German-Brazilian: Encyclopedia II - German-Brazilian - Urban Germans in Brazil

German-Brazilian - Urban Germans in Brazil

In the early 20th century, very few rural areas of Southern Brazil were desert. Most of them had been settled by German, Italian and Polish immigrants during the 19th century. With this situation, most Germans who immigrated to Brazil during the 20th century settled in big towns, Although, many of them also settled in the old rural German colonies. The German immigration to Brazil had its largest numbers during the 1920s, after World War I. These Germans were mostly middle-class laborers from urban areas of Germany, different from the poor agriculturists that settled in the colonies of Brazil during the 19th century.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Brazil also attracted a significant number of German Jews, who settled mostly in São Paulo.

Germans participated activily in the industrialization and development of big cities in Brazil, such as Curitiba and Porto Alegre.

After World War II, the nationalist Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas has forbidden the use of German language in Brazil, and the German immigration became very low.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Urban Germans in Brazil", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki