Editing Sudetenland (section)

===Early origins===
{{See also|History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe}}
The [[Celts|Celtic]] [[Boii]] settled there and the region was first mentioned on the map of [[Claudius Ptolemy|Ptolemaios]] in the 2nd century AD. The [[Germanic tribes|Germanic tribe]] of the [[Marcomanni]] dominated the entire core of the region in later centuries. Those tribes already built cities like [[Brno]], but moved west during the [[Migration Period]]. In the 7th century AD [[Slavic people]] moved in and were united under [[Samo]]'s realm. Later in the [[High Middle Ages]] Germans settled into the less populated border region.

[[File:Osadnictwo niemieckie na wschodzie.PNG|thumb|Stages of German eastern settlement, 700–1400]]
In the [[Middle Ages]] the regions situated on the mountainous border of the [[Duchy of Bohemia|Duchy]] and the [[Kingdom of Bohemia]] (Crown of Saint Václav) had since the Migration Period been settled mainly by [[West Slavs|western Slavic]] [[Czechs]]. Along the [[Bohemian Forest]] in the west, the [[Czech lands]] bordered on the German Slavic tribes (German Sorbs) [[stem duchy|stem duchies]] of [[Duchy of Bavaria|Bavaria]] and [[Duchy of Franconia|Franconia]]; [[march (territory)|marches]] of the medieval [[Kingdom of Germany|German kingdom]] had also been established in the adjacent [[March of Austria|Austrian]] lands south of the [[Bohemian-Moravian Highlands]] and the northern [[Margraviate of Meissen|Meissen]] region beyond the [[Ore Mountains]]. In the course of the ''[[Ostsiedlung]]'' (settlement of the east), German settlement from the 13th century onwards continued to move into the [[Upper Lusatia]] region and the [[duchies of Silesia]] north of the [[Sudetes]] mountain range.

From as early as the second half of the 13th century onwards these Bohemian border regions were settled by [[ethnic Germans]], who were invited by the [[Přemyslid dynasty|Přemyslid]] Bohemian kings—especially by [[Ottokar II of Bohemia|Ottokar II]] (1253–1278) and [[Wenceslaus II of Bohemia|Wenceslaus II]] (1278–1305). After the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty in 1306, the Bohemian nobility backed [[John of Bohemia|John of Luxembourg]] as king against his rival Duke [[Henry of Bohemia|Henry of Carinthia]]. In 1322, King John of Bohemia acquired (for the third time) the formerly Imperial [[Egerland]] region in the west and vassalized most of the [[Silesian Piasts|Piast]] Silesian duchies, as acknowledged by King [[Casimir III of Poland]] by the 1335 [[Treaty of Trentschin]]. His son, Bohemian King [[Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles IV]], was elected [[King of the Romans]] in 1346 and crowned [[Holy Roman Emperor]] in 1355. He added the [[Lusatia]]s to the [[Lands of the Bohemian Crown]], which then comprised large territories with a significant German population.

In the hilly border regions German settlers established major manufactures of [[forest glass]]. The situation of the German population was aggravated by the [[Hussite Wars]] (1419–1434), though there were also some Germans among the [[Hussite]] insurgents.

By then Germans largely settled the hilly Bohemian border regions as well as the cities of the lowlands; mainly people of Bavarian descent in the [[South Bohemian Region|South Bohemian]] and [[South Moravian Region]], in [[Brno]], [[Jihlava]], [[České Budějovice]] and the West Bohemian [[Plzeň Region]]; Franconian people in [[Žatec]]; Upper [[Upper Saxony|Saxons]] in adjacent [[North Bohemia]], where the border with the [[Electorate of Saxony|Saxon Electorate]] was fixed by the 1459 [[Treaty of Eger|Peace of Eger]]; Germanic [[Silesia]]ns in the adjacent Sudetes region with the [[County of Kladsko]], in the [[Moravian–Silesian Region]], in [[Svitavy]] and [[Olomouc]]. The city of Prague had a German-speaking majority from the last third of the 17th century until 1860, but after 1910 the proportion of German speakers had decreased to 6.7% of the population.

From the Luxembourgs, rule over Bohemia passed through [[George of Podiebrad]] to the [[Jagiellon dynasty]] and finally to the [[House of Habsburg]] in 1526. Both Czech and German Bohemians suffered heavily in the [[Thirty Years' War]]. Bohemia lost 70% of its population. From the defeat of the Bohemian Revolt that collapsed at the 1620 [[Battle of White Mountain]], the Habsburgs gradually integrated the Kingdom of Bohemia into their [[Habsburg monarchy|monarchy]]. During the subsequent [[Counter-Reformation]], less populated areas were resettled with [[Catholic Germans]] from the Austrian lands. From 1627, the Habsburgs enforced the so-called ''Verneuerte Landesordnung'' ("Renewed Land's Constitution"), and one of its consequences was that German, according to mother tongue, gradually became the primary and official language, while Czech declined to a secondary role in the Empire. In 1749, the Austrian Empire enforced German as the official language again. Emperor [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]] in 1780 renounced the coronation ceremony as Bohemian king and unsuccessfully tried to push German through as sole official language in all Habsburg lands (including Hungary). Nevertheless, German cultural influence grew stronger during the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and [[Weimar Classicism]].

Contrastingly, in the course of the [[Romanticism]] movement national tensions arose, both in the form of the [[Austroslavism]] ideology developed by Czech politicians like [[František Palacký]] and [[German nationalism in Austria|Pan-Germanist]] activist raising the [[German question]]. Conflicts between Czech and German nationalists emerged in the 19th century, for instance in the [[Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas|Revolutions of 1848]]: while the German-speaking population of Bohemia and Moravia wanted to participate in the building of a German nation state, the Czech-speaking population insisted on keeping Bohemia out of such plans. The Bohemian Kingdom remained a part of the [[Austrian Empire]] and [[Austria-Hungary]] until its dismemberment after the World War I.