Volksdeutsche

In terminology of Nazi Germany, Volksdeutsche (German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlksˌdɔʏtʃə]) were "Germans in terms of people or race", regardless of citizenship. The term is the nominalised plural of , with Volksdeutsche denoting a singular female, and Volksdeutsche(r), a singular male. The words Volk and völkisch conveyed the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilisation and blood. These terms were used by Nazis to define Germans on the basis of their 'race' (although in modern terminology, this is their ethnicity) rather than citizenship and thus included Germans living beyond the borders of the Reich, as long as they were not of Jewish origin. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans (Reichsdeutsche), German citizens living within Germany. The term also contrasts with the usage of the term Auslandsdeutsche (Germans abroad/German expatriate) since 1936, which generally denotes German citizens residing in other countries. The difference between 'Imperial German' and 'Ethnic German' was that those designated as being ethnic Germans did not have paperwork to prove their legal citizenship to work or vote within the country though some were from either Germany or lost territories of Germany taken during and after the First World War.

Volksdeutsche were further divided into 'racial' groups—a minority within a minority in a state—with a special cultural, social and historic development as described by Nazis.

According to the historian Doris Bergen, Adolf Hitler is reputed to have coined the definition of "Volksdeutsche" which appeared in a 1938 memorandum of the German Reich Chancellery. In that document, the Volksdeutsche were defined as "races whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." After 1945 the Nazi laws of 1935 in Germany and their relevant paragraphs that referred to the National Socialist concepts of blood and race in connection with the concept of volksdeutsch were rescinded.

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