Germans - Background

The Germans are a Germanic people. Ethnographers hypothesize that all Germanic speakers originally came from Scandinavia, which includes Jutland and the southwest shores of the Baltic Sea, before the Migrations Period. Prior to that time, their Indo-European ancestors may have migrated slowly from the Black Sea region and arrived in southern Scandinavia. Assimilation with other peoples is postulated, both with the prior inhabitants of Scandinavia and with peoples encountered on their way from Asia. Celtic peoples were then either assimilated, exterminated, or driven out during the expansion southwards from the Baltic. See also:

Germans, Germans - History, Germans - Background, Germans - Ethnic nationalism, Germans - The Divided Germany, Germans - Religion, Germans - Minorities, Germans - Conclusion, Germans - Reference

Read more here: » Germans: Encyclopedia II - Germans - History

Historical persons like Kafka might be called Germans, or might not. Some would hold that they belong to the German culture, which is what decides if someone is considered a German or not, at least in certain contexts. Similarly, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - who spent most of their lives in what is Austria today - may be considered to have been central within the German culture. Thus, the division is not by linguistic classification of the local idiom, but rather by the cultural sphere,. The Dutch and the Flemish are not considered Germans, using a different standard language, while the cl ...

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Germans, Germans - History, Germans - Background, Germans - Ethnic nationalism, Germans - The Divided Germany, Germans - Religion, Germans - Minorities, Germans - Conclusion, Germans - Reference

Read more here: » Germans: Encyclopedia II - Germans - Conclusion

In recent years, the German-speaking countries of Europe have been confronted with demographic changes due to decades of immigration. These changes have led to renewed debates (especially in the Federal Republic of Germany) about who should be considered German. Non-ethnic Germans now make up more than 8 percent of the German population, mostly the descendants of guest workers who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. Turks, Italians, Greeks, and people from the Balkans in southeast Europe form the largest single groups ...

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Germans, Germans - History, Germans - Background, Germans - Ethnic nationalism, Germans - The Divided Germany, Germans - Religion, Germans - Minorities, Germans - Conclusion, Germans - Reference

Read more here: » Germans: Encyclopedia II - Germans - Minorities

The reaction evoked in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars was a strong ethnic nationalism that emphasized, and sometimes overemphasized, the cultural bond between Germans. Later alloyed with the high standing and world-wide influence of German science at the end of the 19th century, and to some degree enhanced by Bismarck's military successes and the following 40 years of almost perpetual economic boom (the Gründerzeit), it gave the Germans an impression of cultural supremacy, particularly compared to the Slavs. < ...

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Germans, Germans - History, Germans - Background, Germans - Ethnic nationalism, Germans - The Divided Germany, Germans - Religion, Germans - Minorities, Germans - Conclusion, Germans - Reference

Read more here: » Germans: Encyclopedia II - Germans - Ethnic nationalism