The Wendish Research Exchange - Richter, Michael: Wendish/Sorbian Majorities? Controversial Censuses between 1925 and 1951

Lětopis Abstract 2018 2: Richter, Michael: Wendish/Sorbian Majorities? Controversial Censuses between 1925 and 1951

The question of the proportion of the Wendish/Sorbian population in relation to the German population has been controversial throughout the 20th Century. The National Socialists were not the first ones to ignore Wendish ethnicity by regarding the Wends as Germans who spoke a Slavonic language. The Domowina questioned the validity of the figures given in the census of 1925 for the Wendish-speaking population and organized its own count, which did not however produce any statistically reliable results. The census of 1939, in which almost all Wends suppressed their links to Wendish ethnicity in the face of threats of repression, had no validity. After the end of the Second World War in 1945 the Domowina also questioned the validity of the censuses ordered by the Soviet occupying power, and as in the Weimar Republic reacted by producing its own figures. These exaggerated statistics were just as irrelevant as the official figures. Overall, the results from censuses between 1910 and 1946 show a steady, sometimes sharp decline in the Wendish/Sorbian population in the period from the Weimar Republic to the Soviet Occupation Zone.