Constructing a German Diaspora: The 'Greater German Empire', 1871-1918

German unification in 1871 had a significant impact on those Germans who found themselves living outside, or migrating across, the borders of the newly founded Empire. An expansion of numbers and destinations was accompanied by a gradual redefinition of migrants' relationship with their country of origin. They were increasingly represented as outposts of a 'Greater German Empire' whose ethnic links with the mother country had to be preserved for their own and the Empire's benefits. Germans worldwide underwent a redefinition from geographically scattered and disparate groups to an ostensibly unified transnational 'community of spirit'. The study is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of this process not only within the German Empire, but also within German ethnic communities abroad.After giving a global overview of Germans settling outside the borders of the Reich, the study analyses the public discourse surrounding emigrants and their relationship with the homeland. The unified Reich provided an arsenal of metaphors and symbolic rallying points with a global reach. The Kaiser's birthday, for example, was celebrated annually by German communities worldwide. The German language assumed ideological implications as the prime marker of ethnic belonging. The identification of many emigrants with the nationalist project of their homeland justifies the application of the diaspora concept. This argument is followed up in a discussion of the relationship between protestantism, nationalism and transnationality. The analysis moves on to the activities of the Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad, a nationalist organisation with a global network of affiliated clubs. A local case study on Glasgow, then, applies the framework set out in the previous chapters to a selected migrant community. The final section on World War I analyses the frictions arising from diaspora nationalism on the one hand, and Germanophobia in a number of host societies, on the other hand.The project confirms the consensus in the existing literature that the internal cohesion of German ethnic communities was limited due to persisting regional, religious, political, and class affiliations. It also confirms that Germans found themselves in a multitude of different settings, creating hybrid identities and different host-minority relationships. It argues, however, that pertinent scholarship has, so far, not sufficiently discussed the relevance of a Reich-focused nationalist discourse for the construction of migrants' individual and group identities. The 'Greater German Empire' did not remain a fictitious construct but became embedded in migrants' sense of national belonging and ethnic identity. The study is based on a large body of primary sources which will be critically discussed and embedded within the existing literature. The main foci of critical source interrogation revolve around, firstly, the question to what extent one-dimensional nationalistic texts produced by pressure-groups and ethnic leaders appropriately reflect the multi-faceted character of ethnicity, and, secondly, the problem that most of the texts that have been archived were produced by members of the educated middle-classes. It is therefore crucial that the analysis does not stop at the discourse level but also takes into account social and economic data from the communities studied. This approach is most pronounced in the section on Glasgow which adds a differentiated microhistorical analysis to the global framework. The project brings together constructivist approaches to ethno-national identity formation and transnationalist approaches to understanding the German Empire within its global entanglements. This approach has previously been applied to geographically confined German communities, and my global perspective will now further advance its theoretical potential to enhance our understanding of the mechanics and construction of global diasporas generally.