Russian Germans

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Well-known Russian
Germans : Denis Fonwisin , Michael de Tolly
Alexander von Benckendorff , Katharina II.
Peter Struve , Alexei Rüdiger
Alissa Freindlich , Otto Schmidt

The term German Russians ( Russian Российские немцы , scientific. Transliteration Rossijskie nemcy, also Russian немцы Русские , scientific. Transliteration Russkie nemcy ) is a collective term for the German or German-born residents of Russia and other successor states of the former Soviet Union as well as for German-Balts . Most of the Russian-Germans, but also many mixed Russian-German families, have immigrated or relocated to the Central European German-speaking area, in particular to the Federal Republic of Germany .

Germans in Russia and Germans from Russia

Both the Germans who remained in Russia and the Germans who immigrated from Russia were and are listed as Russian Germans . An official distinction is made between repatriates (immigrated until 1993) and late repatriates (immigrated since 1993). Those who do not want to emphasize the fact of migration speak of themselves or others as Germans without adding anything , unless the omission of the addition of origin would indicate a lack of command of the German language.

Only resettled Russian Germans are privileged as members of the German people in the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 116, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law . You can obtain German citizenship with comparatively little effort , so you are granted all civil rights right from the start.

In the abbreviations of German-language designations of origin, the state is mostly given priority and the ethnic group is subordinate, as is the case with the term “Russian-German”. This term confirms the claim that the people in question are primarily Germans, in the case of repatriates and ethnic repatriates, “Germans from Russia” or “Germans who immigrated from the successor states of the Soviet Union”. Thus, the designation "German Russians" indicates that those named are considered "Russians" with a special relationship to Germany.

Settlement areas in Russia

It is a regionally distributed originally very group that after the settlement site within the Russian Tsarist empire be divided into Volga German , Wolhyniendeutsche , Crimea Germans , Caucasus German , Black Sea German , Siberia German . Some of them founded settlements themselves in Siberia and in the Far East on the Amur . In many places in the empire, German enclaves emerged as autonomous communities with names such as Mannheim, Josephsthal or Schönfeld. Their communal life often preserved traditions from their old homeland. They had their own churches and council assemblies that were binding on the German local community.

On July 1, 1991, the German national circle Halbstadt (Nekrassowo) in the Altai , which was dissolved in 1938, was re-established, on February 18, 1992 the German national circle Asowo (near Omsk ) was founded. In Saratov and Volgograd other national circles or -bezirke (should Okrugi ) are founded. The German Village Soviet (Dorfrat) von Bogdaschkino was founded near Ulyanovsk on the Volga in the early 1990s. The future of these autonomous structures at the lowest level is questionable, however, because the majority of the long-established German population has already emigrated from there. In 2010, the Russian-Germans made up the largest minority only in the Altai region and in the Novosibirsk region.

Population distribution of Russian Germans according to the result of the 2010 all-Russian census
Proportion of Germans according to federal subjects

The census of the Russian Federation carried out in 2010 gives a total of 394,138 Germans, of whom 170,154 lived in the countryside and 223,984 in cities.

Minorities of German origin still live in the following regions:

Most of the Germans living in the Altai have emigrated, but there is also a German national circle here again.

In percentage terms, Germans now make up around 0.41% of the entire population of Russia. Proportionally more Germans live in Siberia than in other regions, more than 350,000 Russian Germans.

Russian-German resettlers in Germany

During the advance of the Red Army in the course of the German-Soviet War , from 1943 onwards, especially Black Sea Germans who had come under National Socialist rule, were resettled by SS agencies in the Warthegau . They were given German citizenship (“administrative resettlers”), but after the end of the Second World War, most of them were returned to Russia as part of forced repatriation . It was only in the context of Ostpolitik that over 70,000 Germans from Russia were able to relocate to Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the turnaround, the numbers skyrocketed and people now speak of “return”. The repatriates and ethnic German repatriates who arrived after the fall of the Wall were relatively well integrated; the NZZ called the willingness to integrate in 2010 “exemplary”. There are opposing views on how the social and cultural integration of Russian Germans has taken place. Men work more than average in manufacturing and construction, women often in marginal employment. Overall (all family members taken together) the income distribution of Russian-German households is similar to that of the population without a migration background.

When the relationship with Russia deteriorated massively after 2014 , and also since the beginning of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 , many Russian- Germans felt they were treated unfairly and too little welcomed. In the Russian media, which were also consumed by Russian Germans, mood was raised against Chancellor Merkel and neo-fascism was presented as a main characteristic in today's Germany. For the first time since 2004, there should be an Wahl-O-Maten of the Federal Agency for Political Education in Russian before the 2017 elections . Russian-German families not only no longer spoke German for fear of discrimination in the Soviet Union after the Second World War , but according to the observation of the Russian-German journalist Ella Schindler, they also never learned to form a free opinion. Some retreated "into the well-known of a Soviet past" and familiar simple explanatory models of Russian television.

Well-known Russian Germans

Gazprom boss Alexei Miller
Sberbank boss Herman Gref

See also

literature

  • Reinhard Aulich: Not a trace of romance. The cross-generational fate of the Russian Germans. To a study by Hugo Eckert. In: Suevica. Contributions to Swabian literary and intellectual history. Vol. 9. 2001/2002 (= Stuttgart papers on German studies. No. 423). Heinz, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88099-428-5 , pp. 467-473.
  • Detlef Brandes, Victor Dönninghaus (ed.): Bibliography on the history and culture of the Russian Germans. Volume 2: From 1917 to 1998 (= writings of the Federal Institute for East German Culture and History. Volume 13). Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56134-0 .
  • M. Buchsweiler: German districts (rayons) and German district newspapers in the USSR. In: Osteuropa 32 (1982), pp. 671-682.
  • Federal Agency for Political Education : Information on political education. Issue 267.
  • Victor Dönninghaus , Jannis Panagiotidis, Hans-Christian Petersen (eds.): Beyond the "ethnic group". New perspectives on the Russian Germans between Russia, Germany and America (= writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe . Volume 68). Oldenbourg / de Gruyter, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-050141-4 .
  • György Dalos : History of the Russian Germans. From Catherine the Great to the present. Translated by Elsbeth Zylla. C. H. Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-67017-6 .
  • Larissa Dyck, Heinrich Mehl (ed.): My heart stayed in Russia. Russian Germans talk about their lives. Zeitgut, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86614-145-2 .
  • Alfred Eisfeld et al. (Ed.): The Russian Germans (= East German Cultural Council Foundation: Expulsion Areas and Expelled Germans. Vol. 2). 2., ext. and updated edition. Langen Müller, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-7844-2382-5 .
  • Alfred Eisfeld: From Stolperstein to Bridge - The Germans in Russia. In: Christoph Bergner, Matthias Weber (eds.): Aussiedler and minority policy in Germany - balance sheet and perspectives (= writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe. Volume 38). R. Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59017-3 , pp 79-89 ( . Pdf 8.2 MB (Not available online) Formerly in. Original ; accessed on November 7, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bkge.de ; limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Alfred Eisfeld: (Late) emigrants in Germany. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 63 (2013), 13-14, pp. 51-57.
  • Christian Eyselein: Russian-German repatriates understand. Practical theological approaches. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-374-02379-7 .
  • Walter Graßmann: German, German is not possible. Resettlers and late repatriates from Russia. In: Immigration. Migration to Germany (= Praxis Geschichte. 2015,4, July), OCLC 913575779 , pp. 38–41.
  • Walter Graßmann: Lutherans. In: Lothar Weiß: Russian-German Migration and Protestant Churches. In: Bensheimer Hefte. No. 115 (2013), ISSN  0522-9014 , pp. 74-94.
  • Birgit Griese: Two generations tell stories. Narrative identity in autobiographical stories by Russian Germans. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2006, ISBN 3-593-38211-3 (Zugl .: Göttingen, Univ., Diss. 2005 a. D. T .: Construction of personal and collective identity of Russian-German migrants ).
  • Rudolf Grulich : The Russian-German Catholics. In: The Roman Catholic Church in the Soviet Union (= contributions to freedom of religion and belief. No. 2). 2nd Edition. Church in Need / Ostiesterhilfe, Munich 1990 ( online ).
  • Hans Hecker : The Germans in the Russian Empire, in the Soviet Union and their successor states (= historical regional studies, German history in the east. Volume 2). 2nd Edition. Science and politics, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-8046-8805-5 .
  • Merle Hilbk: The avenue of the enthusiasts. A trip through Russian Germany. Structure, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-351-02667-7 .
  • Sabine Ipsen-Peitzmeier, Markus Kaiser (ed.): At home foreign - Russian Germans between Russia and Germany (= bibliotheka eurasia. Volume 3). Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89942-308-9 ( PDF; 1.9 MB ).
  • Tanja Krombach (Red.): Russian Germans today. Identity and integration. Documentation of the Potsdam Forum from February 27, 2003 in the Old Town Hall Potsdam (= Potsdam Forum ). German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe V., Potsdam 2003, ISBN 3-936168-09-1 .
  • Ferdinand Stoll: Kazakh Germans. Migration strategies of Kazakh Germans in the transition from ethnic to transnational migration - from the perspective of Kazakhstan. 2nd Edition. F. Stoll, Kisslegg 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-023812-3 (Zugl .: Freiburg (Breisgau), Univ., Diss., 2003).
  • Gerd Stricker (Ed.): German history in Eastern Europe - Russia. Siedler, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-88680-468-2 .
  • Stefanie Theis: Religiousness of Russian Germans (= practical theology today. Vol. 73). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018812-7 (Zugl .: Marburg, Univ., Diss., 2003).
  • Gerhard Wolter : The zone of total calm. The Russian Germans in the war and post-war years. Eyewitness reports. Translated from the Russian by Verena Flick. Weber, Augsburg 2003, ISBN 3-9808647-0-7 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Russian German  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sabine Ipsen-Peitzmeier, Markus Kaiser (ed.): At home foreign - Russian Germans between Russia and Germany. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89942-308-9 .
  2. ^ Censuses in Russia (1939 to 2010). Ria Novosti. 2011. In: de.rian.ru. March 22, 2012, updated October 5, 2015, accessed January 15, 2018.
  3. ↑ РГ + Россия 24: Росстат об итогах Всероссийской переписи населения 2010 года. Retrieved March 9, 2019 (Russian).
  4. ↑ Landsmannschaft der Germans aus Russia: Timeline from emigration to Russia to the founding of the Landsmannschaft. In: deutscheausrussland.de, accessed on November 7, 2017.
  5. ↑ Ulrich Schmid: From the Siberian expanses back into narrow Germany. In: NZZ. October 30, 2010, accessed November 7, 2017.
  6. ↑ Jannis Panagiotidis: History of the Russian Germans from the mid-1980s. Federal Agency for Civic Education, July 18, 2017, accessed on January 15, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b Manuela Roppert: Russian Germans - the seducible voters? ( Memento from October 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: BR24 . 13th September 2017.
  8. ↑ Boris Reitschuster : How a Kremlin Retort Party and the AfD use perfidious methods to win the votes of Russian Germans. In: Huffingtonpost.de . July 26, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  9. ↑ Christoph Strauch: Election campaign in Cyrillic. In: FAZ . May 20, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  10. ^ Inna Hartwich: The invisible Germans. In: NZZ. May 15, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2017.