German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University and
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom.

For centuries, Germans have been establishing German diasporas. (“German diaspora” in this book refers to people who migrated from places where the majority spoke German to places where the majority did not. Hence, “German” includes people from what are now Austria, Switzerland, and Sudetenland.) To the east, there were no mighty rivers or mountain ranges to identify clear boundaries. Opportunities beckoned for intelligent, hard-working people. With the failure of the 1848 attempts to make Germany more democratic, German liberals relocated to the United States, Australia, and temperate South America. Religious minorities and other Germans came to Canada. Late in the 19th century, Imperial Germany established colonies in Africa and Oceania. Between 1945 and 1950, fugitives from the Third Reich fled to Argentina, while hundreds of thousands of more innocent people began new lives elsewhere.

Some diasporas retained their German identity for several generations, but others quickly assimilated into the dominant culture. This book identifies which fell into each category, and it explains the circumstances that produced different outcomes. As the German language disappeared, members of the diaspora retained such aspects of their heritage as music, religion, cleanliness, and orderliness. It discusses the impact that German diasporas had on the larger societies which surrounded them, as well as their abrupt expulsions from Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland and from what became Polish territory east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. Chapter 35 reviews activities of Werner von Braun and fellow space scientists in the United States.

This book resulted from a 2006 conference in Waterloo, Ontario. Each of the 38 chapters has a different author, most of whom are professors at universities from 13 countries on six continents (not Antarctica). Quotations usually appear in the German-language original without English translation.

Any disappointment from this well researched and already voluminous book stems from omissions. Argentina does not even appear in the index. A chapter on West German bribes to Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu so that ethnic Germans could move to the Federal Republic of Germany would have been interesting. Nevertheless, on the basis of what is here, congratulations are in order for publisher and authors.