History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
Encyclopedia
The German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union was created from several sources and in several waves. The 1914 census puts the number of Germans living in Russian Empire
at 2,416,290. In 1989, the German population of the Soviet Union
was roughly 2 million. In the 2002 Russian census, 597,212 Germans were enumerated, making Germans the fifth largest ethnic group in Russia
. In 1999, there were 353,441 Germans in Kazakhstan
and 21,472 in Kyrgyzstan
. According to the 2001 census, 33,300 Germans lived in Ukraine
.
In the Russian Empire, ethnic Germans were strongly represented among royalty, aristocracy, large land owners, military officers and the upper echelons of the imperial service, engineers, scientists, artists, physicians and the bourgeoisie
in general. The Germans of Russia did not necessarily speak Russian; they spoke German, while French was often the language of the high aristocracy. Now, however, the Germans in Russia usually speak only Russian
and have a poor command of German
, one reason that Germany
has recently strictly limited their immigration.
in the 16th century. A handful of German and Dutch
craftsmen and traders were allowed to establish themselves in Moscow
's German Quarter
(Немецкая слобода, or Nemetskaya sloboda
), providing essential technical skills in the capital. Gradually, this policy extended to a few other major cities. In 1682, Moscow had about 200,000 citizens, 18,000 of them were Nemtsy, which means either German or western foreigner.
Peter the Great
was greatly influenced by the international community located in the German Quarter, and his efforts to transform Russia into a more modern European state are believed to have derived in large part from his experiences among Russia's established Germans. By the late 17th century, foreigners were no longer so rare in Russian cities, and the German Quarter had lost its ethnic character by the end of that century.
, Prussia
acquired an increasing amount of northern, western, and central Polish territory. The Vistula River flows south to north, to near Danzig (now Gdansk
). Germans and Dutch
settled its valley starting from the Baltic Sea
and moving further south with time. Eventually, Prussia acquired most of the Vistula's watershed, and the central portion of then-Poland became South Prussia
. Its existence was brief - 1793 to 1806, but by its end many German settlers had established Protestant agricultural settlements within its earlier borders. From already-Prussian Silesia
to the southwest some German Roman Catholics also entered the region. The 1935 "Breyer Map" shows the distribution of German settlements in what is now central Poland.
Napoleon's victories ended the short existence of South Prussia. It and other territories were incorporated into the Duchy of Warsaw
. After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, however, the Duchy was divided. The western Posen region again becoming part of Prussia, while what is now central Poland became the Russian client state Congress Poland
. Many Germans remained in this central region, maintaining their middle-German Prussian dialect, similar to the Silesian dialect, and religions. With World Wars' I and II, the eastern front was on their doorstep and conscription increased. The Vistula Germans' migrations from Congress Poland increased. Some became Polonized
, however, and their descendants remain there. After World War II, those that retained their German language and customs were forcibly expelled by the Russians and the Poles, with the loss of all their property.
area were founded almost immediately afterward. These early colonies were attacked during the Pugachev uprising
, which was centred on the Volga area, but they survived the rebellion.
German immigration was motivated in part by religious intolerance and warfare in central Europe as well as by frequently difficult economic conditions. Catherine II's declaration freed German immigrants from military service (imposed on native Russians) and from most taxes. It placed the new arrivals outside of Russia's feudal hierarchy and granted them considerable internal autonomy. Moving to Russia gave German immigrants political rights that they would not have possessed in their own lands. Religious minorities found these terms very agreeable, particularly Mennonites from the Vistula River valley. Their unwillingness to participate in military service, and their long tradition of dissent from mainstream Lutheranism
and Calvinism
, made life under the Prussians very difficult for them. Nearly all of the Prussian Mennonites emigrated to Russia over the following century, leaving no more than a handful in Prussia.
Other German minority churches took advantage of Catherine II's offer as well, particularly Evangelical Christians like the Baptists. Although Catherine's declaration forbade them from proselytising among members of the Orthodox church, they were free to evangelize Russia's Muslim and other non-Christian minorities.
German colonization was most intense in the lower Volga, but other areas were targeted as well. The area around the Black Sea
received many German immigrants, and the lower Dniepr river area, around Ekaterinaslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) and Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporizhzhia), was favoured by the Mennonites.
In 1803, Catherine II’s grandson, Tsar Alexander I, reissued her proclamation. In the chaos of the Napoleonic wars
, the response from Germans was enormous. Ultimately, the Tsar imposed minimum financial requirements on new immigrants, requiring them to either have 300 gulden
in cash or special skills in order to come to Russia.
The abolition of serfdom
in 1863 created a shortage of labour in agriculture and motivated new German immigration, particularly from increasingly crowded central European states, where there was no longer enough fertile land for full employment in agriculture.
Furthermore, a sizable part of Russia's ethnic Germans migrated into Russia from its Polish possessions. The partitions of Poland
in the late 18th century dismantled the Polish state, dividing it between Austria
, Prussia and Russia. There were already many Germans living in the part of Poland transferred to Russia, dating back to medieval and later migrations. Many Germans in Congress Poland migrated further east into Russia between then and World War I
, particularly in the aftermath of the Polish insurrection of 1830
. The Polish insurrection in 1863
added a new wave of German emigration from Poland to those who had already moved east, and led to the founding of extensive German colonies in Volhynia
. When Poland reclaimed its independence after World War I
, it ceased to be a source of German emigration to Russia, but by then many hundreds of thousands of Germans had already settled in enclaves across the Russian Empire.
Germans settled in the Caucasus area
from the beginning of the 19th century and in the 1850s expanded into the Crimea
. In the 1890s, new German colonies opened in the Altay mountain
area in Russian Asia (see Mennonite settlements of Altai
). German colonial areas were still expanding in Ukraine
as late as the beginning of World War I
.
According to the first Census of the Russian Empire in 1897, there were about 1.8 million respondents who reported German as their mother tongue.
, in the 18th and 19th centuries in what is now Ukraine. This includes the Bessarabian Germans, the Dobrujan Germans
. This land was gained for Russia by Catherine the Great through her two wars with the Ottoman Empire
(1768–1774) and from the annexation of the Crimean Khanate
s (1783). The area of settlement was not settled as compactly as that of the Volga territory, rather it was home to a chain of colonies. The first German settlers arrived in 1787, first from West Prussia
, then later from Western
and Southwestern Germany, and from the Warsaw
area.
, Ukrainians
, and Germans to the Crimean Peninsula (in what was then the Crimean Khanate
) in order to weaken the native population of the Crimean Tatars
.
In 1939, two years before they were deported
to Central Asia
, around 60,000 of the 1.1 million inhabitants of Crimea were German.
Under perestroika
, Germans were allowed to return to the peninsula.
region, in areas such as the North Caucasus
, Georgia
, and Azerbaijan
. In 1941 Joseph Stalin
ordered all inhabitants with a German father to be deported, mostly to Siberia
or Kazakhstan
.
The migration of Germans into Volhynia
(today covering northwestern Ukraine
from a short distance west of Kiev to the border with Poland) occurred under significantly different conditions than those going to other parts of Russia. By the end of the 19th century Volhynia had over 200,000 German settlers. Their migration began at the encouragement of local noblemen, often Polish landlords, who wanted to develop their significant land holdings in the area. Probably 75% or more of them originated from Congress Poland with the balance coming directly from other regions such as East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Posen, Württemberg, and Galicia among others. Although the noblemen themselves offered certain perks for the move, the Germans of Volhynia received none of the special tax and military service freedoms attributed to the Germans in other areas.
The settlement started as a trickle shortly after 1800. A surge occurred after the first Polish rebellion of 1831
but by 1850, they were still only about 5000 in number. The largest migration came after the second Polish rebellion of 1863
when they began to flood into the area by the thousands until they reached their peak at about 200,000 in the year 1900. The vast majority of these Germans were of the Lutheran (in Europe they were referred to as Evangelicals) faith. Limited numbers of Mennonites from the lower Vistula River region settled in the south part of Volhynia while Baptists and Moravian Brethren also arrived, mostly settling northwest of Zhitomir. Another major difference between the Germans here and in other parts of Russia is that the other Germans tended to settle in larger communities. The Germans in Volhynia were scattered about in over 1400 villages. Though the population peaked in 1900, many Germans had already begun leaving Volhynia in the late 1880s for North and South America.
Between 1911 and 1915, a small group of Volhynian German farmers (36 families - more than 200 people) chose instead to move to Eastern Siberia, making use of the resettlement subsidies of the Stolypin reform
. They settled in three villages (Pikhtinsk, Sredne-Pikhtinsk, and Dagnik) in what is today Zalari District of Irkutsk Oblast
, where they became known as the "Bug Hollanders". They apparently were not using German any more, but rather spoke Ukrainian and Polish, and used Lutheran Bible
s that had been printed in East Prussia
, in Polish
, but in fraktur
. Their descendants, still bearing German names, continue to live in the district into the 21st century.
Dnieper Ukraine
. In 1871, he repealed the open-door immigration policy of his ancestors, effectively ending any new German immigration into the Empire. Although the German colonies continued to expand, they were driven by natural growth and by the immigration of Germans from Poland.
The Russian nationalism that took root under Alexander III served as a justification for eliminating in 1871 the bulk of the tax privileges enjoyed by Russian Germans, and after 1874 they were subjected to military service. Only after long negotiations, Mennonites, traditionally a pacifist denomination, were allowed to serve alternative service in the form of work in forestry
and the medical corps. The resulting disaffection motivated many Russian Germans, especially members of traditionally dissenting churches, to migrate to the United States
and Canada
, while many Catholics chose Brazil
and Argentina
. They moved primarily to the American Great Plains
and western Canada, especially North Dakota
, South Dakota
, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado; to Canada Manitoba
and Saskatchewan
,and Alberta; to Brazil, especially Santa Catarina
and Rio Grande do Sul
; and to Argentina, especially South of Buenos Aires Province
, Entre Ríos Province
and La Pampa Province
. North Dakota and South Dakota attracted primarily Odessa (Black Sea area) Germans from Russia while Nebraska and Kansas attracted mainly Volga Germans from Russia. The majority of Volhynia Germans chose Canada as their destination with significant numbers later migrating to the States. Smaller settlement pockets also occurred in other regions such as Volga and Volhynian Germans in southwestern Michigan, Volhynian Germans in Wisconsin, and Congress Poland and Volhynian Germans in Connecticut.
After 1881, Russian Germans were required to study Russian
in school and lost all their remaining special privileges. Many Germans remained in Russia, particularly those who had done well as Russia began to industrialise in the late 19th century. Russian Germans were disproportionately represented among Russia's engineers, technical tradesmen, industrialists, financiers and large land owners.
World War I
was the first time Russia went to war against Germany since the Napoleonic era
, and Russian Germans were quickly suspected of having enemy sympathies. The Germans living in the Volhynia
area were deported to the German colonies in the lower Volga river
in 1915 when Russia started losing the war. Many Russian Germans were exiled to Siberia
by the Tsar's government as enemies of the state - generally without trial or evidence. In 1916, an order was issued to deport the Volga Germans to the east as well, but the Russian Revolution
prevented this from being carried out.
The loyalties of Russian Germans during the revolution varied. While many supported the royalist forces and joined the White Army, others were committed to Alexander Kerensky
's Provisional Government
, to the Bolshevik
s, and even to smaller forces like Nestor Makhno
's. Russian Germans - including Mennonites and Evangelicals - fought on all sides in the Russian Revolution and Civil War
. Although some Russian Germans were very wealthy, others were quite poor and sympathised strongly with their Slavic neighbours. Educated Russian Germans were just as likely to have leftist and revolutionary sympathies as the ethnically Russian intelligentsia.
In the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed it, many ethnic Germans were displaced within Russia or emigrated from Russia altogether. The chaos surrounding the Russian Civil War was devastating to many German communities, particularly to religious dissenters like the Mennonites. Many Mennonites hold the forces of Nestor Makhno in Ukraine particularly responsible for large-scale violence against their community.
This period was also one of regular food shortages, caused by famine and the lack of long distance transportation of food during the fighting. Coupled with the typhus
epidemic and famine
of the early 1920s, as many as a third of Russia's Germans may have perished. Russian German organisations in the Americas, particularly the Mennonite Central Committee
, organised famine relief in Russia in the late 1920s. As the chaos faded and the Soviet Union
's position became more secure, many Russian Germans simply took advantage of the end of the fighting to emigrate to the Americas. Emigration from the Soviet Union came to a halt in 1929 by Stalin's decree, leaving roughly one million Russian Germans within Soviet borders.
The Soviet Union seized the farms and businesses of Russian Germans, along with all other farms and businesses, when Stalin ended Vladimir Lenin
's New Economic Policy
in 1929 and began the forced collectivization of agriculture and liquidation of large land holdings.
Nonetheless, Soviet nationalities policy
had, to some degree, restored the institutions of Russian Germans in some areas. In July 1924, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
was founded, giving the Volga Germans some autonomous German language institutions. The Lutheran church, like nearly all religious affiliations in Russia, was ruthlessly suppressed under Stalin. But, for the 600,000-odd Germans living in the Volga German ASSR, German was the language of local officials for the first time since 1881.
When Nazi Germany
broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
by invading USSR in 1941, the Volga German ASSR was abolished, and Russia's German population was almost entirely banished to Kazakhstan
, Altai Krai
and other remote areas. In 1942 nearly all of the able-bodied German population was conscripted into Soviet labor armies.
Many of those who remained in European Russia followed the German army in its retreat in 1943 and 1944, remaining in Germany after World War II
. Others emigrated to Canada
, the United States
and Latin America
.
On November 26, 1948, Stalin made the banishment permanent, declaring that Russia's Germans were permanently forbidden from returning to Europe, but this was rescinded after his death in 1953. Many Russian Germans returned to European Russia, but quite a few remained in Soviet Asia.
Although the post-Stalin Soviet state no longer persecuted ethnic Germans as a group, their Soviet republic was not re-founded. Many Germans in Russia largely assimilated and integrated into Russian society. There were some 2 million ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union in 1989. Soviet Union census
revealed in 1989 that 48,7% of the German minority named German
their mother tongue. According to the 1989 Soviet census, 957,518 citizens of German origin, or 5.8% of total population, lived in
Kazakhstan
, and 841,295 Germans lived in Russia including Siberia.
Perestroika
opened the Soviet borders and witnessed the beginnings of a massive emigration of Germans from the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union
, large numbers of Russian Germans took advantage of Germany's liberal law of return to leave the harsh conditions of the Soviet successor states. The German population of Kyrgyzstan
has practically disappeared, and Kazakhstan
has lost well over half of its roughly one million Germans. The drop in the Russian Federation's German population was smaller, but still significant. A very few Germans returned to one of their ancestral provinces: about 6,000 settled in Kaliningrad Oblast
(former East Prussia
).
is a major center for Germans in Russia. In addition, the same census
found that there are 2.9 million citizens who understand the German language (although many of these are ethnic Russians or Yiddish
-speaking Jews who had learned the language). Prominent ethnic Germans in modern Russia include Viktor Kress
, governor of Tomsk Oblast
since 1991 and German Gref
Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia since 2000. Out of the 597,212 Germans enumerated in 2002, 67.54% lived in Asian Federal Districts and 32.46% lived in European Federal Districts. The Federal District of Siberia, at 308,727 had the largest ethnic German population. But even in Siberia, they formed only 1.54% of the total population. The Federal Subjects with largest ethnic German populations were Altay Krai (79,502), Omsk Oblast (76,334), Novosibirsk (47,275), Kemerovo (35,965), Chelyabisk (28,457), Tyumen (27,196), Sverdlovsk (22,540), Krasnodar (18,469), Orenburg (18,055), Volgograd (17,051), Tomsk (13,444), Saratov (12,093)and Perm Krai (10,152). http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/4-2.xls
According to the 1989 census there were 100,309 Germans living in Kyrgyzstan
. According to the most recent census data (1999), there were 21,472 Germans in Kyrgyzstan. The German population in Tajikistan
was 38,853 in 1979.
dates back to the Middle Ages
when traders and missionaries started arriving from central Europe. The German-speaking Livonian Brothers of the Sword
conquered most of what is now Estonia
and Latvia
(the former Livonia
) in the early 13th century. In 1237, the Brothers of the Sword were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights
.
Over the course of the next several centuries, the Teutonic Order solidified into a regime of mostly German-speaking nobility ruling over indigenous peasants. The religious and economic institutions in late medieval Livonia were mostly controlled by locally born German-speakers and new immigrants from central Europe. Several cities in the area joined the Hanseatic League
, dominated by German-speaking merchants. This German presence brought Christianity
to Estonia and Latvia - one of the last parts of Europe Christianity reached. These areas later adopted Lutheranism
.
The Teutonic Order progressively lost territory during the 15th century and had practically disappeared as a political force by the middle of the 16th. Although the Baltics passed into the hands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
in the south and Swedish
rule in the north, the privileged status of the local German-speaking aristocracy remained largely unchanged. Baltic Germans are estimated to have represented no more than 6% of the population of Estonia and Latvia at the end of the 17th century but their dominant position in society remained relatively unchallenged.
During Peter the Great's rule Russia gained control over much of the Baltics from Sweden in the Great Northern War
at the beginning of the 18th century, but left the German nobility in control. Until the Russification policies of the 1880s, the German community and its institutions were intact and protected under the Russian Empire
. The Baltic German nobility were very influential in the Russian Tsar's army and administration.
The reforms of Alexander III
replaced many of the traditional privileges of the German nobility with elected local governments and more uniform tax codes. Schools were required to teach Russian, and the Russian nationalist press began targeting segregated Germans as unpatriotic and insufficiently Russian. Baltic Germans were also the target of Estonian and Latvian nationalist movements.
When Estonia and Latvia became independent nations after World War I
a degree of autonomy was granted to ethnic German institutions, and German schools and newspapers expanded somewhat during that period. However all of the nobility's traditional privileges were abolished and most of their agricultural land holdings were redistributed to local farmers. At that point, ethnic Germans represented no more than 1.5% of the Estonian population and roughly 3% of the Latvian population, many having left for Germany during the chaos of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Independent Latvia pursued an open policy of "Latvianisation" in the 1930s which, encouraged by ethnic nationalists in Nazi Germany, induced many Latvian Germans to move to Germany
.
In late 1939 (after the start of the Second World War), the entire remaining Baltic German community was repatriated by Adolf Hitler
to areas Nazi Germany had invaded in western Poland (especially in the Warthegau). The "legal" basis for this was agreed in the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
and the subsequent Nazi-Soviet population transfers
which had given the Soviet Union
a green light to invade and annex Latvia and Estonia in 1940.
Only a handful of Baltic Germans remained under Soviet rule after 1945 mainly among those few who refused Germany's call to leave the Baltics.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
at 2,416,290. In 1989, the German population of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was roughly 2 million. In the 2002 Russian census, 597,212 Germans were enumerated, making Germans the fifth largest ethnic group in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. In 1999, there were 353,441 Germans in Kazakhstan
Germans of Kazakhstan
The Germans of Kazakhstan are a minority in Kazakhstan, and make up a small percentage of the population. Today they live mostly in the northeastern part of the country between the cities of Astana and Oskemen, the majority being urban dwellers...
and 21,472 in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
. According to the 2001 census, 33,300 Germans lived in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
.
In the Russian Empire, ethnic Germans were strongly represented among royalty, aristocracy, large land owners, military officers and the upper echelons of the imperial service, engineers, scientists, artists, physicians and the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
in general. The Germans of Russia did not necessarily speak Russian; they spoke German, while French was often the language of the high aristocracy. Now, however, the Germans in Russia usually speak only Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and have a poor command of German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, one reason that Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
has recently strictly limited their immigration.
Germans in Russia and Ukraine
The earliest German settlement in Russia dates back to the reign of Vasili IIIVasili III of Russia
Vasili III Ivanovich was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1505 to 1533. He was the son of Ivan III Vasiliyevich and Sophia Paleologue and was christened with the name Gavriil...
in the 16th century. A handful of German and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
craftsmen and traders were allowed to establish themselves in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
's German Quarter
German Quarter
German Quarter, also known as the Kukuy Quarter was a neighborhood in the northeast of Moscow, located on the right bank of the Yauza River east of Kukuy Creek , within present-day Basmanny District of Moscow....
(Немецкая слобода, or Nemetskaya sloboda
Sloboda
Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "freedom" and may be vaguely translated as "free settlement"....
), providing essential technical skills in the capital. Gradually, this policy extended to a few other major cities. In 1682, Moscow had about 200,000 citizens, 18,000 of them were Nemtsy, which means either German or western foreigner.
Peter the Great
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
was greatly influenced by the international community located in the German Quarter, and his efforts to transform Russia into a more modern European state are believed to have derived in large part from his experiences among Russia's established Germans. By the late 17th century, foreigners were no longer so rare in Russian cities, and the German Quarter had lost its ethnic character by the end of that century.
Vistula Germans
Through wars and the partitions of PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
acquired an increasing amount of northern, western, and central Polish territory. The Vistula River flows south to north, to near Danzig (now Gdansk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
). Germans and Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
settled its valley starting from the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and moving further south with time. Eventually, Prussia acquired most of the Vistula's watershed, and the central portion of then-Poland became South Prussia
South Prussia
South Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1793 to 1807. It was created out of territory annexed in the Second Partition of Poland and included in 1793*the Poznań, Kalisz and Gniezno Voivodeships of Greater Poland;...
. Its existence was brief - 1793 to 1806, but by its end many German settlers had established Protestant agricultural settlements within its earlier borders. From already-Prussian Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
to the southwest some German Roman Catholics also entered the region. The 1935 "Breyer Map" shows the distribution of German settlements in what is now central Poland.
Napoleon's victories ended the short existence of South Prussia. It and other territories were incorporated into the Duchy of Warsaw
Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
. After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, however, the Duchy was divided. The western Posen region again becoming part of Prussia, while what is now central Poland became the Russian client state Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
. Many Germans remained in this central region, maintaining their middle-German Prussian dialect, similar to the Silesian dialect, and religions. With World Wars' I and II, the eastern front was on their doorstep and conscription increased. The Vistula Germans' migrations from Congress Poland increased. Some became Polonized
German minority in Poland
The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...
, however, and their descendants remain there. After World War II, those that retained their German language and customs were forcibly expelled by the Russians and the Poles, with the loss of all their property.
Volga Germans
Tsarina Catherine II was a German, born in Stettinin Pomerania, now Szczecin in Poland. She proclaimed open immigration for foreigners wishing to live in the Russian Empire on July 22, 1763, marking the beginning of a much larger presence for Germans in the Empire. German colonies in the lower Volga riverVolga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
area were founded almost immediately afterward. These early colonies were attacked during the Pugachev uprising
Yemelyan Pugachev
Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachov , was a pretender to the Russian throne who led a great Cossack insurrection during the reign of Catherine II...
, which was centred on the Volga area, but they survived the rebellion.
German immigration was motivated in part by religious intolerance and warfare in central Europe as well as by frequently difficult economic conditions. Catherine II's declaration freed German immigrants from military service (imposed on native Russians) and from most taxes. It placed the new arrivals outside of Russia's feudal hierarchy and granted them considerable internal autonomy. Moving to Russia gave German immigrants political rights that they would not have possessed in their own lands. Religious minorities found these terms very agreeable, particularly Mennonites from the Vistula River valley. Their unwillingness to participate in military service, and their long tradition of dissent from mainstream Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
and Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
, made life under the Prussians very difficult for them. Nearly all of the Prussian Mennonites emigrated to Russia over the following century, leaving no more than a handful in Prussia.
Other German minority churches took advantage of Catherine II's offer as well, particularly Evangelical Christians like the Baptists. Although Catherine's declaration forbade them from proselytising among members of the Orthodox church, they were free to evangelize Russia's Muslim and other non-Christian minorities.
German colonization was most intense in the lower Volga, but other areas were targeted as well. The area around the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
received many German immigrants, and the lower Dniepr river area, around Ekaterinaslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) and Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporizhzhia), was favoured by the Mennonites.
In 1803, Catherine II’s grandson, Tsar Alexander I, reissued her proclamation. In the chaos of the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, the response from Germans was enormous. Ultimately, the Tsar imposed minimum financial requirements on new immigrants, requiring them to either have 300 gulden
South German gulden
The Gulden was the currency of the states of southern Germany between 1754 and 1873. These states included Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Frankfurt and Hohenzollern....
in cash or special skills in order to come to Russia.
The abolition of serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
in 1863 created a shortage of labour in agriculture and motivated new German immigration, particularly from increasingly crowded central European states, where there was no longer enough fertile land for full employment in agriculture.
Furthermore, a sizable part of Russia's ethnic Germans migrated into Russia from its Polish possessions. The partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
in the late 18th century dismantled the Polish state, dividing it between Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Prussia and Russia. There were already many Germans living in the part of Poland transferred to Russia, dating back to medieval and later migrations. Many Germans in Congress Poland migrated further east into Russia between then and World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, particularly in the aftermath of the Polish insurrection of 1830
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
. The Polish insurrection in 1863
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
added a new wave of German emigration from Poland to those who had already moved east, and led to the founding of extensive German colonies in Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
. When Poland reclaimed its independence after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, it ceased to be a source of German emigration to Russia, but by then many hundreds of thousands of Germans had already settled in enclaves across the Russian Empire.
Germans settled in the Caucasus area
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
from the beginning of the 19th century and in the 1850s expanded into the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
. In the 1890s, new German colonies opened in the Altay mountain
Altay Mountains
The Altai Mountains are a mountain range in East-Central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their sources. The Altai Mountains are known as the original locus of the speakers of Turkic as well as other members of the proposed...
area in Russian Asia (see Mennonite settlements of Altai
Mennonite settlements of Altai
Mennonite settlements of Altai arose after the 19 September 1906 act of the Duma and State Council of Imperial Russia, which provided for a resettlement bureau to distribute free land in Altai Krai...
). German colonial areas were still expanding in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
as late as the beginning of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
According to the first Census of the Russian Empire in 1897, there were about 1.8 million respondents who reported German as their mother tongue.
Black Sea Germans
The Black Sea Germans settled the territories of the northern bank of the Black SeaBlack Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, in the 18th and 19th centuries in what is now Ukraine. This includes the Bessarabian Germans, the Dobrujan Germans
Dobrujan Germans
The Dobrujan Germans were an ethnic German group, within the larger category of Black Sea Germans, for over one hundred years. German-speaking colonists entered the approximately 23,000 km² area of Dobruja around 1840 and left during the relocation of 1940...
. This land was gained for Russia by Catherine the Great through her two wars with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
(1768–1774) and from the annexation of the Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...
s (1783). The area of settlement was not settled as compactly as that of the Volga territory, rather it was home to a chain of colonies. The first German settlers arrived in 1787, first from West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
, then later from Western
Western Germany
The geographic term Western Germany is used to describe a region in the west of Germany. The exact area defined by the term is not constant, but it usually includes, but does not have the borders of, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse...
and Southwestern Germany, and from the Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
area.
Crimea Germans
From 1783 onwards, there was a systematic settlement of RussiansRussians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, and Germans to the Crimean Peninsula (in what was then the Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...
) in order to weaken the native population of the Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
.
In 1939, two years before they were deported
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
to Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, around 60,000 of the 1.1 million inhabitants of Crimea were German.
Under perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
, Germans were allowed to return to the peninsula.
Caucasus Germans
A German minority of about 100,000 people existed in the CaucasusCaucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
region, in areas such as the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, and Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
. In 1941 Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
ordered all inhabitants with a German father to be deported, mostly to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
or Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
.
Germans of Ukraine
VolhyniaThe migration of Germans into Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
(today covering northwestern Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
from a short distance west of Kiev to the border with Poland) occurred under significantly different conditions than those going to other parts of Russia. By the end of the 19th century Volhynia had over 200,000 German settlers. Their migration began at the encouragement of local noblemen, often Polish landlords, who wanted to develop their significant land holdings in the area. Probably 75% or more of them originated from Congress Poland with the balance coming directly from other regions such as East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Posen, Württemberg, and Galicia among others. Although the noblemen themselves offered certain perks for the move, the Germans of Volhynia received none of the special tax and military service freedoms attributed to the Germans in other areas.
The settlement started as a trickle shortly after 1800. A surge occurred after the first Polish rebellion of 1831
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
but by 1850, they were still only about 5000 in number. The largest migration came after the second Polish rebellion of 1863
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
when they began to flood into the area by the thousands until they reached their peak at about 200,000 in the year 1900. The vast majority of these Germans were of the Lutheran (in Europe they were referred to as Evangelicals) faith. Limited numbers of Mennonites from the lower Vistula River region settled in the south part of Volhynia while Baptists and Moravian Brethren also arrived, mostly settling northwest of Zhitomir. Another major difference between the Germans here and in other parts of Russia is that the other Germans tended to settle in larger communities. The Germans in Volhynia were scattered about in over 1400 villages. Though the population peaked in 1900, many Germans had already begun leaving Volhynia in the late 1880s for North and South America.
Between 1911 and 1915, a small group of Volhynian German farmers (36 families - more than 200 people) chose instead to move to Eastern Siberia, making use of the resettlement subsidies of the Stolypin reform
Stolypin reform
The Stolypin agrarian reforms were a series of changes to Imperial Russia's agricultural sector instituted during the tenure of Pyotr Stolypin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers...
. They settled in three villages (Pikhtinsk, Sredne-Pikhtinsk, and Dagnik) in what is today Zalari District of Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is the city of Irkutsk. Population: -History:...
, where they became known as the "Bug Hollanders". They apparently were not using German any more, but rather spoke Ukrainian and Polish, and used Lutheran Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
s that had been printed in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, but in fraktur
Fraktur
Fraktur is a calligraphic hand and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The word derives from the past participle fractus of Latin frangere...
. Their descendants, still bearing German names, continue to live in the district into the 21st century.
Dnieper Ukraine
Dnieper Ukraine
Dnieper Ukraine , was the territory of Ukraine in the Russian Empire , roughly corresponding to the current territory of Ukraine, with the exceptions of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and Galicia in the west, which was a province of the Austrian Empire. Galicians sometimes call it Great Ukraine...
Decline of the Russian Germans
The decline of the Russian German community started with the reforms of Alexander IIAlexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
. In 1871, he repealed the open-door immigration policy of his ancestors, effectively ending any new German immigration into the Empire. Although the German colonies continued to expand, they were driven by natural growth and by the immigration of Germans from Poland.
The Russian nationalism that took root under Alexander III served as a justification for eliminating in 1871 the bulk of the tax privileges enjoyed by Russian Germans, and after 1874 they were subjected to military service. Only after long negotiations, Mennonites, traditionally a pacifist denomination, were allowed to serve alternative service in the form of work in forestry
Forestry service (Russia)
The forestry service was a form of alternative service offered to Russian Mennonites in lieu of military service in Russia from 1881 to 1918. At its peak during World War I, 7000 men served in forestry and agricultural pest control in South Russia...
and the medical corps. The resulting disaffection motivated many Russian Germans, especially members of traditionally dissenting churches, to migrate to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, while many Catholics chose Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. They moved primarily to the American Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
and western Canada, especially North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado; to Canada Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
,and Alberta; to Brazil, especially Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
and Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
; and to Argentina, especially South of Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...
, Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos is a northeastern province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires , Corrientes and Santa Fe , and Uruguay in the east....
and La Pampa Province
La Pampa Province
La Pampa is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza.-History:...
. North Dakota and South Dakota attracted primarily Odessa (Black Sea area) Germans from Russia while Nebraska and Kansas attracted mainly Volga Germans from Russia. The majority of Volhynia Germans chose Canada as their destination with significant numbers later migrating to the States. Smaller settlement pockets also occurred in other regions such as Volga and Volhynian Germans in southwestern Michigan, Volhynian Germans in Wisconsin, and Congress Poland and Volhynian Germans in Connecticut.
After 1881, Russian Germans were required to study Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
in school and lost all their remaining special privileges. Many Germans remained in Russia, particularly those who had done well as Russia began to industrialise in the late 19th century. Russian Germans were disproportionately represented among Russia's engineers, technical tradesmen, industrialists, financiers and large land owners.
World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
was the first time Russia went to war against Germany since the Napoleonic era
Napoleonic Era
The Napoleonic Era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory...
, and Russian Germans were quickly suspected of having enemy sympathies. The Germans living in the Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
area were deported to the German colonies in the lower Volga river
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
in 1915 when Russia started losing the war. Many Russian Germans were exiled to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
by the Tsar's government as enemies of the state - generally without trial or evidence. In 1916, an order was issued to deport the Volga Germans to the east as well, but the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
prevented this from being carried out.
The loyalties of Russian Germans during the revolution varied. While many supported the royalist forces and joined the White Army, others were committed to Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
's Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
, to the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s, and even to smaller forces like Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
's. Russian Germans - including Mennonites and Evangelicals - fought on all sides in the Russian Revolution and Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. Although some Russian Germans were very wealthy, others were quite poor and sympathised strongly with their Slavic neighbours. Educated Russian Germans were just as likely to have leftist and revolutionary sympathies as the ethnically Russian intelligentsia.
In the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed it, many ethnic Germans were displaced within Russia or emigrated from Russia altogether. The chaos surrounding the Russian Civil War was devastating to many German communities, particularly to religious dissenters like the Mennonites. Many Mennonites hold the forces of Nestor Makhno in Ukraine particularly responsible for large-scale violence against their community.
This period was also one of regular food shortages, caused by famine and the lack of long distance transportation of food during the fighting. Coupled with the typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic and famine
Russian famine of 1921
The Russian famine of 1921, also known as Povolzhye famine, which began in the early spring of that year, and lasted through 1922, was a severe famine that occurred in Bolshevik Russia...
of the early 1920s, as many as a third of Russia's Germans may have perished. Russian German organisations in the Americas, particularly the Mennonite Central Committee
Mennonite Central Committee
The Mennonite Central Committee is a relief, service, and peace agency representing 15 Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Amish bodies in North America. The U.S. headquarters are in Akron, Pennsylvania, the Canadian in Winnipeg, Manitoba.-History:...
, organised famine relief in Russia in the late 1920s. As the chaos faded and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
's position became more secure, many Russian Germans simply took advantage of the end of the fighting to emigrate to the Americas. Emigration from the Soviet Union came to a halt in 1929 by Stalin's decree, leaving roughly one million Russian Germans within Soviet borders.
The Soviet Union seized the farms and businesses of Russian Germans, along with all other farms and businesses, when Stalin ended Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
in 1929 and began the forced collectivization of agriculture and liquidation of large land holdings.
Nonetheless, Soviet nationalities policy
Korenizatsiya
Korenizatsiya sometimes also called korenization, meaning "nativization" or "indigenization", literally "putting down roots", was the early Soviet nationalities policy promoted mostly in the 1920s but with a continuing legacy in later years...
had, to some degree, restored the institutions of Russian Germans in some areas. In July 1924, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia, with its capital at the Volga port of Engels .-History:...
was founded, giving the Volga Germans some autonomous German language institutions. The Lutheran church, like nearly all religious affiliations in Russia, was ruthlessly suppressed under Stalin. But, for the 600,000-odd Germans living in the Volga German ASSR, German was the language of local officials for the first time since 1881.
When Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
by invading USSR in 1941, the Volga German ASSR was abolished, and Russia's German population was almost entirely banished to Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, Altai Krai
Altai Krai
Altai Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts, and the Altai Republic. The krai's administrative center is the city of Barnaul...
and other remote areas. In 1942 nearly all of the able-bodied German population was conscripted into Soviet labor armies.
Many of those who remained in European Russia followed the German army in its retreat in 1943 and 1944, remaining in Germany after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Others emigrated to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
On November 26, 1948, Stalin made the banishment permanent, declaring that Russia's Germans were permanently forbidden from returning to Europe, but this was rescinded after his death in 1953. Many Russian Germans returned to European Russia, but quite a few remained in Soviet Asia.
Although the post-Stalin Soviet state no longer persecuted ethnic Germans as a group, their Soviet republic was not re-founded. Many Germans in Russia largely assimilated and integrated into Russian society. There were some 2 million ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union in 1989. Soviet Union census
Soviet Census (1989)
The 1989 Soviet census, conducted between January 12-19 of that year, was the last one conducted in the former USSR. It resulted in a total population of 286,730,819 inhabitants...
revealed in 1989 that 48,7% of the German minority named German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
their mother tongue. According to the 1989 Soviet census, 957,518 citizens of German origin, or 5.8% of total population, lived in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, and 841,295 Germans lived in Russia including Siberia.
Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
opened the Soviet borders and witnessed the beginnings of a massive emigration of Germans from the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
, large numbers of Russian Germans took advantage of Germany's liberal law of return to leave the harsh conditions of the Soviet successor states. The German population of Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
has practically disappeared, and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
has lost well over half of its roughly one million Germans. The drop in the Russian Federation's German population was smaller, but still significant. A very few Germans returned to one of their ancestral provinces: about 6,000 settled in Kaliningrad Oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated on the Baltic coast. It has a population of The oblast forms the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, but it has no land connection to the rest of Russia. Since its creation it has been an exclave of the Russian SFSR and then the...
(former East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
).
Demographics
In the 2002 Russian census, 597,212 Germans were enumerated, making Germans the fifth largest ethnic group in Russia. There are approximately 400,000 Germans living in Siberia; NovosibirskNovosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
is a major center for Germans in Russia. In addition, the same census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
found that there are 2.9 million citizens who understand the German language (although many of these are ethnic Russians or Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
-speaking Jews who had learned the language). Prominent ethnic Germans in modern Russia include Viktor Kress
Viktor Kress
Viktor Melkiorovich Kress is the governor of Tomsk Oblast, Russia. Both his parents were ethnic Germans.Kress was born into a peasant family with five brothers and a sister...
, governor of Tomsk Oblast
Tomsk Oblast
Tomsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the southeastern West Siberian Plain, in the southwest of the Siberian Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Tomsk. Population:...
since 1991 and German Gref
German Gref
German Oskarovich Gref , born February 8, 1964) is a Russian economist of German ethnicity, the founder of Center of the Strategic Development. He was the Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia from May 2000 to September 2007...
Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia since 2000. Out of the 597,212 Germans enumerated in 2002, 67.54% lived in Asian Federal Districts and 32.46% lived in European Federal Districts. The Federal District of Siberia, at 308,727 had the largest ethnic German population. But even in Siberia, they formed only 1.54% of the total population. The Federal Subjects with largest ethnic German populations were Altay Krai (79,502), Omsk Oblast (76,334), Novosibirsk (47,275), Kemerovo (35,965), Chelyabisk (28,457), Tyumen (27,196), Sverdlovsk (22,540), Krasnodar (18,469), Orenburg (18,055), Volgograd (17,051), Tomsk (13,444), Saratov (12,093)and Perm Krai (10,152). http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/4-2.xls
According to the 1989 census there were 100,309 Germans living in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
. According to the most recent census data (1999), there were 21,472 Germans in Kyrgyzstan. The German population in Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
was 38,853 in 1979.
Germans in the Baltics
The German presence on the eastern shores of the Baltic SeaBaltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
dates back to the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
when traders and missionaries started arriving from central Europe. The German-speaking Livonian Brothers of the Sword
Livonian Brothers of the Sword
The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were a military order founded by Bishop Albert of Riga in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised German "warrior monks"...
conquered most of what is now Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
(the former Livonia
Livonia
Livonia is a historic region along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It was once the land of the Finnic Livonians inhabiting the principal ancient Livonian County Metsepole with its center at Turaida...
) in the early 13th century. In 1237, the Brothers of the Sword were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
.
Over the course of the next several centuries, the Teutonic Order solidified into a regime of mostly German-speaking nobility ruling over indigenous peasants. The religious and economic institutions in late medieval Livonia were mostly controlled by locally born German-speakers and new immigrants from central Europe. Several cities in the area joined the Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
, dominated by German-speaking merchants. This German presence brought Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to Estonia and Latvia - one of the last parts of Europe Christianity reached. These areas later adopted Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
.
The Teutonic Order progressively lost territory during the 15th century and had practically disappeared as a political force by the middle of the 16th. Although the Baltics passed into the hands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
in the south and Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
rule in the north, the privileged status of the local German-speaking aristocracy remained largely unchanged. Baltic Germans are estimated to have represented no more than 6% of the population of Estonia and Latvia at the end of the 17th century but their dominant position in society remained relatively unchallenged.
During Peter the Great's rule Russia gained control over much of the Baltics from Sweden in the Great Northern War
Great Northern War
The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...
at the beginning of the 18th century, but left the German nobility in control. Until the Russification policies of the 1880s, the German community and its institutions were intact and protected under the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. The Baltic German nobility were very influential in the Russian Tsar's army and administration.
The reforms of Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
replaced many of the traditional privileges of the German nobility with elected local governments and more uniform tax codes. Schools were required to teach Russian, and the Russian nationalist press began targeting segregated Germans as unpatriotic and insufficiently Russian. Baltic Germans were also the target of Estonian and Latvian nationalist movements.
When Estonia and Latvia became independent nations after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
a degree of autonomy was granted to ethnic German institutions, and German schools and newspapers expanded somewhat during that period. However all of the nobility's traditional privileges were abolished and most of their agricultural land holdings were redistributed to local farmers. At that point, ethnic Germans represented no more than 1.5% of the Estonian population and roughly 3% of the Latvian population, many having left for Germany during the chaos of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Independent Latvia pursued an open policy of "Latvianisation" in the 1930s which, encouraged by ethnic nationalists in Nazi Germany, induced many Latvian Germans to move to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
In late 1939 (after the start of the Second World War), the entire remaining Baltic German community was repatriated by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
to areas Nazi Germany had invaded in western Poland (especially in the Warthegau). The "legal" basis for this was agreed in the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
and the subsequent Nazi-Soviet population transfers
Nazi-Soviet population transfers
The Nazi–Soviet population transfers were a series of population transfers between 1939 and 1941 of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians in an agreement according to the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.-...
which had given the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
a green light to invade and annex Latvia and Estonia in 1940.
Only a handful of Baltic Germans remained under Soviet rule after 1945 mainly among those few who refused Germany's call to leave the Baltics.
Famous Russian-Germans
- Adam Johann von KrusensternAdam Johann von KrusensternAdam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern , was an admiral and explorer, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe.- Life :...
(Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern) - navigator and naval explorer (1770–1846) - Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshause (Faddey Faddeyevich Bellinsgauzen) - navigator, explorer of the Antarctic (1778–1852)
- Karl NesselrodeKarl NesselrodeBaltic-German Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, also known as Charles de Nesselrode, was a Russian diplomat and a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance...
- count and diplomat (1780–1862) - Vyacheslav von PlehveVyacheslav von PlehveVyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve , also Pléhve, or Pleve was the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior.- Biography :...
(Vyacheslav Pleve) - Minister of the Interior (1846–1904) - Eduard TollEduard TollEduard Gustav von Toll was a Baltic German geologist and Arctic explorer in Russian service. Often referred to as Baron von Toll or as Eduard v. Toll, in Russia he is known as Eduard Vasiliyevich Toll . Eduard Toll was born on and he died in 1902 in an unknown location in the Arctic Ocean)...
- explorer of the Arctic (1858–1902) - Vladimir Pachmann - pianist (1848–1933)
- Andreas WolfAndreas WolfAndreas Wolf is a German footballer who plays as a defender for Werder Bremen. He had previously played at 1. FC Nuremberg since 2002 and was the team captain, before leaving in the summer of 2011.- Career :...
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Football Player (1992-) - Aleksey Bach - biochemist (1857—1946)
- Olga Knipper-ChekhovaOlga KnipperOlga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova was a Russian stage actress. She was married to Anton Chekhov.Knipper was among the 39 original members of the Moscow Art Theatre when it was formed by Constantin Stanislavski in 1898...
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(1868–1959) - Vsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
(Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold) - actor and theatre director (1874—1940) - Gustav KlingerGustav KlingerGustav Klinger was a Russian Bolshevik politician. Klinger joined the Party in 1917 in time for the revolution and was leader of the Volga German Soviet government 1918. He became business manager for the newly founded Communist International in 1919, and was elected to the Comintern Executive...
- communist politician (1876–1937) - Friedrich ZanderFriedrich ZanderFriedrich Zander , often transliterated Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander, was a pioneer of rocketry and spaceflight in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union...
- rocket engineer (1887–1933) - Reinhold GlièreReinhold GlièreReinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...
(Reinhold Ernst Glier) - composer (1875–1956) - Oskar AndersonOskar AndersonOskar Johann Viktor Anderson was a German-Russian mathematician. He was most famously known for his work on mathematical statistics.- Life :...
- statistician (1887–1960) - Alfred RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
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) - Mother of Vladimir Lenin - Vasiliy Ulrikh - Soviet political judge (1889–1951)
- Nikolai ErdmanNikolai ErdmanNikolay Robertovich Erdman was a Soviet dramatist and screenwriter primarily remembered for his work with Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1920s. His plays, notably The Suicide , form a link in Russian literary history between the satirical drama of Nikolai Gogol and the post-World War II Theatre of the...
- dramatist (1900—1970) - Tatyana Peltzer - actress (1904—1992)
- Boris RauschenbachBoris RauschenbachBoris Viktorovich Rauschenbach was a prominent Soviet physicist and rocket engineer, who developed the theory and instruments for interplanetary flight control and navigation in 1955-1960s...
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- Alfred SchnittkeAlfred SchnittkeAlfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
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- actress - Eduard RosselEduard RosselEduard Ergartovich Rossel was the governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast, an oblast in Russia. He was born on October 8, 1937, and is of German origin. He returned into office in 1995. He is a member of the Federation Council of Russia.Eduard Rossel was born a village near Nizhny Novgorod...
- governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast - Viktor KressViktor KressViktor Melkiorovich Kress is the governor of Tomsk Oblast, Russia. Both his parents were ethnic Germans.Kress was born into a peasant family with five brothers and a sister...
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(Hermann Gräf) - Minister of Economics and Trade - Alexei MillerAlexei MillerAlexey Borisovich Miller is Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Management Committee of Russian energy company Gazprom, Russia's largest company and the world's biggest natural gas producer....
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- one of the notorious post-Soviet footballers and a descendant of the deported Russian Germans - Georgy BoosGeorgy BoosGeorgy Valentinovich Boos is a Russian businessman and politician, and was the governor of Kaliningrad Oblast.Boos was born in Moscow into a Crimean German family. His parents were both engineers...
- governor of Kaliningrad Oblast - Julia NeigelJulia NeigelJulia Neigel is a German singer/songwriter, author and producer. Her family moved back to Germany in 1971. She lives in Ludwigshafen am Rhein in Rhineland-Palatinate....
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- meteorologist - Irina Mikitenko - long-distance runner
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- Mixed Martial Arts Fighter
See also
- House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
- Molotov-Ribbentrop PactMolotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
- Nazi-Soviet population transfersNazi-Soviet population transfersThe Nazi–Soviet population transfers were a series of population transfers between 1939 and 1941 of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians in an agreement according to the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.-...
- Crimean GothsCrimean GothsCrimean Goths were those Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the least-powerful, least-known, and almost paradoxically, the longest-lasting of the Gothic communities...
- Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist RepublicVolga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist RepublicThe Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia, with its capital at the Volga port of Engels .-History:...
- Population transfer in the Soviet UnionPopulation transfer in the Soviet UnionPopulation transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
- Russian Mennonite
- Mennonite settlements of AltaiMennonite settlements of AltaiMennonite settlements of Altai arose after the 19 September 1906 act of the Duma and State Council of Imperial Russia, which provided for a resettlement bureau to distribute free land in Altai Krai...
- German operation of the NKVD
- Germans of KazakhstanGermans of KazakhstanThe Germans of Kazakhstan are a minority in Kazakhstan, and make up a small percentage of the population. Today they live mostly in the northeastern part of the country between the cities of Astana and Oskemen, the majority being urban dwellers...
- Russians in GermanyRussians in GermanyThere is a significant Russian population in Germany. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered mass immigration to the West, with Germany being the top destination, mostly for economic and ethnic reasons...
- Deutsche Nationalkreis Asowo
- Deutsche Nationalkreis Halbstadt
External links
- Germans From Russia Heritage Society
- American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
- German-Russian Settlement Map
- Manifesto of the Empress Catherine II issued July 22, 1763
- Vistula Germans - history and map settlements by religion
- Germans from Volhynia - genealogy, culture, history
- JewishGen's Shtetl (Village) Seeker — Often busy, but very helpful