Hungarian Germans

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The term Hungarian Germans is a collective term for those of German descent or German-speaking residents of Hungary . Today it is mainly used by people who count themselves among the Danube Swabians in the existing or historical borders of Hungary.

General

The descendants of the Germans who once immigrated to the Carpathian Basin are called “Hungarian Germans” . Historically, the term Hungarian-Germans can also include population groups outside of today's Hungary, as the Kingdom of Hungary was significantly reduced in size with the Treaty of Trianon (1920) when large areas of Hungary fell to neighboring states.

It should also be noted that in the past not all German-speaking ethnic groups identified with the Hungarian state in the same way and with the same intensity. In today's linguistic usage, the term “Hungarian Germans” mostly describes only part of the German-speaking population groups in the former Kingdom of Hungary.

Historically, the Germans immigrated to the Carpathian Basin in several waves at different times. German language and settlement areas emerged on the territory of what was then Hungary. Since the expulsion between 1946 and 1948 , Hungarian Germans (or Germans from Hungary) have also lived in Germany , Austria or overseas (for example in Brazil or the USA ).

history

Around 1000, German knights came to the Carpathian Basin for the first time, accompanied by the Duchess Gisela of Bavaria , Queen of Hungary. Gisela was the wife of the first Hungarian king St. Stephen . He founded the Kingdom of Hungary and was formally recognized as King of Hungary in 1001 when Pope Silvester II gave him the title of "Apostolic Majesty". He ruled until his death in 1038.

In the Middle Ages, Transylvanian Saxons settled in what is now Romania , and later German-speaking settlers in the Spiš . Neither group is usually counted among the Hungarian Germans today; their historical settlement areas have also been outside the borders of Hungary since the end of the First World War.

The largest wave of immigration to the Hungarian lowlands occurred after the end of Turkish rule as a result of the battle of Mohács . Between 1700 and 1750 German settlers from southern Germany , Austria and Saxony came to the areas of Pannonia , the Banat and the Batschka, some of which were deserted after the Turkish Wars, and made a decisive contribution to the economic recovery and cultural uniqueness of these regions.

At the end of the 18th century, there were more than a million Germans living in what was then the multi-ethnic state of Hungary, who were mainly active in agriculture. But there was also a flourishing German culture with literary works, newspapers, magazines, and calendars in the cities. The German Theater in Budapest existed from 1812 to 1849. Before the First World War, about 1.5 million Danube Swabians lived in the Kingdom of Hungary, whose settlement areas were divided between the states of Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania in 1919 . Many of these were evicted after 1945.

In the 19th century, “German branches of industry” such as glassblowers, metal foundries and stonemasons emerged. In the second half of the 19th century, the urban German bourgeoisie also followed the Magyarization policy in order to protect their economic interests and adapted to the Hungarian population . The German language was gradually replaced by the Hungarian language.

After the First World War , Hungary was one of the losers. Austria-Hungary had formed the dual alliance with the German Empire in 1879 . In 1882, the dual alliance was expanded when Italy joined the Triple Alliance. In the Treaty of London (1915) Italy switched to the side of the Allies out of expansionist interests.

Hungary lost 70 percent of its territories annexed by neighboring states in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon , which it signed under protest. The number of Germans in the state of Hungary was more than halved.

German Settlement Areas in the Kingdom of Hungary (1896)
Proportion of Hungarian Germans in the population of selected cities in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1888 and 1910
region city 1888 1910
number percent number percent
Budapest 119902 33 75882 8.9
Upper Hungary Košice 4358 16.7 3189 7.2
Neusohl 1434 20th 879 8.9
Schemnitz 1572 10.3 453 3
Tyrnau 2861 26.4 2280 15th
Zips Cheese pulp 3326 74.4 3242 51.4
Göllnitz 3210 73.8 2095 54.7
Zipser Neudorf 2348 31.2 1786 17th
West Hungary Pressburg 31492 65.6 32790 41.9
Ödenburg 17115 73.7 17318 51.1
Güns 5460 74.8 3066 36.4
Southern hungary Five churches 5121 18th 6356 13.5
New set 5353 25.1 5918 17.6
Werschetz 12839 57.5 13556 49.6
Weisskirchen 6825 69.4 6062 52.6
Temesvár 18539 56.6 31644 43.6
Transylvania Kronstadt 9599 32.4 10841 26.5
Sibiu 14061 72.3 16832 50.2
Medias 3470 53.4 3866 44.8
Bistritz 4954 61.4 5835 45

Time between the world wars

Against the Magyarize on state and school level "Volksbildungsverein The Ungarnländische German" in 1924 fought back, led by Jakob Bleyer with little success. In this situation the Germans in Hungary hoped for outside help to improve their linguistic situation. The Nazi regime took advantage of this fact after Hitler came to power in January 1933. The Germans in Hungary became the political plaything of the Hungarian and the German government.

Second World War

The Hungarian Germans were represented in Hungary from 1938 to 1945 under Franz Anton Basch by the National Socialist League of Germans . When the government led by Miklós Horthy , faced with certain defeat, conducted secret armistice negotiations with the Soviet Union at the end of 1944 , the Arrow Cross members staged a coup and tried to establish a National Socialist regime. In the armistice agreement of January 20, 1945, Hungary had to submit to an Allied Control Commission chaired by the Soviet Union. This ceasefire agreement obliged Hungary to actively assist in the prosecution, arrest and conviction of war criminals. All Hungarians and Hungarian Germans who were friendly to Hitler or other political, military and paramilitary organizations were to be disbanded.

post war period

After the Second World War, many Hungarian Germans were deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor , or expropriated and disenfranchised in Hungary following denazification procedures and, between 1946 and 1948, expelled to Germany, first to the American and later to the Soviet occupation zone.

In 1945 a land reform with communist-socialist objectives was carried out by law . The property of all members of the German Volksbund was also expropriated without compensation. An ordinance dated July 1, 1945 organized the review for National Socialist pollution, to which the German minority in particular was subjected. There was a four-level category scheme:

  • Category 1: Leading members of a "Hitler organization". These included the members of the Waffen SS
  • Category 2: simple party members and those who had regermanized their Magyarized name
  • Category 3: Supporters of "Hitler Organizations"
  • Category 4: People who "had not demonstrated their loyalty to the fatherland and democratic convictions"

The property of the persons included in categories 1–3 was intended for the settlement of Hungarian refugees who had fled or been expelled from neighboring countries.

On December 29, 1945, the Hungarian government decreed that those Hungarian citizens who had declared their German nationality or mother tongue in the 1941 census or who had revoked the Magyarization of their name, members of the Volksbund or an armed German, were to be “resettled” to Germany Formation. This expulsion was based on Article XIII of the Potsdam Agreement , which stipulated the transfer to Germany of the German population or parts of the same who remained in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

The 1941 census in the Trianon-Hungary area recorded around 477,000 people with German as their mother tongue, 300,000 had declared their German nationality. Around 100,000 were members of the SS, many of whom had died or were taken prisoners of war. In autumn 1942 (in enlarged Hungary) around 300,000 members of the German minority belonged to the Volksbund and its organizations. Around 60,000 to 70,000 had already fled with the Wehrmacht, including numerous SS members and their families as well as members of the Volksbund.

István Bibó , Hungary's Minister of the Interior in 1945, opposed the expulsion of the Hungarian Germans in several memoranda. In 1946 István Bibó said, among other things: “We are doing nothing with them now than we were with our Jews a year ago.” At the end of 1945 he resigned in protest.

On June 1, 1946, the transports to the American zone of occupation were stopped by the Americans because Hungary wanted the assets left behind by the Germans to be offset against its reparation obligations, which the Americans did not recognize. In this first phase, up to 130,000 Hungarian Germans were brought to Germany.

After the Soviet Union had agreed to accept more Hungarian Germans, a further 33 transports were organized from August 1947 to June 1948. About 50,000 from southern Hungary came to the Soviet zone , mostly in the reception camp in Saxony, in the gray barracks in Pirna .

From around August 1946, the inspection commissions, which worked very slowly, played only a minor role in the expulsion. Often unencumbered Germans had to leave Hungary. In contrast, members of the Volksbund could remain. It was mainly made up of poor peasants and unorganized workers. The Hungarian communists saved these strata from expulsion, instead targeting wealthy and landed peasants as potential opponents of a socialist restructuring in Hungary.

All in all, Hungary, which was authorized by the Potsdam Agreement to evacuate its entire German population, expelled about half of them.

Situation until the turn

After the Germans were expelled between 1945 and 1948, the Germans remaining in Hungary became stateless after their citizenship was withdrawn . It was not until 1950 that they received ID cards and were recognized as citizens. From 1950 to 1956 the period of total dictatorship followed, in which, in addition to the “ kulaks ” (rich peasants), the Hungarian Germans were also viewed as enemies of the state. In the Hungarian military, the Hungarian-German men were often not given any weapons and were not trained in this field because they were not seen as trustworthy.Instead, they had to do about three years of labor service. Numerous examples show that Hungarian Germans were not allowed to study at universities or had to drop out of their studies because of their ethnic origin. Anti-German statements such as “Whoever eats Hungarian bread should speak Hungarian” were not uncommon until the 1970s. The discrimination led to many Hungarian Germans leaving the country after the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and emigrating to Austria, Germany, the USA, Canada or Australia.

During the period of social liberalization under the party general secretary János Kádár , known as “ goulash communism ”, the minorities in Hungary, including the Germans, were given certain modest rights to maintain their culture. In 1955 the Association of Hungarian Germans was founded, which tried to represent the interests of the German minority within the framework permitted by the Hungarian government. The fact that hardly any German lessons were offered in schools meant that “a dumb generation” grew up who no longer spoke the German language or at best understood a little bit of dialect. A Hungarian-German museum was opened in Tata in 1972 . In the mid-1980s, however, German was introduced as a nationality / minority language as a special subject in numerous schools.

Scientific research was now possible in the areas of folklore , dialects , bilingualism , language contact and interculturality . Examples of this are the works of Karl Manherz , Elisabeth Knipf-Komlósi , Maria Erb in Budapest, Csaba Földes in Wesprim / Veszprém , or Katharina Wild in Fünfkirchen / Pécs . A Hungarian-German literature developed . The number of bilingual schools, especially high schools, grew. In addition, German choirs, dance groups, etc. were brought into being.

Development after the fall of the Wall

After the fall of communism , other Hungarian-German associations were founded.

In 1993 Law No. LXXVII / 1993 on the Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities was passed, which provided for the establishment of minority self-government in Hungary. After the elections of the minority self-government in December 1994, the state self-government of the Hungarian Germans was elected at the electors' assembly of the German minority on March 11, 1995. By November 1995, 164 German minority self-government had been established, the umbrella organization of which is the State Self-Government of the Hungarian Germans (LdU) on the basis of the Minorities Act of 1993 and the Nationalities Act that took its place in 2011 . In the parliamentary elections in Hungary in 2018, the LdU reached enough votes for a parliamentary mandate, and Emmerich Ritter moved into the new parliament as the representative of the Hungarian Germans.

Current situation

Ödenburg ( Sopron ) near the Austrian border is one of the few towns in Hungary with bilingual street signs.
Bilingual town sign in Radling (Rönök)

The former parliamentary representative for minority rights in Hungary, Jenő Kaltenbach , commented on the current situation of the minorities in Hungary as "largely socially integrated (assimilated), not living in any closed settlement area, numerically small, no pronounced sense of identity, more of a dual identity". His conclusion was that the assimilation process of the Hungarian Germans and the accompanying loss of the mother tongue can hardly be reversed, despite some positive impulses in recent times. Recently, however, a trend towards Hungarian-German minority self-government has been observed in numerous places.

The number of German-speaking Hungarian Germans in the 2001 census was 62,233. Including the assimilated Hungarian Germans, their number is estimated at over 200,000. A referendum in 2011 revealed a number of 132,000 people who stated German as their nationality , and 32,000 Hungarians who stated German as their mother tongue. 96,000 Hungarians stated that they speak German at home.

There are a number of localities with a German minority whose place-name signs are labeled in two languages. Street signs, on the other hand, are usually monolingual. Exceptions are Ödenburg ( Sopron , officially 5.7% Hungarian Germans in 2011) and Werischwar ( Pilisvörösvár , officially 28% Hungarian Germans), where signs with German street names can also be seen.

In October 2011, the leader of the ruling Fidesz party, János Lázár, announced in an interview with the newspaper Die Welt that he wanted to strengthen the rights of the German minority. These should be allowed to send their own members of parliament to parliament, a regulation which should also benefit other minorities in Hungary. In December 2012, the parliament passed a proposal by the FIDESZ government, according to which an annual day of remembrance is held for the expulsion of the Hungarian Germans . This took place for the first time on January 19, 2013.

Hungarian German media and culture in Hungary

Title head of the German-language Budapest newspaper

The German-language press in the area of ​​today's Hungary has a centuries-old tradition and is very diverse today. The offer ranges from scientific journals such as Acta Archaeologica to the " Balaton-Zeitung for tourists at Lake Balaton" and the Bonnharder Nachrichten , a regional magazine for Hungarian Germans, to the WiU magazine , which provides reports on economic events in Hungary. Important publications are the weekly Budapester Zeitung and Neue Zeitung . The latter is published by the large German minority and promoted and financed by the Hungarian state. The Sonntagsblatt from Wudersch is also very popular. The German-language theater Deutsche Bühne Hungary is located in Szekszárd , and from there it fulfills its cultural mandate as a state theater .

Hungarian-German people

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Population share of Germans in selected cities, in: Herder Institute (ed.): Documents and materials on East Central European history. Topic module "Germans in Hungary", arr. by Gerhard Seewann . URL: https://www.herder-institut.de/resolve/qid/364.html , accessed on March 3, 2018.
  2. ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze : Arrow Cross, traitors and other enemies of the people. General accounting in Hungary in: Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Hans Woller (ed.): Political cleansing in Europe. The settlement with fascism and collaboration after the Second World War , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-04561-2 , p. 345 ff.
  3. ^ Communication on the Tripartite Conference in Berlin ("Potsdam Agreement") of August 2, 1945
  4. ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: Arrow Cross, traitors and other enemies of the people. General accounting in Hungary in: Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Hans Woller (ed.): Political cleansing in Europe. Reckoning with fascism and collaboration after the Second World War , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-04561-2 , p. 349
  5. ^ Norbert Spannenberger: System transformation and political cleansing in Hungary 1944-1946 , in: Mariana Hausleitner : From Fascism to Stalinism. German and other minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1941-1953 (pp. 107–120), p. 116. IKGS Verlag, Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-9811694-0-9
  6. Biographies of important political actors. Bibó, István (1911–1979) ( Memento of March 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Mathias Beer : Flight and expulsion of the Germans. Requirements, course, consequences , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61406-4 , p. 96
  8. ^ Mathias Beer: Flight and expulsion of the Germans. Requirements, course, consequences , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61406-4 , p. 97
  9. ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: Arrow Cross, traitors and other enemies of the people. General accounting in Hungary in: Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Hans Woller (ed.): Political cleansing in Europe. Reckoning with fascism and collaboration after the Second World War , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-04561-2 , p. 353
  10. ^ Mathias Beer: Flight and expulsion of the Germans. Requirements, course, consequences , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61406-4 , p. 86
  11. Wolfgang Aschauer: On the production and reproduction of a nationality - Die Ungarndeutschen , Stuttgart 1992 (= geographic knowledge, vol. 107), ISBN 3-515-06082-0 ; ders .: The Germans and / or the German - convergences and divergences in the (rural) world of the Hungarian Germans , in: (Ed.) Márta Fata: Die Schwäbische Turkey. Lifestyles of the ethnic groups in southwest Hungary , Sigmaringen 1997 (= series of publications by the Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies 5), pp. 243–264
  12. Law No. LXXVII / 1993 on the rights of national and ethnic minorities
  13. 2011. évi CLXXIX. törvény a nemzetiségek jogairól . In German: Nationalities Law
  14. Országgyűlési képviselők választása 2018 - MNOÖ országos listája ( Hungarian ) Nemzeti Választási Iroda . Retrieved in 20180311.
  15. More minorities in Hungary, FAZ of April 9, 2013, p. 5
  16. Twice as many Hungarian Germans - final results of the 2011 census in Hungary published ( memento of February 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) in the Funkforum
  17. Hungary wants to strengthen the rights of the German minority. In: Young Freedom. October 4, 2011, archived from the original on January 7, 2012 ; Retrieved October 6, 2011 .
  18. Hungary held the first day of remembrance for the expulsion of the Hungarian Germans. On: www.pesterlloyd.net, January 21, 2013
  19. http://sonntagsblatt.hu/