Abstract
Those who contend that the classic conception of the nation-state is a hindrance to the better understanding of the peoples of the world can regard the expulsion, i.e., the effects of it, as a factor which contributed to the decline of this concept, at least to the presently known form of it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
“In the immediate post-World War II period, the idea of the mono-national state was prevalent in East Central Europe. However, in recent years we can observe (as for instance in connection with the deportations in Hungary in 1951) the impact of the Soviet Union through the razvods and vyvods which make the population more and more uniformized ‘Soviet people’.” Rhode, op. cit., p. 116.
Professor Eugen Lemberg visualizes a “Götterdämmerung,” as he terms it, of the nationstates in the not too distant future.
Gustav Stresemann, the great German statesman of the Weimar era, was adorned by the West with the ephitet “German European”.
The term national minorities (ethnic minorities or nationalities) refers to groups of citizens possessing such ethnic and cultural characteristics which distinguish them from the majority nation, their fellow citizens in the same state, and who have the necessary consciousness of (their) kind.
Gotthold Rhode, “Völker auf dem Weg”, Schriften des Schleswig-Holsteinischen Geschichtslehrer Verbandes: Neue Folge, I., 1952, p. 24.
It should be recalled, however, that the Sudeten Germans became minorities only in 1919 with the creation of Czechoslovakia; earlier they belonged to the German speaking population of Austria.
In this connection it is interesting to note that in the city of Bolzano (Bozen), which is in the center of the present dispute between Austria and Italy over the treatment of South Tyrolese Austrians in Italy, the issue of industrialization plays a major role. Austria claims that the abnormal growth of the Italian population and the decrease of the indigenous German speaking population in that city (before World War I purely Austrian) is due not only to political pressure, but to artificially fostered industrialization and resulting migrations.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1962 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Paikert, G.C. (1962). Nation-State, National Minorities and the Expulsion. In: The German exodus. Publications of the Research Group for European Migration Problems, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0957-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0957-2_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-015-0376-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-0957-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive