Speaker(s):
Stefan Manz
Location:
UW Madison Campus – UNION SOUTH
Description:
By 1914, after decades of mass emigration, Germans were to be found in all parts of the world. Ethnic communities ranged from large-scale ‘Little Germanies’ in the United States or Brazil to small merchant communities in Western Europe, East Asia and other regions. Finding themselves in a multitude of different settings, Germans created hybrid identities and different host-minority relationships. At the same time the internal cohesion of their communities was limited due to persisting regional, religious, political, and class affiliations. In public discourse, however, they were increasingly represented as outposts of a ‘Greater German Empire’ whose ethnic links with the mother country had to be preserved for their own and the Empire’s benefits. This lecture looks at how Germans in the diaspora underwent a redefinition from geographically scattered and disparate groups to an ostensibly unified transnational ‘community of spirit,’ which ultimately changed their sense of national belonging and ethnic identity.
Stefan Manz is a Senior Lecturer in German at Aston University in Birmingham, UK.