Name: Syrian Germans
Language: German, Arabic
Religion: Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam
Ancestry: Germans, Arabs, Arameans
Phenotype: Ranging from Northern European to Middle Eastern
Population: Approximately 100,000 total in the whole world
Distribution: Historically Syria, nowadays Turkey, Western Europe, North America, and Australia
Culture: Fuses Central European and Levantine elements
History: Although many Crusaders did settle in Syria during the Middle Ages, with many of them being ethnic Germans, they quickly assimilated into the Arab majority when the Crusader states were conquered by the Mamluks. Similar to Bosporus Germans, the Syrian Germans formed as a distinct subgroup of the German ethnos during the Tanzimat Era of the Ottoman Empire, when in its attempt to modernize and Westernize, the Eternal State invited industrious and well-educated immigrants from all over German-speaking Europe to help develop the country, especially its most agrarian parts. Of course, the Bosporus, being at the heart of Istanbul, wasn't agrarian at all, but much of the Levant certainly was. This German immigrated especially accelerated towards the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Ottomans eventually sided with the Germans during the Great War, which they unfortunately lost, leading to the cession of Syria to France under the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. Under the French mandate, the Germans either voluntarily moved back to Germany (first exodus) or changed their names to French ones in order to avoid persecution. Although the post-WWII independent Syria was initially very Germanophilic and greatly admired the Germans for helping to build up the nation's infrastructure, the eventual Baathist regime wasn't so kind to them at all, which led to their second exodus out of Syria and into the West. Many churches were demolished or converted to mosques, and lots of villages formerly populated (and founded) by Germans were resettled with Arabs. The advent of the Syrian Civil War in the 21st century led to the third and final exodus of the Syrian Germans as part of the greater ongoing international Syrian Refugee Crisis, with many right-wing European politicians labeling them as "desirables" because of their European heritage despite fleeing from a Middle Eastern country. Naturally, the Syrian German refugees are much better off socioeconomically than the Syrian Arab and Syrian Kurdish refugees, and have integrated far better in their Western host countries.
Language: German, Arabic
Religion: Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam
Ancestry: Germans, Arabs, Arameans
Phenotype: Ranging from Northern European to Middle Eastern
Population: Approximately 100,000 total in the whole world
Distribution: Historically Syria, nowadays Turkey, Western Europe, North America, and Australia
Culture: Fuses Central European and Levantine elements
History: Although many Crusaders did settle in Syria during the Middle Ages, with many of them being ethnic Germans, they quickly assimilated into the Arab majority when the Crusader states were conquered by the Mamluks. Similar to Bosporus Germans, the Syrian Germans formed as a distinct subgroup of the German ethnos during the Tanzimat Era of the Ottoman Empire, when in its attempt to modernize and Westernize, the Eternal State invited industrious and well-educated immigrants from all over German-speaking Europe to help develop the country, especially its most agrarian parts. Of course, the Bosporus, being at the heart of Istanbul, wasn't agrarian at all, but much of the Levant certainly was. This German immigrated especially accelerated towards the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Ottomans eventually sided with the Germans during the Great War, which they unfortunately lost, leading to the cession of Syria to France under the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. Under the French mandate, the Germans either voluntarily moved back to Germany (first exodus) or changed their names to French ones in order to avoid persecution. Although the post-WWII independent Syria was initially very Germanophilic and greatly admired the Germans for helping to build up the nation's infrastructure, the eventual Baathist regime wasn't so kind to them at all, which led to their second exodus out of Syria and into the West. Many churches were demolished or converted to mosques, and lots of villages formerly populated (and founded) by Germans were resettled with Arabs. The advent of the Syrian Civil War in the 21st century led to the third and final exodus of the Syrian Germans as part of the greater ongoing international Syrian Refugee Crisis, with many right-wing European politicians labeling them as "desirables" because of their European heritage despite fleeing from a Middle Eastern country. Naturally, the Syrian German refugees are much better off socioeconomically than the Syrian Arab and Syrian Kurdish refugees, and have integrated far better in their Western host countries.