Editing Volksdeutsche (section)

==Origin of the term ''Volksdeutsche''==
According to the historian [[Doris Bergen]], Adolf Hitler [[Neologism|coined]] the definition of {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} which appeared in a 1938 memorandum of the German [[Reich Chancellery]].  That document defined {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} as "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship".<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Bergen|first=Doris|date=1994|title=The Nazi Concept of 'Volksdeutsche' and the Exacerbation of Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe 1939–45|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|volume=29|issue=4|pages=569–582|doi=10.1177/002200949402900402|s2cid=159788983}}</ref>  After 1945, the Nazi citizenship laws of 1935 ({{interlanguage link|Reichsbürgergesetz|de|Reichsbürgergesetz}}){{snd}}and the associated regulations that referred to the National Socialist concepts of blood and race in connection with the concept of ''volksdeutsch''{{snd}}were rescinded in Germany.

For [[Adolf Hitler]] and the other [[ethnic Germans]] of his time, the term "{{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche|italic=no}}" also carried overtones of blood and race not captured in the common [[English language|English]] translation "ethnic Germans".  According to German estimates in the 1930s, about 30 million {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} and Auslandsdeutsche (German citizens residing abroad) lived outside the Reich.<ref name=":2" />  A significant proportion of them were in [[Eastern Europe]] – i.e., [[Poland]], [[Ukraine]], the [[Baltic states]], and [[Romania]], [[Hungary]] and [[Slovakia]], where many were located in villages along the [[Danube]] and in [[Russia]].<ref name=":2" />

The [[Nazi Party|Nazi]] goal of expansion assigned the {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} a special role in German plans, to bring them back to German citizenship and to elevate them to power over the native populations in those areas.  The Nazis detailed such goals in {{Lang|de|[[Generalplan Ost]]}}.<ref>
Bergen, Doris. "The Nazi Concept of 'Volksdeutsche' and the Exacerbation of Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, 1939–45", ''Journal of Contemporary History,'' Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct. 1994), pp. 569–582
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In some areas, such as in Poland, Nazi authorities compiled specific lists and registered people as ethnic Germans in the "[[Deutsche Volksliste]]".