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The study of ethnic minorities and their role in the domestic politics of their host states has long attracted scholars from a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. By contrast, national (or external) minorities, have been under-represented in the literature on ethnic minorities, although the interest has increased since the collapse of communism and more recently since the eruption of violent conflict in Kosovo. Ethnic Germans in particular, although still numbering millions and spread over twenty countries in western, central, and eastern Europe, have attracted only little attention.
This volume addresses the issue of Germany's external minorities, exploring the complex interrelationship between their ethnic identity and sense of cultural belonging on the one hand, and the political, economic, legal, and social situation in their respective societies, on the other. Leading specialists, representing a wide spectrum of viewpoints on the social and political conditions under which German minorities live today, provide case studies of all the major individual minority groups. In this way, a comprehensive picture of Germans and German culture in Europe emerges that provides both historical and contemporary perspectives on a diaspora community with an uncertain future between assimilation, segregation, and emigration.
"The present volume is highly informative in that it provides a good and highly readable overview of the history and political situation of German populations all over Europe." · International Migration Review
"... an excellent and informative book, well-written, and essential reading for anyone interested in the fate of Europe's regional cultural minorities." · H-German
Chapter 1. Culture, Identity, and Distinction: Ethnic Minorities between Scylla and Charybdis
W. Bergem
Chapter 2. A National Minority with a Transethnic Identity: The German Minority in Denmark
K. M. Pedersen
Chapter 3. The German Speaking Minority of Belgium
B. Donaldson
Chapter 4. The Ethnolinguistic Vitality of Alsatian-Speakers in Southern Alsace
J. Broadbridge
Chapter 5. South Tyrol: Re-Thinking Ethnolinguistic Vitality
A. Schweigkofler
Chapter 6. Poland's German Minority
K. Cordell
Chapter 7. The Carpathian Germans
L. P. Marcus
Chapter 8. The Ethnolinguistic Vitality of German-speaking Communities in Central Europe
P. Stevenson
Chapter 9. Bilingualism among Ethnic Germans in Hungary
P. H. Nelde
Chapter 10. The Unfortunate Minority Group: Yugoslavia's Banat Germans
R. Wagner
Chapter 11. Ethnic Germans in Russia and the Former Soviet Union
G. Stricker
Chapter 12. Changing Priorities or Changing Opportunities? German External Minority Policy, 1919-1998
S. Wolff
Chapter 13. The Status of German Minorities in Bilateral Agreements of the Federal Republic
H.-J. Heintze
Chapter 14. German Minorities in East and West: A Comparative Overview and Outlook
S. Wolff
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index