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The German-speaking population in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, 23.3% of the population at the 1921 census, is usually reduced to the Sudeten Germans, but actually there were linguistic enclaves elsewhere in Czechoslovakia, and among the German-speaking urban dwellers there were "ethnic Germans" and/or Austrians as well as German-speaking Jews. 14% of the Czechoslovak Jews considered themselves as Germans at the 1921 census, but a much higher percentage declared German as their colloquial tongue during the last censuses under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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Carpathian Germans and Sudeten Germans
The denominations Carpathian Germans and Sudeten Germans were not traditionally in use among the populations so labelled, they are historically quite recent. The first was coined by historian and ethnologue Raimund Friedrich Kaindl (de) in the beginning of the 20th century, the second was coined in 1904 by journalist and politician Franz Jesser (de) and mostly used after 1919.
Historical settlements
There were several subregions and towns with German-speaking absolute or relative majorities in the interwar Czechoslovakian Republic.
Table. 1921 ethnonational census
In Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic), there were German Bohemians (Deutschböhmen, Čeští Němci) and German Moravians (Deutschmährer, Moravští Němci), as well as German Silesians, in e.g. the Hlučín Region (part of Czech Silesia but formerly part of the Austrian Silesia Province before Seven Years' War in 1756).
In Slovakia there were two German-speaking enclaves in Hauerland and Spiš. In the Austro-Hungarian Szepes County (Spiš), there were according to censuses 35% Germans in 1869, 25% in 1900 and 1910. There was also a relative German-language majority in the border city of Pressburg/Bratislava: 59.9 at the 1890 census, 41.9 in 1910, 36% in 1919, 28.1 in 1930, 20% in 1940.
There were also two linguistic enclaves in Subcarpathian Ruthenia (present-day Ukraine).
German-speaking urban Jews
Table. Declared Nationality of Jews in Czechoslovakia
In addition, there was a sizeable German-speaking urban Jewish minority, for instance the writers Franz Kafka, Max Brod and Felix Weltsch, and Jewish politicians were elected as deputies, and even as leaders of German minority parties such as Ludwig Czech and Siegfried Taub in the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic or Bruno Kafka (second cousin of Franz Kafka) in the German Democratic Liberal Party.
In Moravia and Silesia, like in Bohemia, Jews (ethnic and of faith) mainly resided in towns, but unlike in Bohemia they did not live primarily in large towns. Historically the degree of assimilation into the Czech language environment and culture and the effort to advance this process were significantly different. During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 82–90% of Jews declared German as they colloquial tongue, but during the First Republic a dramatic change occurred, as 47.8% claimed Jewish ethnicity in 1921 and 51.67% in 1930. This fundamental shift in orientation was understandably accompanied by a decline in the share of Jews who identified themselves as ethnic Germans (to around 34–29%)
Bohemia
Subcarpathian Ruthenia
In 1936, there were 24 German-language schools in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, grouping 2,021 students.
German-language press in Czechoslovakia
in Bohemia
in Slovakia
in Carpathian Ruthenia