Mitteleuropa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The approximate area of Mitteleuropa

Mitteleuropa (Central/Middle Europe) is a German term approximately equal to Central Europe. In Germany and Austria, the term usually refers to the territory covered by the modern states of:

and often includes regions that were part of Austria-Hungary:

Hungary
Vojvodina in Serbia
(parts of) Romania
Croatia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
(small parts of) Italy (specifically South Tyrol and the city of Trieste, sometimes also the whole Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto include themselves in Mitteleuropa - now parts of the Alpe Adria region)
(parts of) Western Ukraine

At least before the First World War, this part of Europe was politically and culturally dominated by the Holy Roman Empire/German Confederation and later its successors, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire, and the German language tended to be the most widely used lingua franca throughout this region.

Outside of Germany, the concept of Mitteleuropa may be best known for that policy of the Central Powers during World War I which assumed the creation of several buffer states in Central Europe, conquered from Imperial Russia and commonly viewed as puppet states. One of Germany's war aims in World War I was to create an economic sphere of German domination in Mitteleuropa. By their creation, growing dissent in the occupied areas could be answered, and resources to fight the war on the Western Front could be used more efficiently.

The policy was realized after signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in which Russia ceded most of the areas occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary to the respective countries. On the area ceded to the Central Powers, the following political entities were located:

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland liberated themselves, after the collapse of Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. Soon they gained international recognition and participated in signing of the Versailles Treaty as members of the Entente. The other two (Belarus and Ukraine) were taken over by the Russian SFSR and became Republics of the Soviet Union.