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''Volksdeutsche'' is a Nazi term to describe "Germans in terms of people or race". The term usually denotes the people living roughly in the area that the Romans referred to as Magna Germania. The term is the nominalised plural of ''volksdeutsch'', with Volksdeutsche denoting a single female, and Volksdeutsche(r), a male single. The words ''Volk'' and ''völkisch'' conveyed the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilisation and blood.〔As to older meanings of völkisch see Völkisch movement.〕 These terms were used by Nazis to define people in terms of 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.〔The Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations: S-Z Cathal J. Nolan, page 1793, 2002〕 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.〔Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus by Cornelia Schmitz-Berning 1998, page 651〕 The difference between 'Imperial German' and 'Ethnic German' 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 during 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.〔Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945 by Valdis O. Lumans 1993, page 23〕 ==Origin of the term== 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 "people 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referred to the National Socialist concepts of blood and race, in connection with the concept of ''volksdeutsch'' were rescinded. For Hitler and the other ethnic Germans of his time, the term "Volksdeutsche" also carried overtones of blood and race not captured in the common English translation "ethnic Germans". According to German estimates in the 1930s, about 30 million Volksdeutsche and Auslandsdeutsche (German citizens residing abroad, see McKale 1977: ''The Swastika Outside Germany'', p. 4) were living outside the Reich. A significant proportion of them were in Central Europe: Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia, where many were located in villages along the Danube, and Russia. Many of their ancestors had migrated to non-German-speaking European countries in the 18th century, invited by governments that wanted to repopulate areas decimated by the Ottoman Empire occupation and sometimes by disease. The Nazi goal of expansion assigned the ''Volksdeutsche'' a special role in German plans, to bring them back to German citizenship and elevate them to power over the native populations in those areas. The Nazis detailed such goals in ''Generalplan Ost''.〔Bergen, Doris. "The Nazi Concept of 'Volksdeutsche' and the Exacerbation of Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, 1939-45", ''Journal of Contemporary History,'' Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct. 1994), pp. 569-582〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Volksdeutsche」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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