The enduring politics of German-Brazilian ethnicity

This article explores the divergent ends to which historical actors deployed notions of ethnic and national identities in shifting local, national and transnational contexts. Specifically, it traces the trajectory of one German-Brazilian ethnic voluntary association-the 25th of July Movement-as various stakeholders attempted to inscribe both positive and negative notions of Germanness on the group and its members. It argues that the politics of identification was of enduring significance not just to Brazil's ethnic Germans themselves, but also to the emergence of postwar West Germany and Brazil.