MundoAndino Home : Argentina Guide at MundoAndino
German settlement in Argentina
Topics: German-Argentines Immigration to Argentina
German Argentines are Argentines of German descent. The term "German" is an extremely vague and imprecise concept. Ethnic Germans immigrated to the Argentina not only from Germany, but also from Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, former Yugoslavia and elsewhere across Europe. Some German-Argentines, or their ancestors, have originally settled in Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, or Uruguay first, then later on immigrated to Argentina. Germany as a political entity was founded only in 1871, but German language and culture have traditionally been of more importance than the country of origin as a basis for ethnic consciousness and nationalism. Beside that, "Germans" speak in many different dialects named after specific regions like Friesian, Pomeranian, Prussian, Swabian, Plautdietsch, Hunsruckisch, Volga Germans and others. Germans today make up the third largest group in Argentina with well over 1,200,000 Volga Germans alone. Thousands of German-Argentines had become professionals and technicians like doctors, bureaucrats, teachers and soldiers. They took strong influence into the Argentine education system and many German schools emerged. Many German businessmen and professionals believed that Argentina was industrializing and would become more dependent from German advanced technology. Indeed the Argentine military planned recruiting large numbers of German scientists and technologists for new steel and other industries. Also creating German-language newspapers, the Argentinisches Tageblatt meaning in German the "Argentine Daily".
When the first wave of German physicists arrived in Argentina during the decade before 1914, they would have found a large German community centered around the capital. Between 1885 and the First World War the population of Argentina doubled with the influx of three million immigrants, 100,000 of whom spoke German. Strong German communities developed in Argentina, and especially in Buenos Aires with their own schools, hospitals, shops, theaters, sport clubs and banks. Many in the upper middle class feared assimilation and maintained strong ties to German culture, providing high-quality German instruction so that their children would not be at a disadvantage when they returned to Germany. German power lay in the manpower of the German colonies, in the political force of the National Socialist and Pan-German ideologies, in the strong personal and political influence exerted by the two on Argentine society, and in the German economic empire extended into Argentina. During the 1920s and 1930s the German-speaking collectives had strong influence in Argentine politics. After World War I and World War II due to the social situation in Germany and due to the fact that large German colonies already existed, many German speakers emigrated again to Argentina. After the large Wave of Germans coming to Argentina in World War I and II, another notable time period was in 1970-1 where Germans emigrated to Argentina than to the USA .
Upon the invitation of Catherine the Great, 25,000 Germans immigrated to the Volga valley of Russia to establish 104 German Villages from 1764-1767. A century after the first Germans had settled in the Volga region, Russia passed legislation that revoked many of the privileges promised to them by Catherine the Great. The sentiment in Russia became decidedly anti-German. Russia first made changes to the German local government. In 1874, a new military law decreed that all male Russian subjects, when they reached the age of 20, were eligible to serve in the military for 6 years. For the German colonists, this law represented a breach of faith. In the 1880s the Russia began a subtle attack on the German schools.
Related websites
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article German settlement in Argentina
