule, a kind of briefing from the Deutsches Auslandsinstitut in Stuttgart before they set out on their journeys. Coming home they usually submitted a report to the DAI. Interesting among the latter is one sent by the Sächsische Jugendschaft, Chemnitz, and marked “very confidential”. It reports conditions found by the group in Swabian villages in Hungary. There is a lot of politicking in this report, little relating to ethnology or cultural matters. R 57 DAI 927.
According to Hungarian official statistics published in a clearly hostile article by the Budapest daily, Szabadság the number of Wandervögel who visited Hungary up to 1935 was 35,000. Szabadság, (Budapest: September 5, 1937).
The Institut für Statistik der Minderheitsvölker an der Universität Wien (Institute for Statistics on National Minorities of the University of Vienna) founded in Vienna in 1922 is a case in point. Its work concentrated on German minority life abroad and its main research resulted in the Statistisches Handbuch für das Gesamte Deutschtum (Statisitcal Handbook for the Entire Germandom), published in Vienna in 1927.
Its first secretary general was the energetic and capable Fritz Wertheimer, who, having been of Jewish extraction, was forced out of his office during the Nazi era.
Best known of these organizations were the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der deutschen Landsmannschaften; Deutscher Schutzbund] Grenz und Auslandsdeutschtum; Verein für das Deutschtum in Ausland (which changed its name to Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland in 1933); Reichsverband für die Katholischen Auslandsdeutschen and Bund der Auslandsdeutschen. Practically all of the competing organizations enjoyed some kind of subsidy from the government; in addition they constantly requested and usually received permission from Berlin to start drives in schools and other public institutions for badly needed funds. Also industrialists, bankers and other persons of means kept contributing to the maintenance of these organizations, upon frequent pleas. R 43 I 548.
Contacts with Berlin increased progressively. “Not only did the board of the DAI in 1931–1932 include representatives of the Reich and the state governments; it also included many whose official positions were of advantage in carrying on the activity of the Institute. Among these were Dr. Badt, representing the state of Prussia, the mayor of Berlin, Dr. Luther, then president of the Reichsbank, and officials from the various ministries, the Reichstag and the Reichsgericht.” Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), p. 105.
R43 H-I406.
Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), p. 105
After Csaki’s accidental death in the second half of the war his successor until 1945 was Hermann Rüdiger.
In order to realize fully the significance and the work of the DAI one has to know that the reports of Csaki were sent not only to DAI executives, but simultaneously to such important places as the Supreme Command of the German Military; the Reich’s Secretary of the Interior; the Reich’s Propaganda Ministerium; the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle; and the Foreign Political Section of the National Socialist Party. Truly, Csaki’s reports were worth reading. He travelled widely, seemed to enjoy his many official trips greatly, and perhaps in justification of these per diem journeys he wrote concise and always interesting reports in an excellent literary style. In his accounts — which were usually marked “strictly confidential” — he analyzed a most diverse range of impressions, primarily of political, but also of economic, social and other aspects. He usually gave advice on how to achieve (Nazi) German political goals in the country which he visited; he also characterized the key persons of the majority nation, suggesting how to play off one against the other or how to buy them if that was possible and necessary. There can be no doubt that Csaki’s reports were of great value to the Hitler regime; unhappily he undertook all that activity not as a foreign agent or a member of the German intelligence, but in his capacity as the secretary general of a supposedly primarily cultural organization. A considerable number of Csaki’s reports are to be found under the file mark R 57 DAI 165 in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, Germany. One case in point: Csaki the Germanist(!) who travelled between May 17 and 26,. 1943 in the German occupied parts of the Soviet Union reported much more on military and political aspects than on the German diasporae in the Ukraine, which was the official goal of his journey. R 57-DAI 165.
To define the concept of Volkstum, so much stressed by the Nazis, is almost impossible in English. The word “nationality” is ambiguous; “folkdom” is closer to its meaning, but being a synthetic word it is incomprehensible without its supporting elements. The Germans themselves had difficulties in finding an adequate definition, so much so that several “official” drafts were made to this purpose. The one accepted came from the Reich’s Chancellery and it reads: “German Volkstum beyond the boundaries of the Reich is a part of eternal Germany.” R 43 II 1408 c.fol. 1. In this context, then, it means simply that everyone of German blood inside or outside Germany is a part of the German nation. “Hitler does not present a scientific description of Volkstum, except to say that it is that peculiar spirit produced by a nation which is expressed in love for the nation and manifested in its culture. Volkstum is the soul of a nation; without it no nation could long exist, because the chief function of the nation is to bear culture.” Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp. 29, 30.
There existed in Augsburg a research center of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) named “Forschungsstelle Schwaben in aller Welt” (Research Center of the Swabians of all the World), founded in 1939 and headed by one Fritz Schön. Ost. Dok. Ju. V 40.
The short memo, authored on October 23, 1934, most probably by Rudolf Hess himself, which contains almost verbatim the above-cited syllabus of the nazified DAI, is to be found in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz under the file mark R 57-DAI 157.
It was the same Volksbund which in 1937 published the much debated map, Der deutsche Volks- und Kulturboden in Mittel- und Osteuropa (German National and Cultural Territory in middle and eastern Europe). “The close connection between this German nation and its political organization, the German Reich, is revealed in the events of the past three years. All of the territory indicated as the Greater German Nation on this map is now (1941) included within the boundaries of the Reich, except for that in Switzerland, northern Italy and some of the scattered islands in eastern Europe, although even many of the latter are under German domination.” Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), p. 6.
R 57-DAI 225.
Characteristic was the following declaration of Himmler in his message written on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the DAI on January 10, 1942: “Meanwhile another period of total-German (gesamtdeutsche) development came into being: the task of strengthening the German folkdom (Festigung des deutschen Volkstums) by means of the liberation and home-guiding (Heimführung) of old German lands from alien rule into the Greater German Reich. With the bringing back (Zurückholung) of German people from territories in which they would have lost their folkdom, and with the new destiny of the German East, the first outlines of this policy are established. The DAI is excellently qualified to assist in the materialization of this great task.” Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Z 39/422–25. Another example of how far the DAI ventured from its original scope during the war is the fact that it gathered material on the war-time travels of the Habsburg family in the United States and forwarded it to the Reichs Propagandaministerium. R 57 DAI 802.
For a concise summary of the DAI before the Hitler era, see Bischoff, Nazi Conquest through German Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp.102–109.
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© 1967 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Paikert, G.C. (1967). Relations of the Volksdeutsche with Germany and Austria before the Nazi Era — the Role of the Deutsches Auslandsinstitut. In: The Danube Swabians. Studies in Social Life, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9717-5_8
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