Reply #58: The clip doesn't claim that the Germans invented "Homeland"

[Xithras]

It simply shows that the Germans used it, and defines how Hitler introduced it into their language. I've got anthropology books in my library that cite studies using the term back to the 19th century. It was coined because the point of origin for an ethnic group or culture, and national borders, don't coincide. I have ancestors from Swabia, and the Swabian homeland is in southern Germany. It's just a way to define the point of origin for a cultural group.

When Hitler described the German Homeland, he was trying to create a unified national identity that defined the whole nation as one with a common homeland. Even today, some people will identify themselves as Bavarian, Swabian, or even Saxon before they'll identify themselves as German. Even though we see them all as German, many of the ethnic groups in the country have long histories that predate the founding of the nation. This was a huge issue in 1930's Germany, since the German "nation" was only 60 years old and the concept that all of the German peoples belonged to the same country was still fighting for traction. Hitler was trying to get people to turn their backs on their ethnic heritage and see themselves as Germans first. There's nothing particularly distateful about the CONCEPT, but his motives for doing so were obviously corrupt.