German Colombians
Deutschkolumbianer · Germanocolombianos
  • 9,688 Germans nationals (by birth and sons) in 2011[1]
  • 4,500 Germans residents in (1938).[2]
Regions with significant populations
Bogotá,[3] Santander,[4] Antioquia,[5] Caribbean region,[6] Norte de Santander, [7] Huila,[8] Boyacá,[9] Cundinamarca,[10] Nariño,[11] Valle del Cauca,[12] Meta[13]
Languages
Colombian Spanish · German and German dialects
Religion
Roman Catholicism · Protestantism (Lutheranism · Evangelicalism) · Atheism Judaism

German Colombians (German: Deutschkolumbianer; Spanish: Germanocolombianos) are Colombian citizens of German ancestry. They may be descendants of Germans who immigrated to Colombia from Germany or elsewhere in Europe. Most German Colombians live in the departments of Andean Region and Caribbean Region. Germans have been immigrating to Colombia since at least 16th century. During World War II, thousands of Germans fled to Colombia.[14]

German immigration to Colombia

The first German immigrants arrived in the 16th century contracted by the Spanish Crown, and included explorers such as Ambrosio Alfinger. There was another wave of German immigrants at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century including Leo Siegfried Kopp, the founder of the famous Bavaria Brewery. SCADTA, a Colombian-German air transport corporation which was established by German expatriates in 1919, was the first commercial airline in the Americas.[15]

By the mid of the 18th century, German businessmen arrived to Barranquilla in Atlántico, and El Carmen de Bolívar, in Bolívar, with the purpose of exploiting tobacco. Most of them were from Bremen. Along with them, there were some Dutchmen, and Sephardi Jews from Curacao; however the Germans had absolute control of this business for three decades, expanding their trade quarters to biggest cities like Cartagena and Barranquilla.

In 1941, the United States government estimated that there were around 5,000 German citizens living in Colombia. Several thousand more joined their ranks in Colombia's burgeoning cities.[16] There were some Nazi agitators in Colombia, such as Barranquilla businessman Emil Prufurt,[16] but the majority was apolitical. Colombia asked Germans who were on the U.S. blacklist to leave and allowed Jewish refugees in the country illegally to stay.[16]

In the 1980s, thousands of German Colombians emigrated back to West Germany due to the Colombian armed conflict. However, this trend began to decline in the late 2000s (decade) as living standards rose sharply after the Colombian economic boom.

German immigration to Santander

German immigration was of great importance in the Santander region. From the arrival of the engineer Geo von Lengerke to the contributions to the cattle industry by Enrique and Aurelio Gast, who were outstanding cattle breeders in Santander and helped establish this region as a national reference in this industry.

Eduardo Gast, Aurelio's son, was a well-known reference and pioneer breeder of the beefmaster breed in Colombia. The recently built event center for livestock fairs and exhibitions in Socorro, Santander, was named after him in 2021 to honor his legacy and contributions to the region's cattle industry.

Augusto Gast made important contributions to the medical and scientific community in Colombia. He graduated as a surgeon from the National University of Colombia, directed the Carlos Finlay Institute for more than 12 years and was part of the National Institute of Health. His participation was definitive in establishing in Colombia the viscerotomy program for the diagnosis of yellow fever. In recognition of his merits as a researcher, Dr. Gast represented Colombia in several international conferences on yellow fever and was a reference in the Latin American epidemiological community.

Population of German descent by department

Education

German schools in Colombia:

Famous German Colombians

Source:[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Alemanes en Colombia: en búsqueda de oportunidades | DW | 17.04.2011". DW.COM (in European Spanish). Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  2. ↑ Distantes y distintos: los emigrantes alemanes en Colombia 1939-1945
  3. ↑ "Germans in the Altiplano: Immigrants series". Señal Memoria (in Spanish). 1 January 1995. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  4. ↑ Semana (7 June 2019). "Europeans in Santander: a History of migrations "Migrants from different European countries arrived in Santander since the mid-17th century in search of wealth. The German colony was the most representative"". Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  5. ↑ Estrada, Rodrigo de Jesús García (1 January 2018). "Book of German Immigrants in Antioquia, 1850-1930". Inmigrantes Alemanes en Antioquia (Colombia), 1850-1930.
  6. ↑ Lázaro, Julián Andrés (2020). "The Germans in the Colombian Caribbean. Migration, sociability and National Socialism in Barranquilla, 1919-1945". doi:10.1387/hc.20129. hdl:10810/47128. ISSN 1130-2402. S2CID 213992877. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ↑ Labrador Morales, Guillermo León. "Cúcuta and Norte de Santander: Historical configuration of a imagined community". Pontificia Universitad Javeriana.
  8. ↑ Villamil Barrera, Laura (2020). ""La conservación de un mar de montañas": Una familia de origen alemán se ha encargado de conservar un bosque del Macizo Colombiano durante 90 años"". Elespectador.com.
  9. ↑ Luque, Armando Muñoz (30 June 2016). "German influence in the industry of Boyacá [Colombia]". Labor e Engenho (in Spanish). 10 (2): 191–198. doi:10.20396/lobore.v10i2.8646189. ISSN 2176-8846.
  10. ↑ "Fusagasugá, Cundinamarca: The Colombian concentration camp for Germans and Japanese during World War II". BBC News Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  11. ↑ Aportes de los extranjeros a la dinámica social y económica Pasto
  12. ↑ S.A, El País. "Colombia/Germany, a story of brotherhood". www.elpais.com.co (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  13. ↑ Tiempo, Casa Editorial El (7 April 2018). "Mennonites in Meta buy 16,000 hectares". El Tiempo (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  14. ↑ Neumann, Gerhardt, 1914, German Jews in Colombia: A Study in Immigrant Adjustment
  15. ↑ Jim Watson. "SCADTA Joins the Fight". Stampnotes.com. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  16. 1 2 3 Latin America during World War II by Thomas M. Leonard, John F. Bratzel, P.117
  17. ↑ "Los alemanes". 28 October 2006.
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