Is Austria Germany?

[Mickey Mike]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

I read that there is effort for ethnic preservation, of traditions and language, and a general ethnic feeling of being German-rather-than-Italian in the areas where Cimbrian dialects are spoken. But I would suspect that such efforts can be easily degenerated due to the general pressure for national homogenization.

My best friend family is cimbrian descent. It's quite common in this zone of the city.
I have been there several times and I didn't note any difference betwen them and "standard" veronese people. Some old men can speak the language, young guys can speak just a little bit. Nice place to visit very friendly people. Not sure about their ethnic feeling. they are a bit lighter in complexion on average. I think that they purely descend from those bavarian settlers because you had no reason to go there and that zone wasn't populated.. but i'm not sure. Yes, the truth is that cimbrians are not so far from downtown about 20 to 50 km and young guys are more worried about downtown discos than any other thing. Too bad it is an interesting place.

(my english is not good I speak perfect spanish does it count?)

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Dux

Interesting old map. It looks long ago... but not 100 years have yet passed.

My opinion is that if any division should exist, it should not be coincident with the current border between German and Austrian states. It does not seems to have any ethnic, sub-racial, linguistic or existencial basis.

The current border is rather a memory of past stalemates between the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns.

Additional maps based on other data and time periods:

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Mickey Mike

My best friend family is cimbrian descent. It's quite common in this zone of the city.
I have been there several times and I didn't note any difference betwen them and "standard" veronese people. Some old men can speak the language, young guys can speak just a little bit. Nice place to visit very friendly people. Not sure about their ethnic feeling. they are a bit lighter in complexion on average. I think that they purely descend from those bavarian settlers because you had no reason to go there and that zone wasn't populated.. but i'm not sure. Yes, the truth is that cimbrians are not so far from downtown about 20 to 50 km and young guys are more worried about downtown discos than any other thing. Too bad it is an interesting place.

I dont think their complexion has much relevance.

But what you say confirms my suspicions. National homogenization is more or less inevitable; with increased interregional communication and transportation, there is the trend that regional customs, tradition, language will be broken down everywhere, to the sterillized national "average", dictated by the state.

[Mickey Mike]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

I dont think their complexion has much relevance.

But what you say confirms my suspicions. National homogenization is more or less inevitable; with increased interregional communication and transportation, there is the trend that regional customs, tradition, language will be broken down everywhere, to the sterillized national "average", dictated by the state.

about complexion just describing. A trivia. Another trivia is that road bycicle racer - city hero Damiano Cunego is cimbrian. Yes is invevitable 14-25 guys study in downtown most 25-65 people work in downtown that community has no future. Enough said. Efforts are all in vain.
present-day italian national average is scaring by the way.. but You all know it. I stop I know I'm off-topic.

[sachsenkoenig]

Lets get to the point. Austria is just a country that didn't unite with Germany because of Prussian imperialism, other then that they are just as much or more German then German citizens. Their was a time when in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, that "Deutsch-Österreich" was a region that was the German part of the Empire, that consists of modern day Austria. Austrians, during and before WW2 considered themselves the same people. I think it is really dumb to judge the unity of two nations by a monarchy system too, Habsburgs is just a mixed-blooded monarchy system, are you saying the Austrians should unite with Spain? Spain was ruled by Habsburgs!

As a German, and to speak for most of the Germans on this site, I think we can all agree that Austrians(Germans) are Germans(Germans). It is undeniable! And to those who believe Bavaria should be independant don't understand Germany. Germany is a united country of more then one culture, every nation has more then one culture and that is the main distinction between Bavaria and the rest of Germany, nothing else. Bavarians are Germans with different cultural aspects to a decent.



-Wer kämpft, kann verlieren.
Wer nicht kämpft, hat schon verloren.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Mickey Mike

My best friend family is cimbrian descent. It's quite common in this zone of the city.
I have been there several times and I didn't note any difference betwen them and "standard" veronese people. Some old men can speak the language, young guys can speak just a little bit. Nice place to visit very friendly people. Not sure about their ethnic feeling. they are a bit lighter in complexion on average. I think that they purely descend from those bavarian settlers because you had no reason to go there and that zone wasn't populated.. but i'm not sure. Yes, the truth is that cimbrians are not so far from downtown about 20 to 50 km and young guys are more worried about downtown discos than any other thing. Too bad it is an interesting place.

(my english is not good I speak perfect spanish does it count?)

Many settlers came from lower Germany during the middle age, called either to populate areas as farmers (so there were entire families) or just as mercenaries who would settle down later, often marrying local women.

The Venetian republic also did the same, with people coming from any corner of the venetian dominions.

[Ferran]

According to one writing from Almeida Garrett, the greatest Portuguese poet of his epoque, we can see that in the early XIX century it was already common to side Austrians along with other ethnic Germans:

Not one time will be found in our writings the word "Spaniard" referring exclusively to the non-Portuguese inhabitant of the [Iberian] Peninsula. Whilst Castile was separated from Aragon, and only later united with León, etc, we and the other nations of the Spains: Aragonese, Granadins, Castilians, Portuguese, and all others, were by strangers and by ourselves called Spaniards; as well as still today we call German indistinctly to the Prussian, the Saxon, the Hannoverian or the Austrian, and as the Neapolitan, the Milanese, the Venetian and the Piedmontese, indistinctly receive the name of Italians.

Yes, I know it's risky to compare ethno-cultural forms of belonging, for they all vary from nation to nation, but hey, these first lines had to be posted somewhere.

[Germanicus]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

Austrians are Germans, they are of the same tribe like the Bavarians (Bajuvarian) with exceptions in the very west, those are of Alamanni origin, and there is a significant Slavic minority too.
The fact they themselves do not consider themselves as German in many, if not most cases, has to do with serious brainwashing and re-education.
Both, in the FRG and the Republic Austria the ruling classes do their best to make alternative history and one political view obligatory. In Austria e.g. all documents and movies showing the re-union in 1938 was frenetically celebrated were destroyed, one copy showing Hitler being acclaimed in Vienna survived that action. But actually Austrians themselves wanted to join the "Deutsches Reich" after the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918, the Entente powers did not allow this, today's claim Austria was annexed and the first vitim of Hitlers imperialist policy is ridiculous. I have a banknote originating from 1918/19, it states "Deutsch-Österreich" - German-Austria, to make sure it is not valid in countries of the former Imperium Austriacum.To go back further in history, in 1848 there were attempts to found a German national state including Austria, it failed because of the dynasties, the ruling Princes, and not because people would not have wanted it.
I have family in Austria, anytime anyone of them or one of their friends claim they were not Germans I reply they were indeed Balcanics - due to a an unknown reason they do not like this... in fact denying the own heritage caused an identity crisis.

Austria is denying itself, but they have an identity of their own, and culture, but for all other purposes they are of Germanic descent.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Germanicus

Austria is denying itself, but they have an identity of their own, and culture, but for all other purposes they are of Germanic descent.

No, you are wrong. Re-read his post.