Could a Greater Germany assimilate Denmark, Czechia, Slovenia, Northern Italy, A-L without Genocide?

The point is that danes and other scandivians are not german. They are culturally and linguistically germanic, which is different. The dutch, the british, speak germanic languages too. But they are no more german than the latin french age spanish or than the latin portuguese are italian.
They would be German in this timeline, just like the Sorbs in the Bundesrepublic today are German. Or do you have a plan for the Second Reich, where only nations that qualify beforehand as 'something' are incorporated and others are thrown out?
 
They would be German in this timeline, just like the Sorbs in the Bundesrepublic today are German. Or do you have a plan for the Second Reich, where only nations that qualify beforehand as 'something' are incorporated and others are thrown out?

Decreeing that danes, dutch, ... etc, are german is not enough to turn them into actual germans. It takes a long process of 4 generations to successfully attempt to assimilate other people. And it does not always work : just consider the poles that were under prussian rule for some 120 years for an example of the resilience of cultural/national identities.
 
Decreeing that danes, dutch, ... etc, are german is not enough to turn them into actual germans. It takes a long process of 4 generations to successfully attempt to assimilate other people. And it does not always work : just consider the poles that were under prussian rule for some 120 years for an example of the resilience of cultural/national identities.
I was considering them, since they were part of the Second Reich OTL, so why not the Scandinavians? Any nationality could have been part of it as long as the majority is solidly German, since there was some German nationalism involved as basis of the state. Whether the OP would succeed is another matter:
... could the Second Reich assimilate those areas [...], or at least get them to see themselves as Germans first by the present?
Perhaps, if the state has been solid since then. As the Polish General said when he surrendered in 1944: "Ich war auch Österreicher."
 
I was considering them, since they were part of the Second Reich OTL, so why not the Scandinavians? Any nationality could have been part of it as long as the majority is solidly German, since there was some German nationalism involved as basis of the state.

Why were the (well some) Poles part of the second German Empire? Becuase they were part of Prussia. Prussia manage to get several Polish areas in the 17th and 18th century before the age of nationalism and during the congress of Vienna it never lost them. So when Germany was founded (by Prussia) Prussia simply kept their parts of Poland. If the Poles were given a choice, I doubt they would have chosen to become German. The same wasn't true for Denmark (or the Netherlands and Flanders). Like the Poles they were obviously not German and did not want to become part of Germany. Unlike the Poles though, they were all part of indpendent nations. Actualy this is not entirly true. There were several Danes living in Schleswig, which was part of Germany (well the German Confederation), so they ended up (by force) as part of Germany when Prussia was consolidating its power. They never realy ended up German, since after WWI Germany lost (most of) the Danish parts to Denmark, which were so Danish not even Hitleradded them to Germany.

So in short, why didn't Denmark or the Netherlands (or even Switserland) become part of the German Empire? Because they weren't German and didn't live in a German country and the only way to add them to Germany was an agressive unprovoked war with those countries that probably would isolate Germany.
 
Why were the (well some) Poles part of the second German Empire? Becuase they were part of Prussia. Prussia manage to get several Polish areas in the 17th and 18th century before the age of nationalism and during the congress of Vienna it never lost them. So when Germany was founded (by Prussia) Prussia simply kept their parts of Poland. If the Poles were given a choice, I doubt they would have chosen to become German.
Prussia could have chosen to cede these areas, if Germanness was considered important to the leadership in the 2nd Reich. (Instead they discriminated the Poles, didn't they?)
So in short, why didn't Denmark or the Netherlands (or even Switserland) become part of the German Empire? Because they weren't German and didn't live in a German country and the only way to add them to Germany was an agressive unprovoked war with those countries that probably would isolate Germany.
We were just told above that Denmark was rejected to avoid threatening Britain. (Whether the Danish parliament and population would have agreed with their king is another matter.)
 
Prussia could have chosen to cede these areas, if Germanness was considered important to the leadership in the 2nd Reich. (Instead they discriminated the Poles, didn't they?)

Yes Prussia could have gotten rid of the Polish areas. But you have to realise what the Unification of Germany actualy was:
Prussia using German nationalism to strengthen Prussia as much as possible.

That is why for example Austria never became part of Germany, because it would weaken the influence of Prussia in Germany. Of course Prussia would not lose the Polish areas, because that would mean less influence/power for Prussia.

We were just told above that Denmark was rejected to avoid threatening Britain. (Whether the Danish parliament and population would have agreed with their king is another matter.)
The last part is very important for assimilation of the Danes. If the Danish population does not want to be German, they will not assimilate into Germany and will not consider themselves German, just like the Poles never became German.

Could Denmark be part of Germany? In theory yes, I guess so. Well, maybe not. What the Danish king offered (as far as I know) was Denmark becoming part of the German Confederation, which was not actualy the German Empire. Several parts of the German Confederation did not end up becoming part of the German Empire, like Luxemburg, like (Dutch) Limburg, like Austria and Lichtenstein. The German Empire was founded in 1871, not before. It was an agreement between several German states to unify and several states remained outside of it. It is very likely that Denmark would not join those states, even if they had become members of the German confederation.
 
Question about the Danes, would a status similar to the Scots in the UK, where their separate identity is acknowledged and respected and they have a disproportionate influence to the point they wouldn't consider leaving until the empire was in serious decline (like the UK now) close enough to be considered "assimilated".

Also, Czech was in serious trouble in the mid 1800s, until revived by nationalists. Jail the nationalists, make Prague German?
 
Question about the Danes, would a status similar to the Scots in the UK, where their separate identity is acknowledged and respected and they have a disproportionate influence to the point they wouldn't consider leaving until the empire was in serious decline (like the UK now) close enough to be considered "assimilated".

Also, Czech was in serious trouble in the mid 1800s, until revived by nationalists. Jail the nationalists, make Prague German?

No if Danes are part of German state voluntary, the kingdom of Bavaria would be the model, in such a Empire the Danes will be states rights über allies.

Also some people have written about a linguistic assimilation of the Danes, that would demand a 16th century POD, Danish had by the 19th century a a long if somewhat mediocre literate tradition, and the majority of Danes was literate, he only Danes which was assimilated into German speakers, had used German as Church language for centuries, and spoke a dialect radical different from standard Dnish.
 
Why genocide, that is almost like you knew... germans will make clear german is the official language for education, jobs and goverment but at times germans didn't care about the 'home language' so i think is possible barring a desintegration that slowly all states might get regional co-official languages with german but the further you got into the interior and to frankfurt(or berlin or whetever the capital will be) german is the language you always need to use.

So when money comes people will think as german of X ancestry.
 
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