Bukovina Germans

The Bukovina Germans were a German ethnic group that mainly lived from about 1780 to the 1940s in Bukovina, part of present-day western Ukraine and northern Romania. They formed a minority (officially counted, around 21% of the population in 1910, more Jews than Christians) until the Holocaust and the resettlement of the Christian population into the German Reich under the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1940.

History

14th to 17th centuries

A small group of German craftsmen and merchants lived in the principality of Moldavia. This group disappeared completely due to wars, epidemics and more gradually, assimilation during the 17th century.

1774 - 1918: Bukovina under Habsburg rule

In 1774/75, the Habsburgs annexed north-western Moldavia, sparsely settled by Hutzuls, Ruthenians, Romanians, Armenians, Poles and Jews. Since then the region has been known as Bukovina or Buchenland.

From 1774-1786 the systematic, but also in parts spontaneous, settlement of German craftsmen and farmers into existing villages increased. They originated from Szepes (Upper Hungary), Banat, Galicia (Protestants), the Rhine Palatinate and the Baden and Hesse principalities as well as from impoverished regions of the Bohemian Forest. Population growth and a shortage of land led to the establishment of daughter settlements in Galicia, Bessarabia and the Dobruja.

During the 19th century, the developing German middle class built up the intellectual and political elite of the region; the language of official business and education was predominantly German, which was particularly adopted by the upper classes.

From 1840, land shortage caused the decline into poverty of the German rural lower classes, so that after 1850 some of them emigrated to America.

Between 1849 and 1851 and from 1863 to 1918, Bukovina became an independent crown land within the Habsburg monarchy. In comparison to the other Austrian crown lands, Bukovina remained a rather underdeveloped region on the periphery of the realm, supplying predominantly raw materials.

The University of Czernowitz was founded in 1875 as the easternmost German-speaking university, Rumanization began in 1919.

In 1910/11, the Bukovinan Reconciliation (a political reconciliation between the Bukovina peoples and the political representation in the Federal State Parliament over the question of autonomous regional administration) took place between the representatives of the various nationalities.

During the First World War from 1914 to 1918 the total population of Bukovina fundamentally maintained its loyalty to the Austro-Hungarian EmpireFact|date=February 2007.

1918 - 1940: Under Romanian rule

From 1918 to 1919 following the end of the First World War and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bukovina became part of Romania. As a result, 'Romanisation' measures were implemented against 'un-Romanian' societies, cultural institutions and schools, to suppress the independent German culture in BukovinaFact|date=February 2007. A similar Romanisation drive, explicable given the strong ethnic minorities in the new 'Greater Romania', took place in other regions, such as BessarabiaFact|date=February 2007.

From 1918 to 1940, conflicts between the different nationalities, particularly amongst the intellectual classes, led to the emigration of Germans, Jews and members of the elite of other countriesFact|date=February 2007. The political representatives of the Germans sought financial and political assistance in Germany.

During 1933-1938/1940, some German societies and organisations opposed the propaganda of the Third Reich and the National Socialist-aligned 'Reformation Movement'.

Beginning in 1938, due repression by the Romanian stateFact|date=February 2007, the poor economic situation and the one-sided Nazi propaganda, a pro-Reich disposition emerged among the German population. Because of this, many increased their preparedness for evacuation.

1940 - 1944: "Home in the Reich"

When Germany signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, before the outbreak of the Second World War, the end - unknown to those affected - of the Germans in Bukovina was sealed. In a secret supplementary protocol, it was agreed amongst other things that the northern part of Bukovina should fall to the USSR under a territorial re-organisation in Eastern Europe, with the German subpopulations being compulsorily resettled. Because of this accord, the Soviet Union occupied the northern part of the country in 1940. The Third Reich resettled almost the entire acknowledged German population of Bukovina - around 96,000 so-called ethnic Germans - among other places in Poland, where the incoming evacuees were frequently compensated with expropriated farms.

From 1941 to 1944, Bukovina was entirely Romanian. The majority of the Jewish population (30% of the population as a whole) were murdered by the Third Reich and Romania under the Holocaust.

1944 to present: Escape, eviction and a fresh start

During 1944/45 as the Russian Front moved closer, the Bukovina Germans settled in Polish areas, like the remaining German population, fled westwards.

In 1945, the 7,500 or so remaining Bukovina Germans evacuated into the Federal Republic of Germany. The existence of the German peoples in Bukovina belonged thereafter, with the exception of a very few individuals, to the past.

In the post-war era the Bukovina Germans, like other 'homeland refugees', integrated themselves in the Federal Republic or Democratic Republic of Germany. Some emigrated overseas. The memory and cohesion of the lost homeland were kept alive through regular meetingsFact|date=February 2007.

A well-known descendant of the refugee Bukovina Germans is the Frankfurt musician Stefan Hantel, better known by his stage name Shantel.

Organisation

The political representation of the Bukovina Germans and the other German-speaking groups in modern Romania is the DFDR (Demokratisches Forum der Deutschen in Rumänien - Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania).

After the Second World War the Bukovina Germans founded the following organisations:
*"Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutschen (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)" - Homeland Association of the Bukovina Germans (Federal Republic of Germany)

External links

* [http://suedost.dyndns.org:90/ethnodoc/ethnodoc/Dateien/19400905-1.pdf The German-Soviet treaty about the resettlement of the ethnic Germans from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina] "in German"
* [http://suedost.dyndns.org:90/ethnodoc/ethnodoc/Dateien/19400905-2.pdf Appeal for resettlement of the ethnic Germans from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina] "in German"