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109-494: [REDACTED] Media related to Sextener Rotwand at Wikimedia Commons 46°38′27″N 12°22′31″E  /  46.640951°N 12.375240°E  / 46.640951; 12.375240 This article about a mountain, mountain range, or peak located in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Trentino-Alto Adige Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol ( Italian : Trentino-Alto Adige [trenˈtiːno ˈalto ˈaːdidʒe] )

218-683: A Germanization of the East, was unfortunately based on the same false inference. Here again it was thought that a Germanization of the Polish element could be brought about by a purely linguistic integration with the German element. Here again the result would have been catastrophic; a people of alien race expressing its alien ideas in the German language , compromising the lofty dignity of our own nationality by their own inferiority." The Nazis considered land to

327-436: A ban issued on the building of houses by non-Germans. (See Drzymała's van .) Germanisation in schools included the abuse of Polish children by Prussian officials . Germanisation stimulated resistance, usually in the form of home schooling and tighter unity in minority groups. There was a slight easing of the persecution of Poles during 1890–94. A continuation and intensification of measures restarted in 1894 and continued until

436-438: A constitution like the other provinces of my kingdom. Your religion will be upheld. [...] Your language shall be used like the German language in all public affairs and everyone of you with suitable capabilities shall get the opportunity to get an appointment to a public office. [...] As a result, there was an easing of Germanisation policy in the period 1815–30. The minister for Education Altenstein stated in 1823: Concerning

545-472: A favourite destination for tourists, both in winter for skiing in the high mountains and in summer to visit the wide valleys and many lakes (the largest being Lake Garda ). South Tyrol has an area of 7,398 square kilometres (2,856 square miles), all of it mountainous land and covered by vast forests. The climate is of the continental type, owing to the influence of the many mountain ranges which stand at well over 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) above sea level and

654-602: A large part of the Dolomites and the southern Alps . The region is composed of two provinces, Trentino in the south and South Tyrol in the north. Trentino has an area of 6,207 km (2,397 sq mi), most of it mountainous land (20% is over 2,000 m (6,600 ft) and 70% over 1,000 m) and covered by vast forests (50% of the territory). The climate is various through the province, from an alpine climate to subcontinental one, with warm and variable summers and cold and quite snowy winters. The region has always been

763-738: A non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic interest, that was founded on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the National Association of Italian Municipalities. The region has a population of about 1,072,276 people (541,098 in Trentino and 531,178 in South Tyrol). The population density in the region is low compared to Italy as a whole. In 2008, it equalled to 77.62 inhabitants per square kilometre (201.0/sq mi), whereas

872-555: A relatively short period. This event also produced the first historical record of a major German thinker openly calling for the genocide of the Polish people; the 14th-century German Dominican theologian Johannes von Falkenberg argued on behalf of the Teutonic Order not only that Polish pagans should be killed, but that all Poles should be subject to genocide on the grounds that Poles were an inherently heretical race and that even

981-491: A report of many well-fed Ukrainian children, he declared that the promotion of contraception and abortion was urgently needed, and neither medical care nor education was to be provided. When young women from the East were recruited to work as nannies in Germany , they were required to be suitable for Germanisation, both because they would work with German children, and because they might be sexually exploited . The programme

1090-482: A top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated 25   May 1940, Himmler wrote "We need to divide Poland's different ethnic groups up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible". There were two Germanisation actions in occupied Poland realised in this way: Germanisation began with the classification of people as defined on the Nazi Volksliste . The Germans regarded

1199-452: Is German (62% of the population), although in the capital city Bolzano 73% of the population speaks Italian as its maternal language due to internal immigration from other regions of Italy. Italian speakers are also a significant component in other major urban centres of the province, such as in Merano (49% Italian as the mother language) and Brixen (26% mother language). More than 90% of

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1308-461: Is a major exporter of hydroelectric power. The most important features of the region's economic structure are the strength of tourism and the special system of co-operation between agriculture and industry. In the last decade, tourism became a very important component of the province's economy. The region, which is a staging-post between the countries of northern Europe and central and southern Italy, has found its true vocation in this leading branch of

1417-415: Is an autonomous region of Italy , located in the northern part of the country. The region has a population of 1.1 million, of whom 62% speak Italian as their mother tongue, 30% speak South Tyrolean German and several foreign languages are spoken by immigrant communities. Since the 1970s, most legislative and administrative powers have been transferred to the two self-governing provinces that make up

1526-515: Is desirable for the Poles to understand the language of government. However, it is not necessary for them to give up or postpone their mother language. The possession of two languages shall not be seen as a disadvantage but as a benefit instead because it is usually associated with a higher flexibility of the mind. [..] Religion and language are the highest sanctuaries of a nation and all attitudes and perceptions are founded on them. A government that [...]

1635-484: Is divided into two autonomous provinces : Trentino (Autonomous Province of Trento) and South Tyrol (Autonomous Province of Bolzano). The Italian Republic recognised a certain degree of autonomy for the region and its two constituent provinces, which was the result of the Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement of 1946, as well as of the special status of autonomy approved by constitutional law in 1948. This statute gave

1744-463: Is indifferent or even hostile against them creates bitterness, debases the nation and generates disloyal subjects. Later the first half of the 19th century, Prussian policy towards Poles turned again to discrimination and Germanisation. From 1819 the state gradually reduced the role of the Polish language in schools, with German being introduced in its place. This policy was likely also inspired by English and French examples of using schools for asserting

1853-494: The Baltic Germans as deeply persecuted in their native lands. Packed into camps for racial evaluation, they were divided into groups: A, Altreich , who were to be settled in Germany and allowed neither farms nor businesses (to allow close supervision); S Sonderfall , who were used as forced labour; and O Ost-Fälle , the best classification, to be settled in the occupied regions and allowed independence. This last group

1962-671: The Duchy of Bavaria received the remaining part. From the 11th century onwards, part of the region was governed by the prince-bishops of Trent and Brixen , to whom the Holy Roman Emperors had given extensive temporal powers over their bishoprics. Soon, they were overruled by the Counts of Tyrol and Counts of Görz , who also controlled the Puster Valley : in 1363 its last titular, Margarete, Countess of Tyrol ceded

2071-498: The German nobility . After the Napoleonic Wars, Austria remained in possession of parts of Lesser Poland , Galicia , Volhynia , as well as a minor share of Silesia . Prussia in turn not only retained the bulk of Upper Silesia but upon dissolution of the Duchy of Warsaw it also reclaimed the entire West Prussia (formed by Pomerelia , the northernmost part of Greater Poland and a strip of historical Prussia on

2180-505: The Iroquois . From the start of Prussian rule Poles were subject to a series of measures against their culture: the Polish language was replaced by German as the official language; most administrative positions were filled by Germans. Poles were portrayed as "backward Slavs" by Prussian officials who wanted to spread Protestantism in the German language. The estates of the Polish nobility were confiscated and given to Protestant members of

2289-615: The King of Poland , Jogaila , a Christian convert, ought to be murdered. The assertion that Poles were heretical was largely politically motivated as the Teutonic Order desired to conquer Polish lands despite Christianity having become the dominant religion in Poland centuries prior. Such views did not remain purely ideas but were also put into practice in the wake of events such as the Slaughter of Gdańsk whose German population only achieved

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2398-853: The Kingdom of Hungary , triggering in Cisleithania the Czech National Revival and United Slovenia movements, in both parts of the Habsburg Monarchy the Croatian Illyrian movement , as well as in the Bosnia and Herzegovina condominium the Bosnian movement, some of them ultimately forming Yugoslavism , while the Polish and Ukrainian-speaking population of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria benefitted from

2507-768: The Late Middle Ages , the Silesian Piasts and Pomeranian Griffins invited German settlers to settle in many areas constituting the Kingdom of Poland prior to its fragmentation while the Santok Castellany was outright sold to Brandenburg by the Piast dukes of Greater Poland. As a result, Silesia , Pomerania (in the narrow sense) and Lubusz Land joined the Holy Roman Empire , as a natural consequence becoming gradually Germanised in

2616-763: The Mòcheni Valley . There are also Ladin-speaking minorities living in the Fassa Valley and in Non Valley (3.5% of the population). While in Fassa Valley Ladin already enjoys official status, in Non Valley it still does not, despite there being more Ladin speakers in the latter than in the former. Sole Valley also historically belongs to the Ladin area. In South Tyrol the majority language

2725-619: The Namensänderungsgesetz (law of changing surnames), a significant number of "Ruhr-Poles" changed their surnames and Christian names to Germanised forms, in order to evade ethnic discrimination. As the Prussian authorities suppressed Catholic services in Polish by Polish priests during the Kulturkampf , the Poles had to rely on German Catholic priests. Increasing intermarriage between Germans and Poles contributed much to

2834-605: The Prussian Settlement Commission , financed by the national government, was set up to buy land from non-Germans and distribute it to German farmers. From 1908 the committee was entitled to force the landowners to sell the land. Other means of oppression included the Prussian deportations from 1885 to 1890, in which non-Prussian nationals who lived in Prussia, mostly Poles and Jews, were removed; and

2943-557: The Ruhr area in the late 19th century, where they largely worked in the coal and iron industries. German authorities viewed them as a potential danger as a "suspected political and national" element. All Polish workers had special cards and were under constant observation by German authorities. Their citizens' rights were also limited by the state. In response to these policies, the Polish formed their own organisations to maintain their interests and ethnic identity. The Sokol sports clubs,

3052-400: The "Old Reich". Nazi authorities feared that these settlers would be tainted by their Polish neighbours and warned them not to let their "foreign and alien" surroundings have an impact on their Germanness. They were also settled in compact communities, which could be easily monitored by the police. Only families classified as "highly valuable" were kept together. For Poles who did not resist

3161-477: The 120,000 Italian speakers live in Bozen/Bolzano, Merano, Leifers and Brixen, and the greater part of the rest in the small towns south of the capital just north of the border with Trentino or scattered about in very small numbers throughout the rest of the province. The Italian language is a majority in 5 of 116 municipalities. Italian is the first language of 26% of the population (down from 35% in 1960) of

3270-601: The 17th and 18th century in the Czech lands as the Dark Age. As a further step, Emperor Joseph II ( r.  1780–90 ) sought to consolidate the territories of Habsburg Monarchy within the Holy Roman Empire with those remaining outside of it, to centralise the government , and to implement Enlightenment principles through absolutism . He decreed that Austrian German was to replace Ecclesiastical Latin as

3379-554: The 18th century. The plague and subsequent immigration from Germany, notably from Salzburg, were the primary factors in this development. Germanisation policies were tightened during the 19th century, but even into the early 20th century the territories north, south and south-west of the Neman River contained a Lithuanian majority. Due to migration within the German Empire as many as 350,000 ethnic Poles made their way to

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3488-522: The 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In linguistics , Germanisation of non-German languages also occurs when they adopt many German words. Under the policies of states such as the Teutonic Order , Austria , the Kingdom of Prussia , and the German Empire , non-German minorities were often discouraged or even prohibited from using their native language, and had their traditions and culture suppressed in

3597-664: The Alpine Foothills and put it under the administration of Gauleiter Franz Hofer . The region was de facto annexed to the German Reich (with the addition of the province of Belluno ) until the end of the war. This status ended along with the Nazi regime and Italian rule was restored in 1945. Italy and Austria negotiated the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement in 1946, put into effect in 1947 when

3706-852: The Austrian government, not only to divide and rule , but, more importantly, to create an alternative to the Tsarist-backed Galician Russophiles and to "return the favor" by similarly destabilizing the Russification of Ukraine . In defiance of the Valuev Circular , the Ems Ukaz , and censorship in the Russian Empire , Ukrainian-language literature was published in Galicia and smuggled across

3815-568: The Austrian government. The issue became the cause of significant friction between the two countries and was taken up by the United Nations in 1960. A fresh round of negotiations took place in 1961 but proved unsuccessful, partly because of popular discontent and a campaign of terrorism and bombings by German-speaking autonomists and separatists led by the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee . The issue

3924-692: The Baltic States the Nazis initially encouraged the departure of ethnic Germans by the use of propaganda. This included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and led to tens of thousands leaving . Those who left were not referred to as "refugees", but were rather described as "answering the call of the Führer". German propaganda films such as The Red Terror and Frisians in Peril depicted

4033-471: The Czech population were not to be Germanised. Under Generalplan Ost , a percentage of Slavs in the conquered territories were to be Germanised. Gauleiters Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser reported to Hitler that 10 percent of the Polish population contained "Germanic blood", and were thus suitable for Germanisation. The Reichskommissars in northern and central Russia reported similar figures. Those unfit for Germanisation were to be expelled from

4142-599: The East". On 6 April 1941 Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis Powers. Part of the Slovene-settled territory was occupied by Nazi Germany. The Gestapo arrived on 16   April 1941 and were followed three days later by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who inspected Stari Pisker Prison in Celje . On 26   April, Adolf Hitler , who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited Maribor . Although

4251-542: The Eastern Front. An unknown number of "stolen children" were taken to Nazi Germany for Germanisation. Ukraine was targeted for Germanisation. Thirty special SS squads took over villages where ethnic Germans predominated and expelled or shot Jews or Slavs living in them. The Hegewald colony was set up in Ukraine. Ukrainians were forcibly deported, and ethnic Germans forcibly relocated there. Racial assignment

4360-543: The Germanisation of Poles in Prussia, calling it "barbarous". Meanwhile, the Austrian-ruled Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria operated two Polish-speaking universities and in 1867 obtained even consent to adopt Polish as its official government language. The Galician Government also foolishly launched a Polonisation policy which triggered a Ukrainian language revival , which was encouraged by

4469-546: The Germanisation of ethnic Poles in the Ruhr area. Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. For example, in the course of the second half of the 19th century, the Dutch language , historically spoken in what is now Cleves , Geldern and Emmerich , was banned from schools and the administration and ceased to be spoken in its standardised form by

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4578-530: The Russian border with Austrian Government backing. Prussian Lithuanians experienced similar policies of Germanisation restarting from the 15th century. Although ethnic Lithuanians had constituted a majority in areas of East Prussia during the 15th and 16th centuries – from the early 16th century it was often referred to as Lithuania Minor  – the Lithuanian population shrank in

4687-594: The Slovenes had been deemed racially salvageable by the Nazis, the mainly Austrian authorities of the Carinthian and Styrian regions commenced a brutal campaign to destroy them as a nation. The Nazis started a policy of violent Germanisation on Slovene territory, attempting to either discourage or entirely suppress Slovene culture. Their main task in Slovenia was the removal of part of population and Germanisation of

4796-413: The adopting party, or by force. In Slavic countries, the term Germanisation is often understood to mean the process of acculturation of Slavic - and Baltic -language speakers – after conquest by or cultural contact with Germans in the early Middle Ages ; especially the areas of modern southern Austria and extant part of German East Elbia . In East Prussia , decimation and forced resettlement of

4905-724: The areas marked out for German settlement. In considering the fate of the individual nations, the architects of the Plan decided that it would be possible to Germanise about 50 percent of the Czechs , 35 percent of the Ukrainians and 25 percent of the Belarusians . The remainder would be deported to western Siberia and other regions. In 1941, it was decided that the Polish nation should be completely destroyed in about 10 to 20 years so that it could be re-settled by German colonists. In

5014-402: The arms of Trentino (black eagle) and the arms of South Tyrol (red eagle). 46°04′N 11°07′E  /  46.067°N 11.117°E  / 46.067; 11.117 Germanisation Defunct Defunct Germanisation , or Germanization , is the spread of the German language , people , and culture . It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and

5123-519: The average figure for Italy was 201.50 per square kilometre (521.9/sq mi). The population density in Trentino was 86.56 inhabitants per square kilometre (224.2/sq mi), slightly higher than the one registered in South Tyrol that was equal to 70.14 per square kilometre (181.7/sq mi). As of 2011 , the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 90,321 foreigners lived in

5232-728: The broadening of Galician autonomy . During the 18th-century, a more harsh and brutal form of Germanisation efforts , initially practiced in Farther Pomerania and East Prussia and extended following the Silesian Wars also to Silesia and County of Kladsko gained from the Lands of the Bohemian Crown as well as later to the terrories of Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the Starostwo of Draheim pawned by Poland,

5341-412: The children of people executed for resisting Germanisation. If attempts to Germanise them failed, or they were determined to be unfit, they would be killed to eliminate their value to the opponents of the Reich. In German-occupied Poland, it is estimated that 50,000 to 200,000 children were removed from their families to be Germanised. The Kinder KZ was founded specifically to hold such children. It

5450-411: The current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when the second process of Germanisation took place, mostly in Carinthia. Germanisation of the Ladino-Romantsch Venosta Valley in Tyrol was also undertaken by Austria in the 16th century. Following the 1620 Battle of White Mountain , the Lands of the Bohemian Crown , at the time one of

5559-462: The east – Poland , Ukraine , Belarus , Russia , and the Baltics  – to be Lebensraum (living space) and sought to populate it with Germans. Hitler, speaking with generals immediately prior to his chancellorship, declared that people could not be Germanised, only the soil could be. The policy of Germanisation in the Nazi period carried an explicitly ethno-racial rather than purely nationalist meaning, aiming for

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5668-478: The elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. Subsequently, there was an intensification of Germanisation and persecution of Poles in the Province of Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Posen in 1830–41. After a brief period of thaw in the years 1841–49, Bismarck intensified Germanisation again during 1849–70 as part of his Kulturkampf against Catholicism in general, but in particular against Polish Catholics. It

5777-424: The end of World War I . In 1910, the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka responded to the increasing persecution of Polish people by Germans by writing her famous poem entitled Rota ; it immediately became a national symbol for Poles, with its sentence known to many Poles: The German will not spit in our face, nor will he Germanise our children . An international meeting of socialists held in Brussels in 1902 condemned

5886-464: The end of and after World War II, however, these territories have been mostly degermanised. Early Germanisation went along with the Ostsiedlung during the Middle Ages in Hanoverian Wendland , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , Lusatia , and other areas, formerly inhabited by Slavic tribes – Polabian Slavs such as Obotrites , Veleti and Sorbs . Early forms of Germanisation were recorded by German monks in manuscripts such as Chronicon Slavorum . Since

5995-445: The eventual extinction of the Prussian language in the 17th century. Germanisation in its modern form was conducted from the beginning of the 19th century as a set of Prussian/German and (to a lesser degree and for a shorter time) Austrian state policies of forceful imposition of German culture, language and people upon non-German people, Slavs in particular. Since the flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe at

6104-484: The expansion of the German language and of elements of German culture. There are examples of complete assimilation into German culture, as happened with the pagan Slavs in the Diocese of Bamberg (Franconia) in the 11th century. An example of the eclectic adoption of German culture is the field of law in Imperial and present-day Japan , which is organised according to the model of the German Empire . Germanisation took place by cultural contact, by political decision of

6213-474: The fact that Order's politics also resulted in Polonization in some areas of the Teutonic State, and Lithuanization in other areas. Correspondingly, even in villages under German right, there were Polish farmers and even a Polish Schultheiß is recorded. In respect to Austria, northern border of Slovene-speaking territory stabilised on a line from north of Klagenfurt to the south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it closely followed

6322-426: The film Heimkehr , depicted these ethnic Germans as persecuted, and the use of military force as necessary to protect them. The exploitation of ethnic Germans as forced labour and persecution of them were major themes of the anti-Polish propaganda campaign of 1939, prior to the invasion . The bloody Sunday incident during the invasion was widely exploited as depicting the Poles as murderous towards Germans. In

6431-466: The following centuries. Proto-Slovene was spoken in a much larger territory than modern Slovenia, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some parts of Upper and Lower Austria. By the 15th century, most of these areas had been gradually Germanised. Historians have also noted that Ostsiedlung did not include deliberate Germanization, which in pre-national times

6540-450: The holding of active leadership roles as an Aryan trait, whereas a tendency to avoid leadership and a perceived fatalism was associated by many Germans with Slavonic peoples. Adults who were selected for but resisted Germanisation were executed. Such execution was carried out on the grounds that German blood should not support non-Germanic people, and that killing them would deprive foreign nations of superior leaders. The intelligenzaktion

6649-690: The installation of the new gauleiter and reichsstatthalter of Carinthia and later they dropped the plan for an indefinite period because of Slovene partisans. Only the Meža Valley became part of Reichsgau Carinthia. Around 80,000 Slovenes were forcibly deported to Eastern Germany for potential Germanisation or forced labour. The deported Slovenes were taken to several camps in Saxony, where they were forced to work on German farms or in factories run by German industries from 1941 to 1945. The forced labourers were not always kept in formal concentration camps, but often vacant buildings. Nazi Germany also began mass expulsions of Slovenes to Serbia and Croatia. The basis for

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6758-417: The lands of Our beloved son Wladislaw, duke of Cracow and Sandomierz, and in the town of Gdańsk killed more than ten thousand people with the sword, inflicting death on whining infants in cradles whom even the enemy of faith would have spared." The Teutonic Order did however not deliberately pursue Germanization. Germanization was rather the result of the colonial nature of the State. This is corroborated by

6867-505: The last meaningful territories of the HRE not dominated yet by the German language, was subjected to two centuries of re catholicization of the Czech lands accompanied by growing influence of German-speaking elites, at the expense of declining the Czech-speaking aristocracy, elite Czech language usage in general. Despite the great importance to Czech literature of poets and writers of the era like Bedřich Bridel , Czech nationalist historians and writers such as Alois Jirásek have referred to

6976-404: The majority after local Polish population was murdered and a new settlement was built by Teutonic Knights. The carnage was so extensive that it prompted the pope Clement V to condemn the Teutonic Knights in a bull which charged them with committing a massacre "Latest news were brought to my attention, that officials and brethren of the aforementioned Teutonic order have hostilely intruded

7085-411: The name of linguistic imperialism . In addition, the Government also encouraged immigration from the Germanosphere to further upset the linguistic balance, but with varying degrees of success. In Nazi Germany , linguistic Germanisation was replaced by a policy of genocide against certain ethnic groups, even when they were already German-speaking. Historically there are different forms and degrees of

7194-435: The national language. In 1825 August Jacob, a politician hostile to Poles, gained power over the newly created Provincial Educational Collegium in Poznan. Across the Polish territories Polish teachers were removed, German educational programmes were introduced, and primary schooling was aimed at the creation of loyal Prussian citizens. In 1825 the teacher's seminary in Bydgoszcz was Germanised. Successive policies aimed at

7303-430: The new republican Italian constitution was promulgated, that the region would be granted considerable autonomy. German and Italian were both made official languages, and German-language education was permitted once more. The region was called Trentino-Alto Adige/Tiroler Etschland between 1947 and 1972. However, the implementation of the agreement was not seen as satisfactory by neither the German-speaking population nor

7412-403: The number of Polish children found to exhibit "Nordic" traits, but assumed that all such children were genuinely German children, who had been Polonised . Hans Frank exhibited such views when he declared, "When we see a blue-eyed child we are surprised that she is speaking Polish." The term used for them was wiedereindeutschungsfähig —meaning capable of being re-Germanised. These might include

7521-565: The official language of Government. Hungarians , however, perceived Joseph's language reforms as an act of linguistic imperialism and cultural hegemony , and they responded by insisting on using their heritage language . As a result, the lower Hungarian nobility launched a literary renaissance of the Hungarian language and culture. These lesser nobles often questioned the loyalty of the magnates, less than half of whom were ethnic Hungarians , and many of these had become French- and German-speaking courtiers . The Hungarian national revival

7630-450: The opinion could then be heard that the Austrian-Germans, with the promotion and aid of the government , might well succeed in a Germanization of the Austrian Slavs; these circles never even began to realize that Germanization can only be applied to soil and never to people . ... Not only in Austria , but in Germany as well, so-called national circles were moved by similar false ideas. The Polish policy, demanded by so many, involving

7739-403: The original Baltic Old Prussians by the Teutonic Order as well as acculturation by immigrants from various European countries, primarily Germans, but also Poles (Catholic Warmians and Protestant Masurians who both descended from Masovians , as well as Catholic Powiślans who descended from Chełminians and Kociewians ), Lithuanians ( Prussian Lithuanians ) and Bohemians , contributed to

7848-602: The outbreak of the Second World War prevented them from fully carrying out the relocation. Nevertheless, thousands of people were relocated to Nazi Germany and only with great difficulties managed to return to their ancestral land after the end of the war. In 1943, when the Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies, the region was occupied by Germany, which reorganised it as the Operation Zone of

7957-577: The political, legislative, administrative, and fiscal institutions. The second statute turned the region de facto into a loose commonwealth with devolved powers to the two autonomous provinces, with very limited legislative or executive competencies left. The capital city is Trento, although the two provincial capitals alternate biennially (the other being Bolzano ) as the site of the regional assembly. The region's fertile valleys produce wine , fruit, dairy products, and timber, while its industries include paper, chemical and metal production. The region

8066-479: The population of 453,000 recorded in the 2011 census, not counting the 51,000 who listed Language as 'Other' who are immigrants. Ladin is the additional official language in some municipalities and a majority in 8. According to the census of 2001, 103 out of 116 communes have a majority of German native speakers, eight of Ladin speakers and five of Italian. Today both German and Italian have the status of co- official languages in South Tyrol. The coat of arms quarters

8175-526: The recognition of Slovenes as German nationals was the decision of the Imperial Ministry for the Interior from 14   April 1942. This was the basis for drafting Slovenes for the service in the German armed forces. The number of Slovenes conscripted to the German military and paramilitary formations has been estimated at 150,000 men and women. Almost a quarter of them lost their lives, mostly on

8284-508: The region altogether, equal to 8.55% of the total regional population. The main language groups are Italian and German, with small minorities speaking Ladin , Lombard , Mòcheno and Cimbrian . The latter two of which are varieties of the Upper German Bavarian dialect. In Trentino the majority language is Italian, although there are Cimbrian minorities in the municipality of Luserna and four Mòcheno municipalities in

8393-719: The region in 15 BC. After the end of the Western Roman Empire , it was divided between the invading Germanic tribes in the Lombard Duchy of Tridentum (today's Trentino ), the Alamannic Vinschgau , and the Bavarians (who took the remaining part). After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Charlemagne , the Marquisate of Verona included the areas south of Bolzano , while

8502-415: The region the right to initiate its own laws on a wide range of subjects and to carry out respective administrative functions. In 1972, the introduction of the second Statute of Autonomy, which was in the centre of the discussions between the Italian and Austrian governments, meant the transfer of the main competencies from the region to the two provinces. The autonomy recognized by the special statute covers

8611-587: The region to the House of Habsburg . The regions north of Salorno were largely Germanized in the early Middle Ages , and important German poets like Arbeo of Freising and Oswald von Wolkenstein were born and lived in the southern part of Tyrol . The two bishoprics were secularized by the Treaty of Lunéville of 1803 and given to the Habsburgs. Two years later, following the Austrian defeat at Austerlitz ,

8720-525: The region was a key strategic objective. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort enabled Italian troops to occupy the region in 1918 and its annexation was confirmed in the post-war treaties, which awarded the region to Italy under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain . Under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini , the Fascist dictator of Italy (ruled 1922–1943), the German population

8829-562: The region was given to Napoleon's ally Bavaria ( Treaty of Pressburg , 1805). The new rulers provoked a popular rebellion in 1809, led by Andreas Hofer , a landlord from St. Leonhard in Passeier ; this rebellion was crushed the same year. At the resulting Treaty of Paris (28 February 1810), Bavaria ceded the southern part of Tyrol (Trentino and the city of Bolzano) to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy . During French control of

8938-597: The region was part of the Austrian Empire and its successor Austria-Hungary from 1815 until its 1919 transfer to Italy in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at the end of World War I . Together with the Austrian state of Tyrol , it is part of the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino . In English language, the region is known as Trentino-South Tyrol or by its Italian name Trentino-Alto Adige . The Romans conquered

9047-614: The region, it was called officially Haut Adige (literally "High Adige ", Italian: "Alto Adige"; German: "Hochetsch") in order to avoid any reference to the historical County of Tyrol. After Napoleon's defeat, in 1815, the region returned to Austria. Under Austrian rule the territory of today's province of South Tyrol was called südliches Tirol or Deutschsüdtirol , but was occasionally also referred to as Mitteltirol , i.e. Middle Tyrol, due to its geographic position, while Südtirol ( Italian : Tirolo meridionale ), i.e. South Tyrol, indicated mostly today's province of Trentino. Trentino

9156-458: The region: the province of Trento, commonly known as Trentino , and the province of Bolzano, commonly known as South Tyrol ( Alto Adige in Italian). In South Tyrol, German remains the sizeable majority language . From the 9th century until 1801, the region was part of the Holy Roman Empire . After being part of the short-lived Napoleonic Republic of Italy and Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy ,

9265-548: The resettled ethnic Germans, Germanisation began. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans". The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed assisting in Germanisation efforts. Germanisation included instruction in the German language, as many spoke only Polish or Russian. Goebbels and other propagandists worked to establish cultural centres and other means to create Volkstum or racial consciousness in

9374-607: The rest. Two organisations were instrumental in the Germanisation: the Styrian Homeland Union ( Steirischer Heimatbund – HS) and the Carinthian People's Union ( Kärtner Volksbund – KV). In Styria the Germanisation of Slovenes was controlled by SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Steindl. In Carinthia a similar policy was conducted by Wilhelm Schick, the gauleiter's close associate. Public use of Slovene

9483-608: The right bank of Vistula ) and, most importantly, obtained the bulk of Greater Poland where an autonomous polity was formed under the name of Grand Duchy of Posen with an officially stated purpose to provide its overwhelmingly Polish population a degree of autonomy; in May 1815 King Frederick William III issued a manifest to the Poles in Posen: You also have a Fatherland. [...] You will be incorporated into my monarchy without having to renounce your nationality. [...] You will receive

9592-582: The separatist tensions soon eased. Matters were helped further by Austria's accession to the European Union in 1995, which has helped to improve cross-border cooperation. In May 2006, senator-for-life Francesco Cossiga introduced a bill that would allow the region to hold a referendum, in which the local electorate could decide whether to stay within the Italian Republic, become fully independent or return to Austria. All parties, including

9701-426: The separatists, rejected this measure as potentially causing a revival of ethnic tensions. The region is bordered by East and North Tyrol (Austria) to the north-east and north respectively, by Graubünden (Switzerland) to the north-west, and by the Italian regions of Lombardy to the west and Veneto to the south and southeast. It covers 13,607 km (5,254 sq mi). It is extremely mountainous, covering

9810-478: The services sector with all its spin-offs. The region has a higher concentration of hotels than any other region (6,178 establishments in 2001 with 236,864 hotel beds). The total accommodation capacity of the region counts for 651,426 beds available in hotels and other establishments. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol has many small and picturesque villages, 16 of them have been selected by I Borghi più belli d'Italia (English: The most beautiful Villages of Italy ),

9919-408: The settlers. This was needed to perpetuate their work; only by effective Germanisation could mothers, in particular, create the German home. Goebbels was also the official patron of Deutsches Ordensland or Land of Germanic Order, an organisation to promote Germanisation. These efforts were used in propaganda in Germany, as when NS-Frauen-Warte ' s cover article was on "Germany is building in

10028-557: The spread of a "biologically superior" Aryan race rather than that of the German nation. This did not mean a total extermination of all people in eastern Europe, as it was regarded as having people of Aryan/Nordic descent, particularly among their ruling class. Himmler declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind for an alien race. In Nazi documents even the term "German" can be problematic, since it could be used to refer to people classified as "ethnic Germans" who spoke no German. Inside Germany, propaganda , such

10137-443: The spread of the German language it is most important to get a clear understanding of the aims, whether it should be the aim to promote the understanding of German among Polish-speaking subjects or whether it should be the aim to gradually and slowly Germanise the Poles. According to the judgement of the minister only the first is necessary, advisable and possible, the second is not advisable and not accomplishable. To be good subjects it

10246-707: The turn of the century. Later in the German Empire , in parallel with Poles, Danes , Dutch , Alsatians , German Catholics and Socialists , were portrayed as "Reichsfeinde" ("foes of the Empire"). During the Weimar Republic , Poles were recognised as a minority in Upper Silesia. The peace treaties after the First World War contained an obligation for Poland to protect its national minorities (Germans, Ukrainians and other), whereas no such clause

10355-590: The wide valleys through which flow the main river, the Adige , from north to south and its numerous tributaries. In the city of Bolzano , capital of the province, the average air temperature stands at 12.2 °C (54.0 °F) and the average rainfall at 717.7 mm (28.3 in). The lowest pass across the Alps, the Brenner Pass , is located at the far north of the region on the border with Austria . The region

10464-506: The workers' union Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie (ZZP), Wiarus Polski (press), and Bank Robotnikow were among the best-known such organisations in the Ruhr. At first, the Polish workers, ostracised by their German counterparts, had supported the Catholic centre party. During the early 20th century, their support shifted increasingly towards the social democrats. In 1905 Polish and German workers organised their first common strike. Under

10573-517: Was also called Welschtirol (" Romance Tyrol", Italian: Tirolo italiano ) or Welschsüdtirol ("Romance South Tyrol", Italian: Tirolo meridionale italiano ). Sometimes Südtirol also indicated the whole of the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region. During the First World War, major battles were fought high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian Kaiserjäger and Italian Alpini , for whom control of

10682-660: Was beyond imagination. Outside of the HRE, the Old Prussians , originally a Baltic ethnic group, were Germanised by the Teutonic Knights who adopted a very different approach. When the State of the Teutonic Order unexpectingly seized Polish Pomerelia by force and decimated its population , launching at the same time a massive campaign to attract and ressetle to these areas as many German colonists as possible within

10791-503: Was carried out in a confused manner: the Reich rule was three German grandparents, but some asserted that any person who acted like a German and evinced no "racial concerns" should be eligible. Plans to eliminate Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation. Nazi leaders expected that millions would die after they removed food supplies . This was regarded as advantageous by Nazi officials. When Hitler received

10900-591: Was introduced by Frederick the Great as a result of the partitions of Poland to the newly gained Polish territories of Greater Poland , Pomerelia , Warmia and Malbork Land . The Prussian authorities settled German-speaking Protestants in these areas. Frederick the Great settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia . He aimed at a removal of the Polish nobility, which he viewed with contempt, describing ethnic Poles in newly reconquered West Prussia as "slovenly Polish trash" and compared Poles to

11009-834: Was introduced by the victors in the Treaty of Versailles for Germany. In 1928 the Minderheitenschulgesetz (minorities school act) regulated the education of minority children in their native tongue. From 1930 onwards Poland and Germany agreed to treat their minorities fairly. Such position was officially maintained by Germany even for some time after the Nazi takeover, but ceased towards the end of 1937. The Nazi party advocated an explicitly ethno-racialist and bio-political concept of Germanization. Adolf Hitler wrote in " Mein Kampf ": "Even in Pan-German circles

11118-420: Was justified, even though these elites were regarded as likely to be of German blood, because such blood enabled them to provide leadership for the fatalistic Slavs. Germanising "racially valuable" elements would prevent any increase in the Polish intelligenstia, as the dynamic leadership would have to come from German blood. In 1940 Hitler made it clear that the Czech intelligentsia and the "mongoloid" types of

11227-960: Was often given Polish homes where the families had been evicted so quickly that half-eaten meals were on tables and small children had clearly been taken from unmade beds. Members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were assigned the task of overseeing such evictions and ensuring that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers. The deportation orders required that enough Poles be removed to provide for every settler – that, for instance, if twenty German master bakers were sent, twenty Polish bakeries had to have their owners removed. This colonisation involved 350,000 such Baltic Germans and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanisable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents, and about 400,000 German settlers from

11336-460: Was praised for not only allowing more women to have children as their new domestic servants were able to assist them, but for reclaiming German blood and giving opportunities to the women, who would work in Germany, and might marry there. "Racially acceptable" children were taken from their families in order to be brought up as Germans. Children were selected for "racially valuable traits" before being shipped to Germany. Many Nazis were astounded at

11445-433: Was prohibited, geographic and topographic names were changed and all Slovene associations were dissolved. Members of all professional and intellectual groups, including many clergymen, were expelled as they were seen as obstacles to Germanisation. As a reaction, a resistance movement developed. The Germans who wanted to proclaim their formal annexation to the "German Reich" on 1   October 1941, postponed it first because of

11554-599: Was resolved in 1971, when a new Austro-Italian treaty was signed and ratified. It stipulated that disputes in South Tyrol would be submitted for settlement to the International Court of Justice in The Hague , that the province would receive greater autonomy within Italy, and that Austria would not interfere in South Tyrol's internal affairs. The new agreement proved broadly satisfactory to the parties involved and

11663-807: Was so successful that the Government in Budapest did not learn anything from the failure of Emperor Joseph II's linguistic policies and, following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 , unwisely launched a coercive Magyarization policy aimed at forcibly assimilating the many speakers of other minority languages within the Kingdom of Hungary , which ultimately triggered a domino effect . Anti-Hungarian and heritage language revival movements arose in Transleithania among Slovaks , Romanians , Serbians , and Croatians within

11772-629: Was subjected to an increased forced programme of Italianization : all references to old Tyrol were banned and the region was referred to as Venezia Tridentina between 1919 and 1947, in an attempt to justify the Italian claims to the area by historically linking the region to one of the Roman Regions of Italy (Regio X Venetia et Histria ). Hitler and Mussolini agreed in 1938 that the German-speaking population would be transferred to German-ruled territory or dispersed around Italy, but

11881-538: Was the policy of the Kingdom of Prussia to seek a degree of linguistic and cultural Germanisation, while in Imperial Germany a more intense form of cultural Germanisation was pursued, often with explicit intention of reducing the influence of other cultures or institutions, such as the Catholic Church. In the German Empire , Poles were portrayed as " Reichsfeinde " ("foes of the Empire"). In 1885

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