Bukowina Germans

Displaced persons monument on the Pöstlingberg in Linz

The Bukowina Germans or Buchenland Germans are a German ethnic group that lived in Bukowina from around 1780 to 1940 . Today they are hardly represented there, apart from a few individuals. In their 150-year history, the Bukowina Germans were a predominantly rural population. In the summer of 1940, as a result of the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, Bukovina was occupied by the Soviet Union . Almost all of the ethnic group, with around 96,000 people, joined a resettlement in the German Reich at the end of 1940.

Settlements

The immigrant Germans were not evenly distributed across the Bukovina, but tended to found their own towns or districts. Such communities include Karlsberg (Gura Putnei) , Fürstenthal (Voivodeasa ) and Buchenhain (Poiana Micului) . In other villages, the Germans formed their own colonies, mostly keeping the original, mostly Romanian place name, such as Deutsch-Badeutz (Badeuți) . Eventually a considerable part of the immigrants settled in the cities (including Chernivtsi , Radautz , Suczawa , Gurahumora ).

history

From the 14th century

A small group of German craftsmen and merchants had lived in the Principality of Moldova since the 14th century . It completely disappeared during the 17th century due to assimilation by the Csango .

In 1774/1775 the Habsburgs annexed the area of north-western Moldova, which was populated mainly by Romanians , but also minorities of Hutsuls , Lipovans and Armenians , which has since been called Bukovina or Buchenland.

Habsburg rule

1774–1786, under the Habsburg rule, a planned, but partly spontaneous settlement of German craftsmen and farmers in existing localities began. The resettlers came from the Zips (Upper Hungary), the Banat , Galicia (Protestants), the Rhine Palatinate , from the Baden and Hessian principalities and from impoverished regions of the Bohemian Forest . Population growth and a lack of land led to the establishment of daughter settlements in Galicia, Bessarabia and Dobruja .

The developing German bourgeoisie in Bukovina belonged to the country's intellectual and political elite in the 19th century. The official and educational language was predominantly German, which was particularly adopted by the upper classes.

After 1840, a lack of land led to the impoverishment of the German peasant lower classes, so that after 1850 some of them emigrated to America, primarily to the USA.

1849–1851 and 1863–1918 the Bukovina was crown land within the Habsburg monarchy. Compared to the other Austrian crown lands, Bukovina remained an underdeveloped province on the periphery of the empire, mainly supplying raw materials.

The University of Chernivtsi was founded in 1875 . The easternmost German-speaking university existed as such until 1920.

In 1910/11 the “Bukovinian Compensation” came about, a political agreement between the peoples living in Bukovina on issues relating to self-governing bodies and political representation in the state parliament. In the 1910 census, the Germans made up around 21% of the population, with 13% of Jews who professed to be German.

During the First World War , the entire population of the Bukovina basically retained their loyalty to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy .

Romanian rule

After the end of the First World War and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Bukovina was annexed to Romania in 1918-1919. The Bukowina Germans remained - like many other ethnic groups in the newly formed Greater Romania - a national minority after 1918. As a result, Romanization measures were carried out against non-Romanian associations, cultural institutions and schools. The political representatives of the Germans sought financial and political help in the German Reich.

With the seizure of power of Hitler attacked in 1933 Nazi ideas about the Bukovina. Analogous to the development among the Bessarabian Germans in neighboring Bessarabia , a renewal movement was formed which aimed at a völkisch revival , idealized Germany and was anti-communist. One of the breeding grounds for this movement was the discrimination against minorities by the Romanization policy. Initially, some Bukowina German associations and organizations opposed the “renewal movement”. Nevertheless, from 1938 at the latest, a pro-Reich German mood developed among the Bukowina Germans.

German-Soviet non-aggression pact 1939

When, in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German-Soviet non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union before the outbreak of World War II , the end of the Germans in Bukovina was sealed - without those affected knowing anything about it. In a secret additional protocol it was agreed that Bessarabia would fall to the USSR in the event of a territorial reorganization in Eastern Europe and that the German population groups should be resettled on a voluntary basis in accordance with the German-Soviet border and friendship treaty, also concluded in 1939 . In addition to the Bessarabian areas, the Soviet troops also occupied northern Bukovina in June 1940 - contrary to the agreement.

Relocation in 1940

Bucovina and Bessarabian resettlers at Graz Puntigam train station , November 1940

In July 1940, German-Soviet negotiations began on the resettlement of ethnic Germans. Almost the entire German population (including those who lived in southern Bukovina, who remained Romanian) joined the resettlement offer in autumn 1940 under the motto Heim ins Reich . There were around 89,000 ethnic Germans . The transport took place by rail, so that the amount of luggage to be carried was very small. After a stay in camps in the German Reich, the resettlers were mainly settled in occupied Poland , where they were often compensated with expropriated farms. After Germany and the allied Romania invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the whole of Bukovina was under Romanian administration.

Escape in 1944 and a new beginning

When the eastern front drew nearer in 1944/45, the Bukowina Germans who had settled in the Polish areas fled to the west like the rest of the German population living there. After 1945, the approximately 7,500 Germans remaining in Bukovina resettled in the Federal Republic of Germany. With the exception of a few individuals, the existence of the German ethnic group in Bukowina is a thing of the past.

A statistical analysis of the hometown index in 1964 showed that around 69,000 people out of around 89,800 people resettled from Bukovina were still alive. The losses of the Wehrmacht of the ethnic group amounted to about 3,500 people. Around 52,000 members of the ethnic group lived in what was then West Germany in 1964 and around 2,300 in what was then East Germany.

Many settled in Munich . Bukowina Germans lived in their own settlements in Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Salzgitter-Lebenstedt , Treuchtlingen , Wemding , Marxheim and Kirchheimbolanden . In the post-war period , the Bukowina Germans , like other expellees , integrated themselves into the Federal Republic of Germany or the German Democratic Republic . Some of the Bukowina Germans emigrated overseas.

Since the Bukowina Germans had left their property in Bukowina in 1940 and had received no compensation during the Third Reich, they took part in the burden sharing from 1952 . That offered a partial financial replacement.

Today's organization

The cohesion and memory of the homeland is kept alive through regular meetings. After the Second World War, the Bukowina Germans founded the Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutsche in Germany . The political representation of the Bukowina Germans and other German-speaking groups in today's Romania is the DFDR ( Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania ).

literature

Willi Kosiul: Bukovina and its beech country Germans . In two volumes. Reimo-Verlag, Oberding 2012. GND
Claus Stephani: The Maiden of the Forest. Legends, Tales and Local History of Bukovina. Translated by Sophie A. Welisch. Published by The Bukovina Society of the Americas: Ellis / Kansas, 2008 (translation into English of the collection of fairy tales and legends “The girl from the forest”)
Dirk Jachomowski: The resettlement of the Bessarabia, Bukovina and Dobruja Germans. From the ethnic group in Romania to the 'settlement bridge' on the imperial border . Oldenbourg, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-486-52471-2 ( book series of the Southeast German Historical Commission 32, also dissertation, University of Kiel, 1984)
Claus Stephani: Zipser folk tales from Maramures, South Bukovina and Nösner Land. Kriterion Verlag, Bucharest 1981.
Emanuel Freiherr von Kapri: Buchenland. An Austrian crown land of different ethnic groups. Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutsche, Stuttgart / Munich 1974.
Bukovinian German . Vienna 1901. Reprint: Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutsche, Munich 1976.
Claus Stephani : Inquired ways. Spiš texts from southern Bukovina. Kriterion Verlag, Bucharest 1975.
Franz Lang (Ed.): Buchenland. One hundred and fifty years of Germanness in Bukowina (= publications of the Süddeutsche Kulturwerk . Issue 16), Munich 1961.
Hugo Weczerka : The Germans in the beech country . In: The Göttingen working group series of publications . Issue 51, Holzner Verlag, Würzburg 1954.