Pan-Germanism

"Großdeutschland" redirects here. For other uses, see Großdeutschland (disambiguation).

Pan-Germanism (German: Pangermanismus or Alldeutsche Bewegung), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also non-German Germanic-speaking peoples – in a single nation-state known as the Greater Germanic Reich (German: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German: Großgermanisches Reich der Deutschen Nation).

A hypothetical union of the German-speaking territories after World War I: the Weimar Republic, German Austria, Switzerland, the Sudetenland, Luxembourg, East Belgium, Liechtenstein and Alsace–Lorraine.
1908 map of the German dialect continuum
German-speaking areas in Central and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century (1925 map).

Pan-Germanism was highly influential in German politics in the 19th century during the unification of Germany when the German Empire was proclaimed as a nation-state in 1871 but without Habsburg Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein (Kleindeutsche Lösung/Lesser Germany) and the first half of the 20th century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire. From the late 19th century, many Pan-Germanist thinkers, since 1891 organized in the Pan-German League, had adopted openly ethnocentric and racist ideologies, and ultimately gave rise to the foreign policy Heim ins Reich pursued by Nazi Germany under Austrian-born Adolf Hitler from 1938, one of the primary factors leading to the outbreak of World War II.[1][2][3][4] As a result of the Second World War, there was a clear backlash against Pan-Germanism and other related ideologies. Today, pan-Germanism is mainly limited to a few nationalist groups, mainly on the political far right in Germany and Austria.

  1. ^ "Pan-Germanism (German political movement) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  2. ^ Origins and Political Character of Nazi Ideology Hajo Holborn Political Science Quarterly Vol. 79, No. 4 (Dec. 1964), p.550
  3. ^ "Slik ble vi germanersvermere – magasinet". Dagbladet.no. 7 May 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  4. ^ Mees, Bernard (2008). The Science of the Swastika. Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9776-18-0.