German Exodus From Central and Eastern Europe - Background

Background

Migrations that took place over more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Central and Eastern Europe as far east as Russia. By the sixteenth century, much of Pomerania, Prussia, the Sudetenland, Bessarabia, Galicia, South Tyrol, Carniola, and Lower Styria had numerous German-majority towns and villages. By the early nineteenth century, every city of even modest size as far east as the Volga had a German quarter and a Jewish quarter. Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region.

The rise of nationalism in Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century spread the concept of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language, and culture, and had a right to form its own state. In these circumstances, various situations could lead to conflict. One such was when a nation claimed territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a common bond with the people living on that land. Another was when a minority ethnic group sought to secede from a state, either to form an independent nation or join another nation with whom they felt stronger ties. A third source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from their territories on the grounds that those people did not share a common bond with the majority in that nation.