Galician Germans

The Galician Germans (German: Galiziendeutsche; Polish: Niemcy galicyjscy; Ukrainian: Галицькі німці) were an ethnic German population living in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire, established in 1772 as a result of the First Partition of Poland, and after World War I in the four voivodeships of interwar Poland: Kraków, Lwów, Tarnopol, and Stanisławów. During World War II, part of the Galician Germans were relocated in January 1940 in the course of Heim ins Reich; the majority of the remaining population later fled the region in 1944–1945.

History

The first wave of ethnic Germans arrived in what would later be known as Galicia in the late Middle Ages (see Ostsiedlung). In part of the region the settlers were known as Walddeutsche. Most of them underwent Polonization at latest in the 18th century.

Long before the First Partition of Poland in 1772 a small German language island existed on the western tip of the would-be Galicia in Biała and its vicinity (Hałcnów, Lipnik). Another one was established around 1750 in Zalishchyky, which, however, was partially depopulated before 1772. In 1774 Maria Theresa issued a patent aiming to lure German artisans into several local cities, without significant result. The first meaningful settlement campaign took place in the 1780s, the Josephine colonization, which facilitated the arrival of over 3,200 ethnic German families (around 14,400 people).

Descendants of the Josephine settlers were allowed to establish daughter settlements afterwards (like, for example, Baginsberg in the neighbourhood of Kolomyia, in 1818).