ethnic German
Culturally Germanic person
An ethnic German is a person of German ancestry or cultural heritage, regardless of citizenship or country of residence.
The term distinguishes people by lineage rather than nationality—particularly relevant for German-descended populations historically scattered across Eastern Europe and Russia: After World War II, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The concept figured prominently in Nazi ideology justifying territorial expansion to unite ethnic Germans under one state.
- diasporaScattered population sharing origins
- ancestryFamily line of descent
- heritageInherited cultural legacy
- PrussiaFormer German kingdom
- TransylvaniaRomanian historical region
Eastern Europe · Danube · Swabian · expulsion · resettlement · homeland · motherland · Germanness · old country · ancestral homeland · refugee · displaced · Alsatian · Baltic · migration · assimilation · lineage · folk
- diaspora languagesPennsylvania Dutch, heritage language, heritage speakers, Yiddish
ethnic, ethnicity, ethnically, ethnics, ethno, German, Germany, Germanic, Germans