A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
.jpg) German descendants in São Paulo. | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 5,000,000–12,000,000[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Southern region; Southeastern region | |
| Languages | |
| Predominantly Portuguese. Great numbers speak Brazilian German dialects as their mother tongue; the largest group with est. 3,000,000 native Riograndenser Hunsrückisch[2][3] speakers. | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism Protestantism[note 1] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germans, other Brazilians |
German Brazilians (German: Deutschbrasilianer, Hunsrik: Deitschbrasiliooner, Portuguese: teuto-brasileiros) refers to Brazilians of full or partial German ancestry. German Brazilians live mostly in the country's South Region,[4] with a smaller but still significant percentage living in the Southeast Region.
Between 1824 and 1972, about 260,000 Germans settled in Brazil, the fifth largest nationality to immigrate after the Portuguese, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Japanese.[5] By 1940, the German diaspora in Brazil totaled about a million.[6]
The rapid increase in numbers was due to a relatively high birth rate, the highest in Brazil amongst immigrant groups although still lower than that of the local population.
The majority settled in the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Less than 5% of Germans settled in Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, and Espírito Santo.[5]
According to a 1999 survey by IBGE researcher Simon Schwartzman, in a representative sample of the Brazilian population, 3.6% said they had some degree of German ancestry, a percentage that in a population of about 200 million amounts to 7.2 million descendants.[7] In 2004, Deutsche Welle cited the number of 5 million Brazilians of German descent.[8]
According to a 2016 survey published by Institute of Applied Economic Research, in a universe of 46,801,772 names of Brazilians analyzed, 1,525,890 or 3.3% of them had the only or the last surname of German origin, a proportion that represents about 6.7 million individuals if applied to the entire population in that year.
German dialects together make up the second most spoken first language in Brazil after Portuguese.[9] A few Brazilian municipalities have Brazilian Hunsrückisch and Germanic East Pomeranian as co-official with Portuguese, they are located in Southern Brazil and Espírito Santo.[1][10] It is estimated that between 2 and 3 million people can speak Brazilian Hunsrückisch.[3][11][12]
Overview
.jpg)
The 19th century was marked by an intense emigration of Europeans to different parts of the world, which led to a process of Europeanisation of these areas. Between 1816 and 1850, 5 million people left Europe; between 1850 and 1880 another 22 million people emigrated. Between 1846 and 1932, 60 million Europeans emigrated. Many Germans left the German states after the failed revolutions of 1848.
Between 1878 and 1892, another 7 million Germans left Germany; after the 1870s Germany was one of the countries from which the largest numbers of people emigrated, the vast majority to the United States. From 1820 to 1840, Germans represented 21.4% of all European immigrants entering the USA; 32.2% in the following two decades; and at the end of the 19th century they were the largest immigrant group (21.9%) in the US.[7]
German immigration to Brazil was small compared to the numbers who went to the United States, and also compared to immigration of other nationalities, such as Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards, who together made up over 80% of the immigrants to Brazil during the period of greatest immigration by Europeans. Germans appeared in fourth place among immigrants to Brazil, but dropped to fifth place when Japanese immigration increased after 1908.[7]
Even though the immigration of Germans to Brazil was small, it had a notable impact on the ethnic composition of the country, particularly of the Southern Brazilian population. Different factors led to this large influence. First of all, German immigration to Brazil is an old phenomenon which started as early as 1824, many decades before the beginning of the immigration of other European ethnic groups to Brazil.
For example, the first significant groups of Italians to immigrate to Brazil only arrived in 1875, many decades after the arrival of the first Germans. When the settlement of other Europeans in Brazil began, the Germans had already been living there for many generations. Another factor was the high birth rates among German Brazilians. Research has found that between 1826 and 1828 a first-generation German Brazilian woman had an average of 8.5 children, and the second generation had an average of 10.4 children per woman.
The book The Monroe Doctrine by T B Edgington said:
"The natural increase of the German population in southern Brazil is marvelous. As a rule they rear from ten to fifteen children in each family. Blumenau, a colony which was settled by the Germans over fifty years ago, more than doubles itself every ten years. Southern Brazil is now called 'Greater Germany', and the Germans exercise there a commercial and financial supremacy."
Even though the population of German descent makes up a small minority in Brazil, they represent a very large percentage of the population of the South. Jean Roche estimated that people of German descent made up 13.3% of the population in Rio Grande do Sul in 1890, and that they had increased to 21.6% of the population in 1950. By 1920, the vast majority of the population of German descent was Brazilian-born.
The census of 1920 revealed that foreigners constituted only 3% of the population of the old German communities of São Leopoldo, Estrela, Montenegro and Bom Retiro do Sul. São Leopoldo, then with 46,482 inhabitants, had only 1,159 foreigners. In the new German communities the proportion of foreigners was larger, for example in Ijuí (15%) and Erechim (25%), indicating they were newer destinations of immigrants in the state. The census of 1940 revealed that virtually all the population of German descent was native-born.
Immigration
When German-speaking immigrants first arrived in Brazil starting at the beginning of the 19th century, they did not identify themselves so much as a unified German-Brazilian group. However, as time went on this common regional identity did emerge for many different geo-socio-political reasons. Germans immigrated mainly from what is now Germany, but also from other countries where German communities were established. From 1824 to 1969, around 250,000 Germans emigrated to Brazil, being the fourth largest immigrant community to settle in the country, after the Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards. About 30% of them arrived between World War I and World War II.
| German immigration to Brazil, decennial periods from 1824 to 1969 Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1824–47 | 1848–72 | 1872–79 | 1880–89 | 1890–99 | 1900–09 | 1910–19 | 1920–29 | 1930–39 | 1940–49 | 1950–59 | 1960–69 | |
| 8,176 | 19,523 | 14,325 | 18,901 | 17,084 | 13,848 | 25,902 | 75,801 | 27,497 | 6,807 | 16,643 | 5,659 | |
First German settlement in Brazil
The first German immigrants to settle in Brazil were 165 families who settled in Ilhéus, Bahia, in 1818. One year later, 200 families settled São Jorge, in the same state. Some Germans were brought to work in the Brazilian army after Independence from Portugal in 1822.[13]
However, the cradle of the German settlement in Brazil was São Leopoldo, in 1824. At that time Southern Brazil had a very low population density. Most of its inhabitants were concentrated on the coast and a few in the Pampas. The interior was covered by forests and sparsely populated by different groups of native Amerindians. The absence of a unified population in the interior was regarded as a problem by the Brazilian government because Southern Brazil could easily be invaded by neighboring countries.
Since Brazil was recently independent from Portugal, it was not possible to bring Portuguese immigrants. Germany was suffering the effects of the wars against Napoleon, overpopulation and poverty in the countryside. Many Germans were willing to immigrate to Brazil. Furthermore, Brazil's Empress, Maria Leopoldina, was Austrian and encouraged the arrival of German immigrants.
First communities
Major Schaeffer, a German who was living in Brazil, was sent to Germany in order to bring immigrants. He brought immigrants and soldiers from Rhineland-Palatinate. To attract the immigrants, the Brazilian government had promised large tracts of land where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. In fact, these lands were in the middle of big forests and the first Germans had been abandoned by the Brazilian government. From 1824 to 1829, the Major brought 5,000 Germans to Brazil.[14]
German immigrants in Brazil settled mostly in rural areas, called colonies (colônias in Portuguese). These colonies were created by the Brazilian government, and the lands were distributed among the immigrants. They had to construct their own houses and cultivate the land.
The first years were not easy. Many Germans died of tropical disease, while others left the colonies to find better living conditions. The German colony of São Leopoldo was in the early years a disaster. Nevertheless, in the following years, a further 4,830 Germans arrived at São Leopoldo, and then the colony started to develop, with the immigrants establishing the town of Novo Hamburgo (New Hamburg). From São Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo, the German immigrants spread into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul, mainly close to sources of rivers. The whole region of Vale dos Sinos was populated by Germans. During the 1830s and part of the 1840s German immigration to Brazil was interrupted due to conflicts in the country (Ragamuffin War).
| First settlers in Joinville [15] | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | Switzerland | Prussia | Norway | Oldenburg | Holstein | Hannover | Schleswig | Hamburg | Saxony | Poland | Lübeck | Mecklenburg | Luxembourg | Sweden | Württemberg | Brunswick | Schwarzburg | Others |
| Immigrants | 190 | 70 | 61 | 44 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 16 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
Waves of immigrants
Immigration restarted after 1845 with the creation of new colonies. The most important ones were Blumenau in 1850 and Joinville in 1851, both in Santa Catarina state; these attracted thousands of German immigrants to the region. Some of the mass influx was due to the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. Nowadays these areas of German colonization are among the wealthiest parts of Brazil, with the lowest levels of unemployment and illiteracy found in the country, and still retain a strong influence from German culture.[16]
By the end of the 19th century, 122 German communities had been created in Rio Grande do Sul, and many others in Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Germans helped to establish a middle-class population in Brazil, a country that was formerly divided between slaves and their masters.[17]
"Nowhere are our colonies, those loyal offshoots from the mother root, so promising as here. Today in these provinces, over thirty per cent of the inhabitants are Germans, or of German descent, and the ratio of their natural increase far exceeds that of the Portuguese. Surely to us belongs this part of the world, and the key to it all is Santa Catharina, stretching from the harbor of San Francisco far into the interior with its hitherto undeveloped, hardly suspected wealth. Here indeed, in southern Brazil, is a rich and healthy land, where the German emigrant may retain his nationality, where for all that is comprised in the word 'Germanismus,' a glorious future smiles."
– Dr. Leyser, a German traveller in South Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century[18]
By 1905 the German Navy Office listed that there were over 140k Germans living in Brazil, 131.5k of those being Reich Nationals and the other 8.5k being Reich Citizens, with 24 German consulates.[19]
Urban Germans in Brazil
Not all Germans who settled in Brazil became farmers. In the early 20th century, very few rural areas of Southern Brazil were empty. Most of them had been settled by German, Italian and Polish immigrants during the 19th century.
Given this situation, most Germans who immigrated to Brazil during the 20th century settled in big towns, although many of them also settled in the old rural German colonies. German immigration to Brazil peaked during the 1920s, after World War I.
These Germans were mostly middle-class laborers from urban areas of Germany, different from the poor peasants who had settled in the colonies of Brazil during the 19th century.
In 1858, Germans were 15% of Porto Alegre's population,[20] 10% of São Paulo's population in 1860,[21] and 60% of the immigrants living in Curitiba by the end of the 19th century.[22] In Rio de Janeiro, by 1830 there were 20 businesses owned by Germans. Twenty years later the number reached 50.[23]
People of German descent actively participated in the industrialization and development of big cities in Brazil, such as Curitiba and Porto Alegre.
In São Paulo, Germans founded their first colony in 1829.[24][25][26] By the beginning of the 20th century, the city was considered the center of the German Brazilian Culture.[27] The city attracted German immigrants until the 1950s. Today, there are 400,000 German Brazilians living within Greater São Paulo.[28][29]
| Owners of industrial and commercial establishments in Curitiba (1869–1889)[30] | |
|---|---|
| Ethnic origin | Total |
 Brazil |
230 |
 Germany |
104 |
 Italy |
26 |
 France |
18 |
 United Kingdom |
8 |
Pioneering period
| Farms owned by foreigners (1920) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Immigrants | Farms [31] | ||
| Italians | 35,984 | ||
| Portuguese | 9,552 | ||
| Germans | 6,887 | ||
| Spanish | 4,725 | ||
| Russians | 4,471 | ||
| Austrians | 4,292 | ||
| Japanese | 1,167 | ||
The German settlements, and also those of other European ethnic groups, occupy a vast area in the centers of the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. To the east, they border the old areas of Azorean Portuguese colonization, and to the south and west, the gaúcho grazing areas. The areas of German settlement emerged in the center of the region, isolated from other settlements.
In these remote pastoral and farming areas, the immigrants were not under the control of the powerful Brazilian landowners. Due to this isolation, the immigrants were able to organize themselves independently, building their own churches, schools and municipal authorities. The children were educated in German. Portuguese became dominant later, as a means of communication with Brazilians or with immigrants of other nationalities.[32]
The first generation of immigrants faced the arduous task of surviving while opening gaps in the virgin forest to build their own houses and roads. Attacks by Indians were common. Isolated from other settlements, the Germans also had to face the difficulty of finding markets for their products. The initial difficulty was to define which productive activities could be integrated into the Brazilian economy. Only the penury faced by these people in Europe, due to the consequences of the Industrial Revolution and of the crisis during the consolidation of European nations, can explain their persistence in Brazil, sometimes facing miserable conditions which were worse than those they left in Europe. Once in Brazil, however, they became small landowners, which facilitated their development.[32]
| Colonies created since 1808 [33] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | Rio Grande do Sul | São Paulo | Santa Catarina | Minas Gerais | Paraná | Bahia | Rio de Janeiro | Espírito Santo | Pernambuco |
| Number | 180 | 49 | 37 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 3 | 2 |
Period of prosperity
The following generations benefited from the efforts of the pioneer immigrants and prospered. The families grew and the settlements expanded, coming to constitute a thriving German community of small landowners. At first, they found virgin forests that could be occupied or bought at low prices. During this period, the more isolated communities suffered from messianic anomie, influenced by popular German traditions of Protestant aspirations. This led to the Revolt of the Muckers in the 1870s, which culminated in several crimes and murders.[32]
Identity
According to Darcy Ribeiro, despite their isolation, the descendants of Germans knew that Brazil was their home now. The new immigrants who arrived from Germany were clearly different from German Brazilians of older stock. German Brazilians had moved away from European standards, habits, language and aspirations.
However, coexistence with the local Brazilians (Amerindians, Portuguese Brazilians of Azorean stock, mixed-race gaúchos and a few Afro-Brazilians) showed that the differences with the locals were also great. The misery faced by Brazilians of other origins was also not attractive to German Brazilians. Hence, German Brazilians eventually created a third identity, which was not completely German (because of the distance that created sharp differences) but also not completely Brazilian (because of the undesirable misery seen in Brazilians).
Their isolation and cultural and linguistic conservatism gave rise to conflicts between German Brazilians (and also Japanese Brazilians, Italian Brazilians, etc.) on one side, and Brazilians of older extraction on the other. The nationalization was fundamental, compelling the teaching of foreign languages at schools, breaking the isolation of the communities and recruiting young people of foreign origins to serve in the military.
Migrating to urban centers, the younger generations broadened their cultural horizon and their own vision of Brazil. When they returned to their hometowns, they endorsed a Brazilian identity which was already becoming imperative.
The above-average social, economic and cultural progress of the German settlements and their simultaneous integration into Brazilian markets as producers and consumers facilitated the integration of the descendants of Germans in Brazil. Since the second half of 20th century to present, this population is no longer seen as "foreign" by other Brazilians, but as a modern progressive urban population.
The identification as "Brazilians" is also dominant among German Brazilians, since the cultural world of their ancestors was completely changed. It has become unrealistic for them to assert any other ethnic identity than Brazilian. Since the second half of 20th century to present, the only notable differences between Brazilians of German and of non-German European and Arab ancestry are in levels of education (higher among German Brazilians), in a few surviving German traditions.[32]
Panorama of German communities
The German Brazilian areas form, today, a Brazilian region with its own character, made up of towns and large concentrations of residents around the church, commerce and school. These rural villages are connected to major cities where the economy was diversified, adding cottage industries to the original agricultural production.
In this way, the Southern Brazilian areas of European settlements formed a prosperous regional economy and a European cultural landscape, contrasting with the relative Portuguese-Brazilian uniformity found in the rest of Brazil. In recent years a large industrial development has occurred in these areas, stemming from the cottage industry.
Some of the old German communities are now prosperous industrial centers, such as São Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo, Blumenau, Joinville and Itajaí. The Germans became entrepreneurs due to their knowledge of more complex techniques of production than those dominated by other Brazilians. In addition their bilingualism gave them better European contacts.[32]
Historically, a considerable number of German Brazilians and others of European ancestry populated certain cities and states. In the city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, during the last decade of the 19th century, 70% of the population was ethnically Germanic, 15% were Italians, and 15% others.[35] The German Brazilian population in Espírito Santo was 73,000 in 1960, 145,000 in 1980 and 250,000 in 2004.[36]
| City | Population (2010) | State [37] |
|---|---|---|
| Joinville | 515,288 | Santa Catarina |
| Blumenau | 309,011 | Santa Catarina |
| Petrópolis | 296,044 | Rio de Janeiro |
| Novo Hamburgo | 239,051 | Rio Grande do Sul |
| São Leopoldo | 214,210 | Rio Grande do Sul |
| Nova Friburgo | 182,016 | Rio de Janeiro |
| Itajaí | 172,081 | Santa Catarina |
| Jaraguá do Sul | 143,123 | Santa Catarina |
| Santa Cruz do Sul | 118,287 | Rio Grande do Sul |
| Brusque | 105,503 | Santa Catarina |