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''Umvolkung'' () is a term in
Nazi ideology Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was freque ...
used to describe a process of assimilation of members of the
German people Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
(the ''
Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to :wikt:people, people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of ''People, a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the E ...
'') as a way for them to forget about their language and their origin. As a
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
, it echoes ''
Umpolung In organic chemistry, umpolung () or polarity inversion is the chemical modification of a functional group with the aim of the reversal of Chemical polarity, polarity of that group. This modification allows secondary reactions of this functional g ...
'', 'polarity inversion', leading to an interpretation akin to "ethnicity inversion". The term is also used to describe the "re-
Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...
" of the German people, after new ''
Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...
'' was conquered and the German people who already resided there would become more German again. Umvolkung in the first sense was seen as a negative process during the
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
, while the second process was seen as more desirable.


Origin and background

The term was invented by Albert Brackmann, a leader of the '' Ostforschung'', a research organization that investigated the character and attitudes (''Verhalten'') of people living in areas east of the German Reich, such as Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia and Romania. There was a plan to conquer almost all of Eastern Europe and process the ''Umvolkung'' so that all of the formerly German people who had slowly assimilated and mixed with other ethnicities would again become more German.


Use of the word today

In contemporary politics, the term (or translations thereof, e.g. Dutch "omvolking"), is increasingly used by far-right groups and political parties to describe the process of
replacement migration In demography, replacement migration is a theory of migration needed for a region to achieve a particular objective (demographic, economic or social). Generally, studies using this concept have as an objective to avoid the decline of total popula ...
e.g.
Marjolein Faber Marjolein Hillegonda Monica Faber-van de Klashorst (born 16 June 1960) is a Dutch politician for the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV), who served as Minister of Asylum and Migration in the Schoof cabinet from 2 July 2024 to 3 June ...
, politician member of the PVV. It suggested by left-wing groups and parties that this term concept denotes a nazi-
conspiracy theory A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...
(or otherwise, a modern conspiracy known as the
Great Replacement The Great Replacement (), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a debunked white nationalist far-right conspiracy theoryPT71. espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicit ...
), suggesting that right-wing politicians spread the belief that "the elite" is intentionally replacing indigenous people by stimulating immigration and thus the growth of originally foreign populations, in order to ultimately exterminate European peoples, also known as the
White genocide conspiracy theory The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims there is a deliberate plot (often blamed on Jews) to cause the extinction of white people through forced assimila ...
. It is clear that the contemporary use of the term means exactly the opposite of its original use. Within nazism, the term was not used to suggest that, say, the Jews wanted to destroy the Germanic race through immigration.


See also

*
Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...
*
Generalplan Ost The (; ), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the settlement and "Germanization" of captured territory in Eastern Europe, involving the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and o ...
*
Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...
*
Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to :wikt:people, people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of ''People, a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the E ...
*
Glossary of Nazi Germany This is a list of words, terms, concepts and slogans of Nazi Germany used in the historiography covering the Nazi regime. Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members. Other words and concepts were borrowed and appropriated, ...


References

* {{Cite web , url=https://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/BEITRAG/essays/fami0500.htm , title=Für Volk, Führer und Reich! Volkstumsforschung und Volkstumspolitik 1931-1945 , language=german

Nazi terminology Germanization German words and phrases