Constructing a German Diaspora : The "Greater German Empire", 1871-1914

German unification in 1871 had a significant impact on those Germans who found themselves living outside, or migrating across, the borders of the newly founded Empire. Migrants’ redefined their relationship with their country of origin and were increasingly represented as outposts of ‘Germanness’ whose ethnic links with the mother country had to be preserved for their own and the Empire’s benefits. Germans worldwide underwent a redefinition from geographically scattered and disparate groups to being a unified transnational ‘community of spirit’. This book is the first to specifically focus on the construction of an imagined homogeneous and Reich-focused diaspora through public discourse.  It shows the ways in which the ‘Greater German Empire’ did not remain a fictitious construct but became embedded in migrants’ sense of national belonging and ethnic identity.

This book takes on a global perspective to unravel the complex relationship between Imperial Germany and its diaspora. Around 1900, German-speakers living abroad were tied into global power-political aspirations. They were represented as outposts of a "Greater German Empire" whose ethnic links had to be preserved for their own and the fatherland’s benefits. Did these ideas fall on fertile ground abroad? In the light of extreme social, political, and religious heterogeneity, diaspora construction did not redeem the all-encompassing fantasies of its engineers. But it certainly was at work, as nationalism "went global" in many German ethnic communities. Three thematic areas are taken as examples to illustrate the emergence of globally operating organizations and communication flows: Politics and the navy issue, Protestantism, and German schools abroad as "bulwarks of language preservation." The public negotiation of these issues is explored for localities as diverse as Shanghai, Cape Town, Blumenau in Brazil, Melbourne, Glasgow, the Upper Midwest in the United States, and the Volga Basin in Russia. The mobilisation of ethno-national diasporas is also a feature of modern-day globalization. The theoretical ramifications analysed in the book are as poignant today as they were for the nineteenth century.