Conflicts between national minorities and majorities have become a routine part of politics in Europe today. Upon closer examination of the European history of minorities conflicts, it becomes clear that— regardless of which national history of conflicts one looks at—it was not until the end of World War I that the subject of minorities policy truly became part of the political agenda. For today's minorities conflicts, examining the evolution of minorities conflicts during the 1920s is especially interesting, because this was when the foundations were laid for conceptual controversies within minorities policies that have retained even today their potential for complicating and even blocking constructive solutions for minorities conflicts. The basis for this can be found within a terminological framework that developed in the Germanspeaking world during the 1920s and 1930s, according to which minorities were not to be democratically treated as participants within a political system where they themselves could discuss and negotiate their rights. Instead, there developed in German and Austrian debates after World War I the notion that national minorities should be separated and excluded, thereby denying them the possibility of political and social participation within their respective nations. This formed the basis for the future handling of minorities conflicts, which generally frustrates any attempt toward a solution oriented toward negotiation and open-endedness, and which, from the very start, tends toward the hardening and long-term cementing of conflict structures.

The following will trace this debate's evolution since the 1920s, beginning with an examination of historical developments up until the minorities protections policies of the League of Nations. This is followed by a discussion of how World War I resulted in conceptions of international law that tried to formulate for the first time a comprehensive system of minorities protections, and thereby a model for the handling of minorities conflicts. The third step is to introduce and analyze German and Austrian reactions to the League of Nations’ conflict resolution model, in which minorities conflicts were addressed by proposing concepts oriented toward fragmentation and exacerbation along lines of social conflict.