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Pan-Germanism's origins began long ago in the early 1800's following the Napoleonic Wars. The Wars started by Napoleon launched a massive new movement that was born in France during the French Revolution, Nationalism. Nationalism during the 1800's was a death toll for the rulers. Many ethnic groups of Central and Eastern Europe had been divided for centuries, ruled over by the old Monarchies of the Romanovs and the Habsburgs. Germans, for the most part, were a loose and disunited people since the Reformation when the Holy Roman Empire was shattered into a patchwork of states. The people, mostly young reformers, sought to unite all the German-speaking and ethnic-German (Volksdeutschen) people.
By the 1860's, Prussia and Austria were the two nations moving in on modern-day Germany. The Austrian empire was often criticized though by Germans living within and outside the empire alike for its multi-ethnic base. Prussia, under Otto von Bismarck, would end up riding on the back of Nationalism to unite all of modern-day Germany. The German Empire would be finished in 1871 following the crowning of William I. The problem was that many ethnic Germans still lived outside of the new empire. These groups would use Pan-Germanism to try and push unity with the Fatherland. Regions like Austria and the Sudetenland would become the center of controversy.
Austrians themselves began to resent their own Empire. Being the descendents of the Bavarians who conquered the region as well as speaking German, many Western Austrians supported a separation from the Habsburg Empire and unity with the German Empire.
Following World War I, German influence over Eastern Europe was crushed. Germany was humiliated and Austria was shattered. The creation of PolandThe Republic of Poland a country in Central Europe, lies between Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Russia (in the form of the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave) t, CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia ( Czech: Ceskoslovensko Slovak: Cesko-Slovensko before 1990 Ceskoslovensko ) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1992 (except for the World War II period). On January 1, 1993, it peacefully split into the Czech Repu, HungaryThe Republic of Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. It is known locally as the Country of the Magyars or Magyarorszag''. Magyar Koztarsasag ( In Detail) ( Full s, and the expansion of RomaniaRomania (formerly spelled Rumania or Roumania is a country in southeastern Europe. Romania is bordered by Ukraine and Moldova in the northeast, Hungary and Serbia in the west and Bulgaria to the south. Romania also has a small sea coast on the Black Sea. would end up separating the German folk, once united under the two empires of Austria and Germany. After WW1, many of the Slavic states were prejudiced against the German minorities, especially in formerly Habsburg-controlled lands. Alligations of racism and oppression were made. After he seized power in Germany, Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler ( April 20, 1889 April 30, 1945) was the Fuhrer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. In that capacity he was Chancellor of Germany, head of government, and head of state, ruling as a began a radical policy of exploiting Pan-Germanism. The Sudetenland, a crest-shaped region on the western fringe of the modern-day Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic ( Czech: Ceska republika is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The republic borders Poland to the north, Germany to the northwest and west, Austria to the south, and Slovakia to the east. Historic Prague, a major tourist attraction, was the centre of controversy. The region was in majority a German land that was given to Czechoslovakia as a buffer-zone from any future German aggression. Adolf Hitler used the "oppression" of the Germans in Eastern Europe to justify invasion. In early 1938, Austria, with a German population of over 90% of the country, was subsuquently annexed by Germany. In late 1938, the SudetenlandSudetenland was the name used before 1918 and in 1938 45 for the region inhabited mostly by Sudeten Germans ( German: Sudetendeutsche in the various places of Bohemia. The region was only partly confined to the mountains of Sudeten). In 1918 38 and after issue was debated at the Munich Conference. The region, with nearly 3 million Germans living in it, was given to Hitler's Germany after an overwhelming vote.
By the height of World War II, Austrians, Sudetens, Alsatians, Transyvanian Germans, and Baltic Germans were all under the control of Nazi Germany. Though it was good for some, it was bad for others. The Nazis began relocating and re-settling Germans throughout Europe based upon their own plans, regardless of what the Eastern European Germans might have wanted.