Galician Germans

German language islands in the middle of Austrian Galicia (1880)

The Galician Germans (German: Galiziendeutsche) were an ethnic German population living in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire, established in 1772 as a result of the First Partition of Poland, and after World War I in the four voivodeships of interwar Poland: Kraków, Lwów, Tarnopol, and Stanisławów. During World War II, part of the Galician Germans were relocated in January 1940 in the course of Heim ins Reich; the majority of the remaining population later fled the region in 1944–1945.