Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938)
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Ethnic Germans in the Bohemian Forest
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
c. 3,252,000 in 1910 |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia | |
| Languages | |
|
Bavarian and Austrian dialects Silesian Upper Saxon Erzgebirgisch East Franconian Upper Lusatian Standard German |
|
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholic majority, Lutheran Protestant minority | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germans, Czechs, Austrians, Silesians, Poles |
German Bohemians, later known as the Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of the state of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over three million such German Bohemians, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the whole republic and about 29.5 percent of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into Bohemia, a part of the Holy Roman Empire, since the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of the Sudetenland, in a process of German expansion known as Ostsiedlung. They became known as the Sudeten Germans after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which was a consequence of the First World War. After 1945, most ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia to Germany and Austria.
The area that became known as the Sudetenland possessed chemical works and lignite mines, as well as textile, china, and glass factories. The Bohemian border with Bavaria was inhabited primarily by Germans. The Upper Palatine Forest, which extends along the Bavarian frontier and into the agricultural areas of southern Bohemia, was an area of German settlement. Moravia contained patches of "locked" German territory to the north and south. More characteristic were the German language islands: towns inhabited by German minorities and surrounded by Czechs.
Not all ethnic Germans lived in isolated and well-defined areas; for historical reasons, Czechs and Germans mixed in many places and at least a partial knowledge of the second language was quite common. Nevertheless, since the second half of the 19th century, Czechs and Germans created separate cultural, educational, political and economic institutions which kept both groups isolated from each other. This form of separation continued until the end of the Second World War, when the Germans were expelled.
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