Romanian Germans

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Romanian German is a collective name for the traditional, regionally largely separated German-speaking minorities in Romania . This group became numerically significant in Romania after the First World War , as the areas with a high German-speaking population such as the Banat and Transylvania only became part of Romania through the Treaty of Trianon and after the Hungarian-Romanian War . Resettlement and flight at the end of World War II , emigration due to the oppression during the communist era, and mass emigration after the Romanian Revolution in 1989 greatly reduced the number of Germans in Romania. According to the last census, around 36,000 of the former 800,000 Romanian Germans still lived in the country in 2011.

composition

The German population groups in Romania in the 20th and 21st centuries in numbers
Ethnic group 1930 1977 2002
Transylvanian Saxony 230,000 170,000 18,000
Banat Swabia 237,000 138,000 19,000
Sathmar Swabians 27,000 8,000 6,000
Banat mountain country Germans 37,000 22,000 6,000
Landler 6,000 4,000 250
Bukowina Germans 75,000
Dobruja Germans 12,000
Bessarabian Germans 81,000

The German-speaking population consists of the:

The subgroups of Romanian Germans show great differences in terms of origin, regional history, social structure and religious affiliation.

history

Origins

Settlement areas of the Germans in Transylvania and Banat (as of 1918)

The most important ethnic groups within the Romanian Germans are the Transylvanian Saxons and the Banat Swabians, the latter from the higher-ranking ethnic group of the Danube Swabians .

The Transylvanian Saxons settled in Transylvania in the 12th century under the Hungarian King Géza II . The colonists' areas of origin were mostly in what is now Luxembourg , Lorraine , Alsace and the areas of the then dioceses of Cologne , Trier and Liège (today between Flanders , Wallonia , Luxembourg, Westerwald and Hunsrück all the way into Westphalia ). The Transylvanian Saxons have been predominantly Protestant since the Reformation by Honterus .

The Banat Swabians settled in the 17th to the second half of the 19th century in the course of the settlement of Swabian trains organized by the House of Habsburg in the lands of the St. Stephen's Crown , especially in the Pannonian Plain along the central course of the Danube . Its origins were mostly in Lorraine, Alsace, the Palatinate , Rhine and Main Franconia , but also in Swabia , Franconia , Bavaria and Hesse . Bohemia and Inner Austria as well as the Austrian Netherlands (today: Luxembourg and Belgium) had a larger share at times. The settlers were predominantly Catholic.

Consequences of the First World War

After the First World War, the borders of Southeast Europe were rearranged. Romania was the former of Austria Crown land Bukovina , Hungary today's Transylvania and the eastern Banat , as well as Bulgaria , the Dobrogea . In addition, Romanian troops occupied the previously Russian Bessarabia . According to the first official census of 1930, about 9.25 million people lived in these newly acquired areas, which had a very ethnically mixed population. Only a little more than half were Romanians; the German minority , with 760,000 people, was the second largest non-Romanian group after the Hungarian.

The ethnic group in World War II

Billboard with keep out slogans in Northern Transylvania, August 1944

In 1940 part of the Romanian Germans came to Hungary through the Second Vienna Arbitration . Romania had to give up several territories acquired in 1918 in favor of Hungary, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union .

The Dobruja, Bessarabia and Bukovina Germans were resettled to the German Empire after the German Empire had concluded appropriate agreements with the Romanian, Bulgarian and Soviet governments. After that, around 550,000 Germans lived in Romania. The Banat Swabians formed the largest group with around 320,000, and Transylvanian Saxons with around 200,000 the second largest. Shortly afterwards, under pressure from the German Reich, the Romanian government issued a minority statute for the remaining Romanian Germans. An ethnic group law granted them the status of a corporation under public law , and the "NSDAP of the German ethnic group in Romania", founded in November 1940, was declared the "national will-bearer" of the Romanian Germans.

Almost 64,000 Romanian Germans joined the Waffen SS as mostly volunteers , 50,000 of them after 1943. They served, among other things, in the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” , and at least 2000 in concentration camp guards. The number of Romanian Germans who died was 27.5 percent, no higher than in the Wehrmacht.

After Romania's change of sides and the declaration of war on Germany on August 23, 1944, many Germans fled north of Transylvania and the Banat to the west , especially to Austria and Germany.

After 1945

Federal President Karl Carstens receives compatriots of the Transylvanian Saxons and Banat Swabians on February 11, 1981 in Bonn, picture from the Federal Archives

In the first census after the Second World War at the end of January 1948, around 345,000 people of German ethnicity were registered in Romania . As alleged " collaborators of Hitler " ("Hitlerists"), the ethnic group was collectively disenfranchised for several years and exposed to the arbitrariness of government agencies. These include the abduction to the Soviet Union , in the January 1945 to December 1949 70000-80000 Romania German as reparation for the destruction of World War II in the Soviet Union for forced labor mainly in mines and heavy industry in the Ukraine , but also in the Caucasus were spent; and the deportation to the Bărăgan steppe in June 1951, which affected around 40,000 people, around a quarter of whom were Banat Swabians.

The Land Reform Act No. 187 of March 23, 1945 regulated expropriation in Romania in 1945 , as a result of which the Romanian Germans lost their land, their houses, cattle and all agricultural machinery and equipment. About 75 percent of the Romanian German population lived in rural areas; Around 95 percent of these were expropriated. In addition, large farmers of all ethnicities were expropriated whose land holdings exceeded 50 hectares. From 1949 onwards, the collectivization of agriculture in Romania, carried out in phases up to 1962, affected all farmers in the country. A nationalization of industry, trade, banks and transport went hand in hand from June 11, 1948. It was not until Ministerial Decision No. 2694 of December 7, 1955 that the return of the Bărăgan deportees was regulated. In most cases, they were given back their houses and gardens, but not their property.

During the time of the People's Republic of Romania (1948–1965) the German Antifascist Committee , which existed from 1949 to 1953, was supposed to represent the interests of the German minority. In the Socialist Republic of Romania (1965–1989) , the Council of Working People of German Nationality , which existed from 1969 to 1989, took on this task. Despite the temporary easing of the repression in the 1960s and 1970s, the overwhelming majority of Romanian Germans felt the desire to leave the country permanently, which they only rarely succeeded in at that time. With the free purchase of Romanian Germans by the German Federal Government , the departure of 226,654 Romanian Germans from Romania was in the 1967-1989 Federal Republic of Germany obtains. The amount of the payments for the so-called "head money" was estimated at over 1 billion DM .

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989

  • Germans in Romania (2002 census)

  • Bilingual place-name sign in Sibiu

Development of the Romanian-German population in Romania
year people
1930 745.421
1948 343,913
1956 348,708
1966 382,595
1977 359.109
1989 approx. 200,000
1992 119,646
1997 80-90,000
2002 59,764
2013 approx. 36,000

Within the first six months after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 , 111,150 people of German origin “fled the country in 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 people entering the Federal Republic of Germany. 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.

Many Romanian Germans in Romania today find political representation through the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (DFDR).

Since 2014, Klaus Johannis has been a Romanian-German President of Romania.

Municipalities with the largest proportion of the population

In seven municipalities, Germans now make up more than 10 percent:

German name Romanian name population German Share of Germans
Petrifeld Petreşti 1588 434 27.33%
Schinal Urziceni 1447 346 23.91%
Weidenthal Brebu Nou 119 28 23.52%
Feen Foieni 1840 384 20.86%
Shamagosh Ciumeşti 1194 219 18.34%
Bildegg Beltiug 3228 368 11.4%
Meadow field Tiream 2226 243 10.91%

Romanian German media

Title head of the German-language daily newspaper from Bucharest

The most important publications are the daily Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Romania (ADZ) in Bucharest and the weekly Hermannstädter Zeitung (HZ) in Sibiu . The German-language press in what is now Romania has existed for several centuries. In 1778 the first magazine for Transylvania was launched in Hermannstadt, which was founded by the Germans. Several local studios from Radio Romania and Televiziunea Română (TVR) produce radio and TV programs for Romanian Germans. These include, for example, Radio Neumarkt or the television program Deutsch um 1 at TVR 1 . In Bucharest, Radio Romania produces German-language programs for Germany and abroad ( Radio Romania International ). For Romanian Germans who have emigrated to Germany, the Siebenbürgische Zeitung is published in Munich as an organ of the Landsmannschaft of the Transylvanian Saxons. The Banater Post is the newspaper of the Banat Swabian Landsmannschaft.

See also

literature

  • Hannelore Baier , Martin Bottesch , Dieter Nowak, Alfred Wiecken, Winfried Ziegler: History and traditions of the German minority in Romania. Textbook for the 6th and 7th grade of the classes with German as the language of instruction . Romanian Ministry of Education and Research. 4th edition. Central Verlag Mediasch, 2011, ISBN 978-973-87076-5-8 .
  • Angelika Herta, Martin Jung (ed.): From the edge to the center. The German minority in Bucharest. (= Forum Romania. Volume 9). Frank and Timme, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86596-334-5 .
  • Paul Milata : Between Hitler, Stalin and Antonescu. Romanian Germans in the Waffen SS. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-13806-6 .
  • Klaus Popa (Ed.): Files on the German ethnic group in Romania 1937–1945. A selection. Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern et al. 2005, ISBN 3-631-54441-3 .
  • Johann Böhm : The synchronization of the German ethnic group in Romania and the Third Reich 1941–1944. Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-631-50647-3 .
  • Theodor Schieder , Werner Conze : Documentation of the expulsion of the Germans from East Central Europe. Volume III: The Fate of the Germans in Romania. Bonn 1957. ( zgv.de ( Memento from November 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ))

Web links

Commons : German minorities in Romania  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Romania: Ethnic German receives top office in ruling party . In: Der Spiegel . February 23, 2013.
  2. ↑ Hannelore Baier , Martin Bottesch , among 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. Mediaș 2007, p. 19-36 .
  3. ↑ Paul Milata : Assignment pattern of the Waffen-SS for Romanian Germans. In: Siebenbürger Zeitung. October 29, 2007.
  4. ^ Seminar: The Russian Deportation of the Romanian Germans. In: Transylvanian newspaper. (sevenbuerger.de)
  5. ↑ Hannelore Baier : Ackergrund, devices, wagons, houses. In: General German newspaper for Romania . April 23, 2012.
  6. ↑ Wilhelm Weber : Above us the blue endless sky. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-00-002932-X . (Romanian)
  7. ↑ Hannelore Baier : The "Antifa" and the "New Way". Some of the history of the German Antifascist Committee. In: General German newspaper for Romania . January 15, 2009.
  8. ↑ Europe in the Carpathian Arc. ( Memento from July 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Bavarian State Center for Political Education, Bernhard Beller: Europe in the Carpathian Arch. Text booklet for the wall newspaper “Society and State” No. 5/2008, Lüders & Baran, Agency for Communication, Munich 2009.
  9. ↑ Ernst Meinhardt: The ransom of the Romanian Germans - What do German politicians say about it? What do the archives provide? (Kulturraum-banat.de)
  10. ^ A b c d Association of the Transylvanian Saxons , Anneli Ute Gabanyi : History of the Germans in Romania . originally published in: Information on Political Education. the Federal Agency for Civic Education , Issue 267, "Aussiedler"
  11. ^ A b c Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg : Online encyclopedia on the culture and history of Germans in Eastern Europe .
  12. ↑ a b The Germans and Hungarians reached a historic low. In: General German newspaper for Romania . 29th August 2012.
  13. ^ Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania : General Presentation .
  14. ↑ German-language TV broadcast on the Romanian main television program . ( Memento from July 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ A very special textbook. In: Transylvanian newspaper. May 1, 2012. (evenbuerger.de)