The German Question, Part Fifty-Seven

"Bismarck" Part Five/B "Bismarck as Chancellor & A Treaty With 'Contentious Relatives' "
"Ethnic Minorities in Bismarckian Germany/East"

Bismarck and other Germans feared a repeat of what had been happening in Austria for quite some time, and the major reason Austria was no longer a part of Germany; that is, large areas of territory governed by German Austrians, but with non-German majorities (namely: Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians/Ruthenians, Rumanians, Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Italians, and some others, including Jews. I never feel comfortable listing Jews separately, but they were often seen that way by the Germans and by the various other groups I've listed above; and, that perceived "separateness" will play a major part in the ugly tragedy I will be covering in the not too distant future as a part of this series). In then northeastern Bismarckian Germany (within the state of Prussia), there was a fairly substantial Lithuanian population (more than 100,000), many of whom, unlike the solidly Catholic Lithuanians just over the border, were Lutherans. They spoke both German and Lithuanian, and they maintained their Lithuanian culture with Lithuanian language newspapers and community groups. While certainly not all agreed, from what I've read, the overwhelming majority supported Prussia, and then, upon unification, Germany, in their allegiance.* Likewise was the case with the Slavic elements in and around the city of Danzig, and other small Slavic minorities along the Baltic coastal area, and in eastern parts of Prussia (to clarify: they were minorities in the overall sense of Prussia, but they "may" have actually had local majorities in "some" communities). They too spoke their own Slavic dialects, but they also spoke German, with many using German as a first language. Many were also Lutheran, although a fairly small portion maintained their adherence to Catholicism.** Where there was a major difference was in those former Polish territories taken by Prussia in the late 1700s, early 1800s, the city of "Posen" ("Poznan," in Polish) being one of the major cities.*** Here not everyone spoke German as a first, or even as a second, language, and Polish was the every day language of a majority of the population. The region's population was around 1,750,000, and about two-thirds of that was Polish. The Poles remained Catholics, whereas the German minority in the region was largely Lutheran, with only a small percentage of Germans there being Catholic.****

Bismarck's "Kulturkampf" and later laws forbade the use of Polish in Catholic Mass. Polish language religious schools were closed, with German language schools substituted. The government then tried to buy Polish-owned land, usually farmland, and sell it to new "German" settlers. Further, Poles were forbidden to build new homes. Later, the government even tried to force Poles to sell their properties. Overall the policy failed, as too few "Germans" were willing to resettle in the region. Poles and Jews "identified" as Russian citizens were sent to Russia, and the border was closed to admitting Poles.^

The whole process only intensified Polish nationalism and the desire of Poles to see a rebirth of an independent Polish nation.

Next, "minorities in the western areas".... (A Word History is below the notes)

* Lithuania itself was then a part of the Russian Empire, which had a far less tolerant government concerning Lithuanian language and culture, and where publications in Lithuanian were suppressed. Lithuanian is a language classified by some linguists as "Baltic," and by other linguists as "Balto-Slavic." It is related to Latvian and to the now "dead language," Prussian. The last speaker of Prussian, by all accounts, passed on in the 1700s. The names "Prussia" and "Prussians" continued, but they were adopted by the German settlers to that area centuries before. Since the end of World War Two, due to other nations' strong association of Prussia with German militarism and aggression, the state of "Prussia" was abolished.

** The Wends (or Sorbs), in the region (called "Lausitz" in German; rendered as "Lusatia in English) somewhat south of Berlin, down to what is now the border with the Czech Republic, were similar. They tended to speak both German and Sorbian (a minority spoke only Sorbian) and they were a mixture of Lutheran and Catholic. A couple of the main cities of the region are Bautzen and Cottbus. Today, the number of Sorbian speakers (about 50,000 to 60,000) is quite diminished from Bismarck's time, when somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 people spoke Sorbian as a first or second language in the region, as today most people prefer German only.

*** Silesia ("Schlesien" in German, "Śląsk" in Polish ) was another region where some areas had Polish majorities.

**** More than a quarter million Poles left the Polish areas of eastern Germany to work in the heavily industrialized Ruhr area in western Germany. There, they endured various persecutions, including special ID cards and suppression of Polish festivities, as well as the same persecutions as German Catholics, because of their staunch Catholicism. Since those times, the "mixing" (assimilation) of Poles with Germans in the region has eliminated this Polish minority.

^ In those times, the vast bulk of Polish territory, including Warsaw, was part of the Russian Empire, and thus Germany and Russia shared a common border.

WORD HISTORY:
Danke (Thanks)-This word is pretty well known in English, and it simply means "thanks." It, like its English cousin "thank," go back to Indo European "tong," which meant "to think, to feel," and yes, it is related to our word "think" and to German "denk(en)," which also means "to think." A variant Indo European form, "teng," had the notion of "being thoughtful, having grateful thoughts, to think of in a grateful way," to the act of expressing such. The Indo European form gave Old Germanic "thanka(z)." This then gave Old English "thankian," and Old High German "dancon." Later English dropped the ending, giving it the modern word. The Old High German form then became "danken," and that is still the same today. The shortened form in German, "danke," comes from "Ich danke," meaning "I thank." The 1500s saw the negative expression of blame, as in, "Thanks to you being so slow, we are now late for the concert." The noun "thank," now more commonly expressed in the plural, "thanks," is from the idea of "a thought of gratitude." Besides the German and English forms, the other Germanic languages have: Low German has "dank," Dutch has "danken," Frisian has "tank," Danish has "tak," Swedish has "tacka," Norwegian has "takk," Icelandic has "thakka." Notice that Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic, all from the North Germanic branch of Germanic, have lost the "n" sound.