Ransom from Romanian Germans

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With the free purchase of Romanian Germans by the German federal government has been 1967 to 1989 under the code name top secret channel on the West German side and action "recovery" ( Romanian Actiunea "Recuperarea" ) on the Romanian side the departure of 226,654 Romanian Germans from that time under communist rule standing Romania in the Federal Republic of Germany . The amount of the payments for the so-called bounty is estimated at over one billion DM .

history

Number of emigrants from Romania according to official German statistics
year people
1950 13
1951 1,031
1952 26th
1953 15th
1954 8th
1955 44
1956 176
1957 384
1958 1,383
1959 174
1960 2.124
1961 3,303
1962 1,675
1963 1,321
1964 818
1965 2,715
1966 609
1967 440
1968 614
1969 2,675
1970 6,519
1971 2,848
1972 4,374
1973 7,577
1974 8,484
1975 5,077
1976 3,764
1977 10,989
1978 12,120
1979 9,963
1980 15,767
1981 12,031
1982 12,972
1983 15,501
1984 16,554
1985 13,972
1986 13,130
1987 13,994
1988 12,902
1989 23,387
1990 111.150
1991 32,178
1992 16,146
1993 5,811
1994 6,615
1995 6,519
1996 1,777
1997 4,284
1998 1.005
1999 855
Total 1967–1989: 226,654
Total 1950–1999: 428,666

Political situation

In the first census after the Second World War at the end of January 1948, around 345,000 Romanian Germans were registered in Romania. As alleged “ collaborators of Hitler ”, the ethnic group was collectively disenfranchised for several years and exposed to the arbitrariness of state agencies. These include the deportation to the Soviet Union in January 1945 and the deportation to the Bărăgan steppe in June 1951. In addition, as a result of the Land Reform Act in March 1945, the Romanian Germans in the countryside were expropriated from the fields, houses, cattle and all agricultural machinery and equipment . It was not until a ministerial decision in December 1955 regulating the liberation and return of the Bărăgan deportees that the property and the houses were returned. In addition, the entire population of the country (around 80,000 farmers in total) around 1950 was staged by forced collectivization and the nationalization of industry, trade, banks and transport on June 11, 1948. Despite the temporary easing of this repression in the 1960s and in the 1970s, the vast majority of Romanian Germans felt the desire to leave the country permanently, which they only managed in rare cases at the time.

After Art. 116 Basic Law are German people related with the lack of German citizenship not as a foreigner to treat. According to Section 6 of the Federal Expellees Act (BVFG), a German national is a person who “has committed to the German ethnicity in their (non-German) homeland, provided this commitment is confirmed by certain characteristics such as origin, language, upbringing, culture”.

Parallel to these circumstances, Romania and the young state of Israel concluded an economic agreement in July 1948, which, among other things, provided for the emigration of 5,000 Jews per month at a cost of 8,000 lei per person. The Joint Distribution Committee agreed to bear these costs. A total of 118,000 Jews left the country for Israel between May 1948 and the end of 1951. As a further compensation, poultry farms and other agricultural businesses were supplied by Israel.

First contacts

The subject of family reunification was raised during negotiations between the Eastern Committee of German Business and a Romanian business delegation in Vienna in 1954 . It was reported from a meeting in Stockholm at which representatives of the Romanian government clearly stated that they would only allow people of German ethnicity to leave the country if they paid 1000 dollars per capita.

The Central Legal Protection Office of the Foreign Office , which existed from 1949 to 1970, was originally assigned to the Federal Ministry of Justice and in 1953 was subordinate to the Foreign Office. Among other things, she was responsible for "fundamental questions of legal protection before foreign courts or authorities for Germans who got into difficulties as a result of the Second World War or because of the special circumstances existing in individual countries". Various lawyers were entrusted with the exercise of legal protection, such as the Stuttgart lawyer and notary Ewald Garlepp for Romania in the early 1960s.

On December 19, 1962, he reported “on offers of a regular buyout that were made to him in connection with his work for the legal protection office. In a specific case involving 76 people, the Romanian side made a proposal of DM 5,000 per person. In the case of prisoners, the sum is DM 7,000 per person. For a larger group an amount of around DM 600,000 was requested. Dr. Garlepp assured that every German can be brought out of Romania in this way today, regardless of whether he is imprisoned or not ”. Garlepp declared in 1963 that "once money has been paid for the relocation permit for a number of people, it will not be possible beyond family reunification to get people out without financial or economic consideration." During this time, 44,000 DM for two Families with a total of seven people paid.

In 1967, Federal President Gustav Heinemann made a state visit to Romania in order to strengthen the country's course independent of the Kremlin , but he was also concerned with the “fate of the 350,000 ethnic Germans in communist Romania”. On January 31, 1967, the Federal Republic of Germany and Romania - the first country in the Eastern Bloc - established diplomatic relations. Through the so-called second leg (financial benefits in exchange for exit permits for a certain number of Romanian Germans), Germany wanted to make things easier for those who wanted to stay in Romania and thus reduce the pressure to leave the country.

Appointment of the German negotiator

In 1968, the then Federal Government under Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger commissioned the Neuss lawyer and later member of the German Bundestag Heinz Günther Hüsch ( CDU ) as negotiator of the Federal Republic of Germany with Romania in the secret issue of the Canal . Hüsch also filled this role during the following reigns under Willy Brandt , Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl . His mission only ended with the fall of the Ceausescu regime during the Romanian Revolution in 1989 .

Hüsch received his official assignment to negotiate with Romania, for which he asked for freedom in his methodology, in January 1968 from Gerd Ludwig Lemmer , the then State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims . Hüsch did not receive a written contract with the federal government for his assignment. The German Red Cross supported the action, but did not want to lead it. Hüsch had more than 200 official and between 600 and 1000 unofficial meetings with representatives of the Romanian government, which gave him the code name Eduard . Hüsch had a total of six Romanian negotiating partners over the years:

  • Alexandru Martinescu , chief negotiator from 1962
  • Gheorghe Marcu , Deputy Director of the Institute for Foreign Trade, close confidante of Ceaușescus
  • Tudor Gudina , Colonel
  • Stelian Octavian Andronic , commercial counselor, businessman, former commercial attaché in the Netherlands, negotiator from 1981 to 1986
  • Dragan alias General Niculescu alias General Doicaru , head of the Securitate
  • Aristotelo Ene alias Aristotel Stamatoiu , Deputy Head of the Securitate
  • Constantin Anghelache , Lieutenant Colonel

Interpreters were Adalbert Bucur alias Popescu , Mitofan Oprea alias Oprescu , Marisescu (first name unknown). From 1970/71 it was certain that the Romanian interlocutors were members of the Securitate.

negotiations

Hüsch held his first round of negotiations with the representatives of Romania from February 9 to 12, 1968 in a back room of the Hotel Ambasador in Bucharest . The second negotiation was held in the Lido , later discussions took place in the Ministry of Foreign Trade. “Absolute secrecy” was associated with the start of negotiations from the start. The initial phase was marked by mutual mistrust and uncertainty about the ability of the other side to keep agreements. The content of the negotiations essentially consisted of the obligation of the Romanian side to allow a certain number of Germans to leave the Federal Republic for a certain period of time, and the obligation of the German side to pay a certain amount to Romania for every German who left. The Romanian side had the following demands:

  • an advance of 200,000 German marks, cash payment, no receipt
  • different amounts for each approved departure according to the categories:
    • Age
    • vocational training (manual worker, skilled worker, academic)
    • pensioner

There were considerable differences of opinion regarding the classification of specialists , i.e. skilled workers or craftsmen, which should also include tractor drivers and students in the final semester. There were also differences in the following negotiations, as Hüsch pushed for a flat rate per person.

In order to check the services provided, the Romanian side provided lists with information on surnames, first names, addresses and passport numbers. A check revealed that the persons listed had only received an exit permit, and it was unclear whether they had actually emigrated to Germany.

In the round of negotiations on April 25, 1968 Romania demanded the following transfer amounts per person leaving:

  • Category A: 1,700 DM - normal person
  • Category B: 5,000 DM - upscale, trained skilled worker
  • Category C: 10,000 DM - academics

The first written contract was signed on March 7, 1969 in Stockholm and was limited to March 15, 1970. The second contract followed in 1970 in Stockholm, in which a continuation of the cooperation from March 16, 1970 was agreed. In this, the Romanian side undertook to bring about a minimum legal emigration of 20,000 Romanians of German origin from the Socialist Republic of Romania to the Federal Republic of Germany, staggered as follows:

  • March 16 to December 31, 1970
  • 1971
  • 1972
  • 1973

- 4,000 people
- 6,000 people
- 6,000 people
- 4,000 people

Payments

Payments from Germany

Within the meaning of this contract, the Romanian side was entitled to bring about up to 40,000 legal emigrations to the Federal Republic within the contract area. In compensation, Hüsch paid the following compensation for its clients:

  • Category A: 1,800 DM persons who do not fall into a later category; as well as men who have reached the age of 62 upon entry into the Federal Republic, and women who have reached the age of 60
  • Category B1: DM 5,500 students who have not yet finished their studies
  • Category B2: 7,000 DM students in the last two years of their training
  • Category C: 11,000 DM people with a degree
  • Category D: DM 2,900 people who have completed vocational training but not a university, for example skilled workers, masters, journeymen

A maximum of 20 percent of those arriving should come from category D. If more than 20,000 repatriates came to Germany during the contract period, Romania received a bonus. With up to 30,000 people this bonus amounted to three million DM; for up to 40,000 people four million DM, with a proportional offsetting of the values ​​in between. Payment was made at the end of each year, 50 percent by crossed check and 50 percent in cash, but without a written receipt. The former German ambassador in Bucharest from 1971 to 1976, Erwin Wickert , confirmed the information on the bounty payments.

As early as 1963, the then Federal Minister of Finance, Rolf Dahlgrün, reported on a conversation with the then State Secretary Karl Carstens from the Foreign Office, in which Carstens assumed that 100,000 Romanian Germans wanted to travel to Germany and that Germany would have to pay Romania a head fee of DM 1,000 per person .

Berndt von Staden , Ministerial Director in the Foreign Office, mentioned in 1972 that the “current rate” was 3250 DM per person.

In 1985, Der Spiegel named the following amounts:

  • For a child: 4,000 DM
  • For a pensioner: 6,000 DM
  • For an adult: up to DM 10,000

The Transylvanian historian Michael Kroner gave the following information in 1998:

  • 1960s: around 1,500 DM per person
  • 1970s: DM 5,000 to 8,000 per person
  • 1980s: up to DM 12,000 per person

In the contract of 1970 it was specified that the entry into the Federal Republic and the registration there (usually in Nuremberg) was the proof of the Romanian performance and decisive for German payments. Another condition was that those who had left the country had to be members of the German people . If someone who left the country was not able to meet this clause in the sense of the German definition, no trigger amount was paid.

According to the Romanian view, anyone who came to the Federal Republic of Germany without a permit was an “illegal refugee”. Relatives of illegal refugees could not apply to leave the country using the argument of family reunification, as, according to the Romanian negotiators, they would never receive an exit permit. Hüsch suggested to his Romanian negotiating partners that “illegals” should be legalized retrospectively. Germany would regard such cases as falling under the agreement and would pay for these people in the same way as for those who left legally. Romania accepted this. The prices agreed for categories A, B and C were DM 4,000, DM 7,800 and DM 8,950, respectively.

Hüsch reached an agreement with the Romanian side that marriage permits would be issued if the marriage requests could be made sufficiently credible. Nothing was paid for marriage permits. According to a Romanian decree, those wishing to leave the country had to pay for their train ticket in foreign currency to leave the country; Romanian citizens, however, were not allowed to hold foreign currency. For settlement purposes , Germany received two lists from Romania, an exit list and a so-called talon list of the Romanian Railway Căile Ferate Române . A train ticket cost 390 DM.

Helmut Schmidt during the meeting with Nicolae Ceaușescu on June 6th – 7th. January 1978

In January 1978 there was the so-called handshake agreement between the then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Nicolae Ceaușescu. It was agreed that there would be 11,000 people leaving the country annually, for whom Hermes loans of more than DM 800 million were to be granted in return and a bounty of DM 4,000. From 13,500 departures a year, the bounty should increase to 5,000 DM per person. However, this agreement was a written agreement signed by Vasile Pungan, Ceauşescu's foreign policy advisor, and Ministerial Director Günther van Well of the Foreign Office.

Over time, the transfer fees increased steadily. After the abolition of the categories in 1983 a uniform DM 7,800 per emigrant was paid; the last statement from August 1989 showed an amount of DM 8,950 per person.

The agreements that Hüsch concluded with the Romanian side did not contain any information about agreements between the states of Germany and Romania, but were contracts under private law with Hüsch. The Romanian side legitimized itself by leaving the country, Hüsch through payments. The treaties would not have been enforceable under international law .

Financial transactions to Romania

Conversation with contemporary witnesses: Helmut Kohl with Ulrich Wickert (at phoenix; 1999)

The financial resources for the releases originally came from the budget of the Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons and Refugees. During the social-liberal coalition under the then Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt, the Ministry for Expellees and Refugees was dissolved in 1969 and a separate department was established in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which was subordinate to a State Secretary.

In the early days Romania only accepted cash payments, for which there was initially no other evidence. The cash payments were logged and documented by Ewald Garlepp, who also introduced Hüsch to the Romanian negotiating partners. Later it was paid by check and later by bank transfer.

Cash payments were never made in Romania, but in European cities such as Vienna, Paris , Rome , Stockholm or Copenhagen . The payments consisted of 1,000 DM bills, which Commerzbank gave to the law firm Dr. Hüsch were counted in joint meetings, enveloped and sealed with the seal of the bank and Hüsch's lawyer seal and thus later handed over to the recipients in envelopes. A directory with the notification by number was forwarded to the federal government. When handing over banknotes worth 24 million DM, Hüsch was accompanied by a police escort, and he always carried a weapon with him. Later payments were made by check, sometimes also in Bucharest. Out of mistrust in front of the Securitate, Hüsch agreed with Commerzbank that the check sums would not be honored until he released the payment in person. Later, the financial transactions took place through wire transfers. The money was always paid in the next round of negotiations, roughly every three months. Under the Romanian negotiator Gheorghe Marcu, there was at times no contact between the parties for five months. In the last three years of the action, the Romanian side aimed to systematize transactions, with meetings every two months.

The funds were transferred to accounts at the Romanian National Bank , the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank based in Frankfurt am Main, or the Bank for International Settlements . The recipient of the payments to the account number, which always remains the same, was stated: "Foreign trade bank of Romania, regarding Andronic" or "Foreign trade bank of Romania, discussion with Dr. Nice from the date ... ".

The amount of the total payment between Bonn and Bucharest in the period from 1968 to 1989 is not known. The numerous documents that provide information about individual, periodic payments or an overview of the amounts received in a certain period of time give an approximate picture of this, but due to their selective nature do not allow the total amount of the free purchase monies to be determined. In addition to the agreed per capita amounts, Romania received further financial benefits such as bonus payments for exceeding the specified exit permits, special payments for solving difficult cases or interest subsidies for loans amounting to DM 32 million annually (from mid-1978). According to cautious estimates by the researcher Ernst Meinhardt, the total amount of money that flowed in this way after studying the files of the Federal Archives in Koblenz and the archives of the Foreign Office in Berlin in 2007 amounts to over one billion DM. After studying 468, most of them from Securitate The Romanian historian Florian Banu agreed with the holdings of documents released in 2011 and now in the archives of the National Council for the Study of the Archives of the Securitate (CNSAS) . According to Heinz Günther Hüsch, this estimate is incorrect.

Other services

According to Ernst Meinhardt, for the departure of the Romanian Germans, in addition to financial compensation, there were “non-monetary demands [...] which the Romanian side [had] repeatedly made. The German side has mostly fulfilled them. They were rejected if they were excessive or violated embargo regulations. "

According to Florian Banu, “the list of deliveries included, among other things, a considerable number of passenger cars from the brands Mercedes-Benz , BMW , Ford , Opel and Audi , a van ( Romanian autodubă ) of the type Mercedes-Benz equipped with film equipment and loudspeakers , a Magirus Deutz fire engine, an automatic blood analysis device and all the technical equipment for a dentist's cabinet, both intended for the Polyclinic of the Ministry of the Interior. ”Three hunting rifles and 2000 rounds of ammunition were also delivered. In addition, there was the delivery of a large amount of "operational technology" without payment ( Romanian fără plată ), especially devices for acoustic and optical recording and playback. According to the published documents, such deliveries primarily took place in the first half of the 1970s, according to Banu. Hüsch, on the other hand, stated that at no time would secret technical and embargoed funds have been delivered.

The Romanian side asked for special payments for their efforts to comply with the provisions of the Confidential Convention. On behalf of his client, Heinz Günther Hüsch agreed and transferred a total of 4.6 million DM in three tranches to a special account. The money was used to buy operational technology and other materials for equipping the Securitate units on the German market. The Romanian side asked Hüsch several times for assistance in arranging company contacts, the procurement of certain products and the issuing of export licenses.

Use of funds in Romania

The head of the foreign exchange department in the Romanian Ministry of Finance from 1978 to 1982, Theodor Stolojan, confirmed that although there were two foreign exchange accounts at the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank, these were not Nicolae Ceaușescu's private accounts, but “accounts available to Ceaușescu” . Ceaușescu used most of the money in these accounts in the 1980s to pay off Romania's foreign debts. After the revolution of 1989, Ion Iliescu's government used the rest of the money to import urgently needed consumer goods for the population. He knows nothing about Ceaușescu's secret Swiss accounts or about secret service agents who have withdrawn money from these accounts.

According to Florian Banu, the payments in Romania were declared as "value dates obtained from operational activities", which flowed into the state budget from 1966 and were initially used to cover the needs of the Romanian economy for goods and technologies from abroad, and later also to repay foreign debts . Securitate used the statutory deductible of 20 percent primarily to purchase operational technology.

Additional payments by those wishing to leave the country

In addition, it was common that families willing to leave the coveted exit papers by a Foreign Exchange - bribes to local authorities had to buy. The possession of foreign currency was forbidden in Romania, however, so those wishing to leave the country often found themselves in an illegality dilemma. This can be seen as a further indication that this procedure was covered by the highest authority in the state and politics. Those who did not want to or could not pay had to wait many years and often in vain for their application to be processed. Payment was not always a guarantee of success either. In order to issue an exit permit, those wishing to leave the country were often forced to sell their land and house at fixed rates. These tariffs were usually only a fraction of the actual value. After leaving the country, many of those affected were obliged to repay some considerable amounts to relatives who had advanced the bribes.

Especially in the 1980s, bribes were paid to so-called middlemen , for example in Timișoara to the notorious gardener ( Romanian Grădinaru ) alias flower man Nicolae Căpraru or to the former royal notary Bogdan Nicolae. The local network of bribery collectors was subordinate to Viorel "Bebe" Bucur, captain of the Miliţia Economică from 1984 to 1989. Similar networks also existed in Brașov , Arad and Bucharest. Bucur was convicted in the 1990s, but acquitted of the charge of taking advantage. He had correctly transferred all the funds to the foreign trade bank.

It is known from individual cases that as early as 1960, 1962 and 1964 those wishing to leave the country had to repay the costs of the training they received in Romania to the Romanian state before leaving. With the Bucharest decree of 1982, which became known in Germany as the free purchase decree , Romania insisted on the "obligation to repay", among other things for training, sponsorship, etc., and "assignment of total property to the state" of land, house, Cultural property, etc. The decree provoked international protests. Beginning in February 1983, Bucharest rigorously applied the decree and demanded up to 80,000 DM from families wishing to leave the country, but reacted nervously to the threat of US economic measures and the announcement of an international legal review. On June 1, 1983, as a result of a visit by then Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher to Bucharest , the Romanian government declared that it was ready to “no longer apply the decree to members of the German minority”.

The fees for applications to renounce Romanian citizenship at the Romanian diplomatic missions in Germany were up to DM 880 per person.

The Transylvanian researcher Otto-Walter Roth estimated the total amount of bribes paid in the 1980s to be 225 million DM. In the mid-1990s, the Timișoara International monthly magazine published a multi-part series on bribes with extensive lists of names of the payers, their home parish and the amounts including the date. A total was not given here.

Negotiations about a state visit by Helmut Kohl

After his visit to Bonn in 1984, Ceaușescu had issued an invitation to Chancellor Helmut Kohl for a return visit to Bucharest. In order not to upgrade Ceauşescu any further, Kohl reacted with reluctance. Ceauşescu wanted to overcome his foreign policy isolation, and so pressure was put on negotiator Hüsch. His Romanian interlocutors ultimately demanded that the Chancellor pay his visit on August 26, 1986, or on September 4 at the latest. A few hours later, the interpreter said “he must have made a mistake”. In Hüsch's further negotiations, the Romanian side temporarily linked the continuation of family reunification with a state visit by Kohl; At the beginning of 1988 the pressure increased further.

Helmut Kohl, considering an increase in the number of emigrants to 25,000 annually, feared that the German public would no longer be willing to spend money on family reunions and wanted to solve the problem quickly. So around July / August 1988 Kohl was ready to visit Bucharest if this could bring about improvements for those who wanted to leave and those who stayed. He made it a condition that a higher number of people leaving the country had to be agreed in advance, and that his visit was not an approval of Romanian politics, neither in terms of foreign policy nor domestic policy, especially with regard to the Romanian program to systematize the villages .

In 1988 Kohl sent Hüsch as a special ambassador to Ceaușescu in Bucharest, since no results had been achieved through the usual diplomatic channels. In the talks, Hüsch underlined the crucial importance of family reunification for a visit to the Chancellor and at the same time discussed secret agreements. Ceaușescu denied any agreement and refused to negotiate. As a result, Kohl refrained from visiting Romania.

Termination of the agreement

On December 4, 1989, Romania suddenly and finally terminated all agreements. The humanitarian commitments would be met, but Romania would forego further payments in the future. Settlement was scheduled for December 20, 1989, and the quarterly payment was due on December 31, 1989.

Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl consulted Heinz Günther Hüsch on December 20 about his assessment of whether the Federal Republic should make the outstanding payments in light of the revolutionary events and the meanwhile critical situation in Romania, and decided on the same day: “We are taking the risk. We remain loyal to the treaty. ”On December 25, 1989, Elena and Nicolae Ceaușescu were shot dead, and on December 29, 1989, the transitional government lifted the travel restrictions. In total, Heinz Günther Hüsch had conducted 313 negotiations in 22 years.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989

Within the next six months, 111,150 people of German origin “fled the country in a panic”. Mistrust and a lack of trust in the legal situation in Romania shaped the awareness of those Romanian Germans who had to postpone their wish to leave, despite the new Romanian constitution that was passed on November 21, 1991 , which guarantees the equality of all citizens and the right of national minorities to "preserve, Development and expression of their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity ”promised.

From the middle of 1990 onwards, the federal government was forced to adopt a series of legal measures with the aim of limiting the number of persons entering the Federal Republic of this group of people. The primary goal of this policy was to stabilize the German minority in Romania. To this end, the diplomatic framework in bilateral relations between the two countries has been improved and an extensive network of diverse material aid has been set up. The treaty on friendly cooperation between the Federal Republic of Germany and Romania , signed on April 21, 1992, improved the legal, political and economic conditions for the future existence of the German minority in Romania. In the first five years after the fall of the Wall alone, the aid provided by the German government for the German minority in Romania was worth DM 122 million.

From 1950 to 2005 430,101 Romanian Germans came to the Federal Republic of Germany as repatriates or late repatriates from Romania. The number of people with a German background who remained in Romania was less than 50,000 in the 2002 census.

rating

Nicolae Ceaușescu is said to have joked that "oil, Germans and Jews from Romania are the most profitable export items".

Romania's President Traian Băsescu condemned in his speech before both chambers of the Romanian Parliament on December 18, 2006 the “sale of Jews and Germans” by the communist regime. Secret service files on this subject have not yet been fully released. The German confidentiality period for documents on the subject is 30 years, so that all circumstances on the German side can be expected to become known in 2019 at the earliest.

Klaus Kinkel , President of the Federal Intelligence Service from 1979 to 1982 and State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice from 1982 to 1990 , remarked: “I hated what happened there, but we had no other options and no other chance to do it. Even under the circumstances that were necessary at the time, it was right. ”“ We had to consider whether we should do this or not, we were in a situation that could in some ways be blackmailed, and that's why people acted like that at the time. With an uncomfortable feeling, with anger in the stomach, and also - I say this clearly - with some disgust as far as the Romanian way of negotiating and the situation there is concerned. "" It was in the truest sense of the word an unworthy, humiliating human trafficking. "

Hans-Dietrich Genscher stated: “It was a unique thing, of course also unique because there were no expulsions in Romania after the Second World War. While the Germans had to leave their homeland in other European countries, they could stay in Romania. So that was a different attitude in Romania, because they recognized how important the German minority was in Romania - also for the economic development of the country. That is why the problem of this magnitude only existed in Romania. "

Horst Teltschik , Foreign Policy Advisor to Helmut Kohl from 1982 to 1990, explained: “With the German background [the Romanian Germans] you have a responsibility as a government; according to our constitution, they are German. So when they are in need, they are obliged to help. In the case of Romania, it was about leaving or nothing. We couldn't help on site, so there was only one alternative - the offer: if you pay, you can have them all. Well, then we have [...] just paid. "

The Romanian negotiator Stelian Octavian Andronic described his collaboration with Hüsch: “It was the collaboration of two civilized people who were not so strongly ideologically indoctrinated that a reasonable argument would no longer have been possible. But everyone pursued their own interests. "

According to Anton Sterbling , Professor of Sociology and Education, “It is in the nature of dictatorships that they lead people into such predicament, cover up guilt and ultimately lead people into moral crises. The dilemmas were brought about by an inhuman, totalitarian and national communist system of rule and its functionaries. Then there was the ubiquitous corruption, because everyone who had to sign a small act held up their hand. "

The historian Paul Milata noted that there were still unanswered questions, such as the identity of numerous German and Romanian public and private agents for exit permits, the number and social structure (age, occupation) of those leaving by year of departure, the amount and the goal of public and private payments and kickbacks, and the number of Romanian Germans who died in illegal exit attempts. Milata also mentioned the extreme reluctance of those affected, which would hinder the research. Those affected justified this attitude with the still rampant fear of Romanian officials and the opinion that many of these became or have remained decision-makers in the Romanian economy and politics after 1989.

Florian Banu stated: “The somewhat paradoxical situation arose that the dissidents from Romania, declaratively supported by the 'Western democracies', monitored and theirs by the Securitate with the help of the powerful technology supplied by the same states Index cards were processed with the latest computer technology of western origin. "Walter Tonţa commented on the appropriateness of the funds made available and the credibility of German politics:" By using the Securitate, an instrument hated by the population for the implementation of the communist dictatorship, with modern Technology, a clear border crossing was committed, which cannot be justified by the need to ensure the departure of the Romanian Germans. "

In an artistic attempt at reappraisal , the Bucharest theater director and screenwriter Gianina Cărbunariu addressed the “sell-out” of Romanian citizens of German or Jewish ethnicity. In preparation, she asked Romanian Germans about their identity, homeland and history. From this material she developed the play Sold out , which premiered on May 5, 2010 at the Münchner Kammerspiele .

See also

literature

  • Heinz-Günther Hüsch in an interview with Hannelore Baier and Ernst Meinhardt: Buying freedom, resettling Germans from Romania 1968–1990. Honterus Verlag, Hermannstadt 2013, ISBN 978-973-1725-90-1 .
  • Heinz Günther Hüsch, Peter Dietmar Leber , Hannelore Baier: Paths to freedom - German-Romanian documents on family reunification and resettlement 1968–1989. Country team of the Banat Swabians. Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-934794-44-3
  • Florica Dobre, Florian Banu, Luminița Banu, Laura Stancu: Acțiunea “Recuperarea”. Securitatea și emigrarea germanilor din România (1962–1989) ( German  action “recovery”. The Securitate and the emigration of Romanian Germans (1962–1989)). Editura enciclopedică publishing house . Bucharest 2011, ISBN 978-973-45-0628-6 .
  • Hannelore Baier: Cumpărarea libertății. Honterus Verlag, Hermannstadt 2014, ISBN 978-606-8573-17-5 . (Romanian)

Video material

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Romanian code name originally hid a secret service that pursued the return to Romania of the social security contributions of Romanian workers and specialists who were active in the Federal Republic in the first half of the 1970s. From 1979, this code name was then transferred to the buy-out campaign running through the secret channel. The term does not apply to the entire period of the negotiations. (Cf. Walter Tonţa: The Securitate secret service and the “recovery” campaign. )
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Ernst Meinhardt: The ransom of the Romanian Germans - What do German politicians say about it? What do the archives provide?
  3. ↑ Land Reform Act No. 187 of March 23, 1945.
  4. ↑ Ministerial Decision No. 2694 of December 7, 1955.
  5. ↑ Wilhelm Weber : Above us the blue endless sky. The deportation to the Bărăgan steppe of Romania in 1951. Documentation . Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-00-002932-X .
  6. ^ Hilke Gerdes: Romania for Germans. More than Dracula and Wallachia . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-456-3 .
  7. ^ Bavarian regional center for political education: Bernhard Beller: Europe in the Carpathian Arc. ( Memento of July 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (= text booklet for the wall newspaper “Society and State” No. 5/2008). Lüders & Baran, Agency for Communication, Munich 2009.
  8. ↑ Hildrun Glass: Minority between two dictatorships. On the history of the Jews in Romania 1944–1949 (=  Southeast European works. 112 ). Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56665-2 , p. 114-115 .
  9. ^ A b Ion Mihai Pacepa : Red Horizons The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus' Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption . Regnery Gateway, Washington DC 1990, ISBN 0-89526-746-2 (in English).
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship : Germans Against Foreign Currency: Ransom the Romanian Germans under Ceaușescu , documentation, 45 min broadcast date on ARD 13 January 2014.
  11. ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Romania , Ernst Meinhard: "That was the circle of the Securitate that you could not trust in any way" - Germany's chief negotiator on the ransom of the Romanian Germans in the period 1967–1989. ( Memento of March 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) , December 23, 2009.
  12. ↑ Securitate Dosar No. 3673, EDUARD
  13. ↑ a b c Hannelore Baier : It was the purchase of freedom, part 2 . In: General German newspaper for Romania. November 1, 2011.
  14. ↑ a b c d e f g h Ernst Meinhardt: Free purchase of the Romanian Germans . In: Banater Post . August 20, 2007.
  15. ↑ Erwin Wickert : The happy eyes. Stories from my life . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart et al. 2001, ISBN 3-421-05152-6 , pp. 500 .
  16. ↑ Against baksheesh . In: Der Spiegel . 43/1985, November 21, 1985.
  17. ↑ Michael Kroner: Decline and dissolution of an 850-year-old community. The Transylvanian Saxons in the time of National Socialism, Communism and Post-Communism 1940 to 1999 . P. Hedwig, Erlangen 1998 ( History of the Transylvanian Saxons and their economic and cultural achievements 4).
  18. ^ A b c Peter-Dietmar Leber : Buyback and bribe for departure . In: Transylvanian newspaper. September 12, 2007.
  19. ↑ With the suitcase to the secret service. In: Rheinische Post from April 14, 2018
  20. ↑ a b c d e f Florica Dobre, Florian Banu, Luminița Banu, Laura Stancu: Acțiunea “Recuperarea”. Securitatea și emigrarea germanilor din România (1962–1989). Editura enciclopedică publishing house, Bucharest 2011, ISBN 978-973-45-0628-6 (in Romanian), German: "Recovery" campaign. The Securitate and the emigration of Romanian Germans (1962–1989) .
  21. ^ A b Walter Tonţa: The Securitate secret service and the “recovery” campaign. 2011.
  22. ↑ a b Hannelore Baier: It was the purchase of freedom, part 3 . In: General newspaper for Romania. November 2011.
  23. ↑ Boris Kalnoky: Ceaușescu's wealth had a name: greed . In: The world . February 16, 1996.
  24. ↑ R. Traub, O. Ihlau: Now the Romanians hope for Gorbachev . In: Der Spiegel. 19/1987, May 4, 1987.
  25. ↑ Stefan Both: Dezvăluirile unui fost traficant de aur: "Procurorii luau aur ca să ne scape de dosarele penale" . Adevărul , January 28, 2010.
  26. ^ Hans Bergel: Historical "act of German and international solidarity" . In: Transylvanian newspaper. December 11, 2007.
  27. ↑ Hannelore Baier; It was buying freedom. Part 4, In: General newspaper for Romania. November 3, 2011.
  28. ^ Journal of Transylvanian Cultural Studies. Edition 2010, 1st issue
  29. ^ Association of the Transylvanian Saxons , Anneli Ute Gabanyi : History of the Germans in Romania . In: Information on political education. the Federal Agency for Civic Education , Issue 267, "Aussiedler"
  30. ^ Initiative Tageszeitung e. V .: Aussiedler ( Memento from February 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ↑ Hannelore Baier , Martin Bottesch and others: History and traditions of the German minority in Romania. (Textbook for the 6th and 7th grade in schools with German as the language of instruction) . 4th edition. Central, Mediaș 2011, ISBN 978-973-87076-5-8 , pp. 19-36 .
  32. ↑ Deutsche Welle , Politics Direct: The greatest free purchase in history , 2010, 8:17 min.
  33. ↑ Peter-Dietmar Leber: Bounties and bribes for departure . (PDF; 97 kB)
  34. ^ Paul Milata : Ransom the Romanian Germans in the years of communism . In: Transylvanian newspaper. 2007.
  35. ↑ Münchner Kammerspiele : Premiere ( Memento from March 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  36. ↑ Malte Jelden: The bought Germans . In: Theaterheute - Jahrbuch 2009. S. 160.
  37. ↑ Date of broadcast on Phoenix July 4, 2013.
  38. ↑ Broadcast date on ARD January 13, 2014.
  39. ↑ Pașaport de Germania in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  40. ↑ Broadcast date on Sky August 13, 2016.