Germans in Finland

The Germans are historically a minority in Finland . A larger German colony existed in the city of Wiborg before the Second World War . In the Finnish capital Helsinki there is still a German parish , a German school and a German library .

Wiborg

The first Germans came from Russia and the Baltic countries (especially Estonia ). They settled mainly in what is now the Russian city of Vyborg (then Wiborg ). Germans maintained their presence from the Hanseatic League until the 19th century. The German parish Wiborg was founded in 1636. In 1812 1/8 of the population (362 people) Wiborgs were Germans, a proportion that was never reached again. The German language had already established itself as the official language in the city in 1727 and thus created a good breeding ground for German culture and language. Until 1841, German was the official school language at the German grammar school.

A total of four languages ​​were spoken in Vyborg in the 18th and 19th centuries, which had a major impact on the city's cultural development.

Helsinki

After Finland ceded Wiborg to the Soviet Union in the Peace of Paris in 1947 , the German Protestant parish Wiborg, which had existed since 1636, was officially dissolved on December 31, 1950. By 1953, about 200 of its 277 members enrolled in the German Helsinki Congregation , which was founded in 1858. A German school and library had existed there since 1881. Some well-known Finnish companies were founded by immigrants or their descendants from German-speaking countries: Fazer , Paulig and Stockmann .

Finland in general

After the First World War, the number of Germans in Finland rose sharply as a result of the flight of many Germans from the St. Petersburg area because of the October Revolution (e.g. Helsinki 1913: 1,334, 1923: 2,414).

During the Nazi era, around 950 adults identified themselves as Germans. After the outbreak of war between Finland and Germany in autumn 1944, around 500 German citizens were interned and expelled to Germany in 1945.

In 2011, there were 3,806 German citizens living in Finland (not counting those people who have Finnish citizenship in addition to German). 6057 people living in Finland were born in Germany, 5592 people stated German as their mother tongue. About half of these people lived in Uusimaa .

literature

• Annette Forsén: Germany, Germany above everything: tysk föreningsverksamhet in Finland och Sverige 1910–1950 . Helsinki 2012.
• Gisbert Jänicke: Germans in Finland . In: Olli Alho (Hrsg.): Kulturlexikon Finland. Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki 1998, pp. 62–65.
• Robert Schweitzer: Lübecker in Finland, publications of the Foundation for the Promotion of German Culture, No. 2, Helsinki 1993.
• Robert Schweitzer: The Germans from Wiborg. Publications of the Foundation for the Promotion of German Culture, No. 3, Helsinki 1993.
• Robert Schweitzer, Waltraud Bastman-Bühner: The Gulf of Finland as a focus. Wandering and working German-speaking people in the European northeast. Publications of the Foundation for the Promotion of German Culture, No. 9, Helsinki 1998; in particular Hermann Beyer-Thoma: Germans in Finland during the Middle Ages, pp. 43–87.
• Geert Sentzke: German Congregation Helsinki - Helsingfors, 1858–1971; History of the ev.-luth. German language community in Finland. Parish Church Council, Helsinki 1972.
• Lars Westerlund: Itsetehostuksesta nöyryyteen. Suomensaksalaiset 1933-46 . Finnish National Archives, Helsinki 2011. ( PDF , Finnish; on pp. 405–419 English summary under the title From Self-Assertion to Humility. The German Community in Finland, 1933–46. Social Structure and Political Orientation ).
• German history in Eastern Europe. Siedler Verlag, ISBN 3-88680-468-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kansalaisuus iän ja sukupuolen mukaan maakunnittain 1990–2011  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Finnish Statistical Office. Retrieved July 31, 2012.  
2. ↑ See Suomen kansalaisuuden saamiset Finnish Statistical Office. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
3. ↑ Syntymävaltio iän ja sukupuolen mukaan maakunnittain 1990–2011 ( Memento from July 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Finnish Office for Statistics. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
4. ↑ Kieli iän ja sukupuolen mukaan maakunnittain 1990–2011  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Finnish Statistical Office. Retrieved July 31, 2012.