Banat Swabians
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The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to Hungary's Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic German minority has now become quite small. Most of its members were expelled to the West by the Soviet Union and its subsidiaries after World War II. Others left for economic reasons after 1990. In 1918 an attempt was made to establish an independent Banat Republic; however, the province was divided against the population's wishes by the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. The greater part was annexed by Romania, a smaller part by Yugoslavia, and a small portion around Szeged remained part of Hungary.[1]
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[edit] Banat and the Danube Swabians
The Banat colonists are often grouped with other German-speaking ethnic groups in the area under the name Danube Swabians. Besides the Banat, these groups lived in nearby western Bačka, in Swabian Turkey (present-day southern Hungary), in Slavonia, and in Sathmar. All of these areas were under Austrian rule when the immigrants went to settle the areas newly recovered from Turkish rule.
[edit] The colonists' origins and recruitment
The emigrants were encouraged to settle in the Banat by the Austrian government in the 18th century to create a frontier province against the Turkish empire. They were offered free land and other benefits. The one requirement was that they had to be Roman Catholic in religion.[1] Most of the settlers came from Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Palatinate. A small group can be traced to Middle Germany. However, comparatively few came from the Swabian regions of what was then known as Further Austria. It is thus unclear how the group came to be called the Banat Swabians. Most likely it is because the majority registered and embarked from the Swabian city of Ulm. They were then transported on the Ulmer Schachteln (barges) down the Danube to Belgrade, where they set off on foot for their new homes.
The colonists generally were the younger sons of poor farming families, who saw little chance of success in their native lands. Under Maria Theresa, they received financial support and long-term tax relief. Many of the earliest immigrants never married, since there were few women among them. Craftsmen were financially encouraged, as were teachers, doctors, and other professionals.
Those who came from French-speaking or linguistically mixed communes in Lorraine, maintained the French language (labelled Banat French or Français du Banat), as well as a separate ethnic identity for several generations.[2]
Beginning in 1893, Banat Swabians began to move to Bulgaria, where they settled in the village of Bardarski Geran, Vratsa Province, founded earlier by Banat Bulgarians. Their number eventually exceeded 90 families. In 1929 they built a separate Roman Catholic church after disagreements with the Bulgarian Catholics. Some of these German-speaking families later moved to Tsarev Brod, Shumen Province along with a handful of Banat Bulgarian families, to another Banat Bulgarian village, Gostilya, Pleven Province. Between 1941 and 1943, 2,150 ethnic German Bulgarian citizens were transferred to Germany as part of Hitler's Heim ins Reich policy. These included 164 Banat Swabians from Bardarski Geran and 33 from Gostilya.
[edit] Banat Swabians 1920-1944
The Treaty of Trianon of 1920 was the beginning of the end for the Swabians of Banat. The collapse of the Hungarian rule and its replacement by Romanian had some benefits. In the late 19th century, Hungary had undergone a period of Magyarization, during which it attempted to assimilate its minorities. Schools were required to teach only in the Hungarian language. Under Romanian rule, ethnic Germans could have German-language schools for the first time since 1867. German culture flourished. Once again there was a German language theatre in Timişoara, and across the Banat, more German newspapers were established. In 1921 a cultural association called the "Verband der Deutschen in Rumaenien" (Union of Germans in Romania) was founded. [1]
Economically, however, things did not go well. Black Friday and the subsequent financial crises of the 1930s hit the Banat hard. Many Swabians left the Banat to work in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, never to return.
Also after 1933, the Nazi Party was able to gain influence among the ethnic Germans of Eastern Europe, including the Banat Swabians. During the Second World War, many were drafted into the Romanian army and forced to serve on the Eastern Front. After 1943, a German-Romanian treaty allowed them to serve instead with the Wehrmacht or the SS without giving up their citizenship. Some were virtually forced to serve in the SS. They were threatened with sanctions against their families if they refused. Towards the end of the war, some Banat Swabians openly opposed the Nazis, who executed a number of them in Jimbolia (Hatzfeld).
Banat Germans who served the Nazis gained notoriety for crimes against Jews and Serbs during the Banat (1941–1944) period. Led by the infamous 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, they alienated themselves from their non-German neighbors. This was one of the reasons why Tito's Yugoslavia decided to expel all of the Banat Germans from Yugoslavia.
[edit] Life after 1944
[edit] Romania
The Kingdom of Romania, formerly Germany's ally, changed sides and joined the Allies on August 23, 1944. Overnight, all ethnic Germans in Romania became regarded as potential enemies of the state. The approach of the Red Army caused a flood of refugees to flee for their safety to Germany.
By January 1945, the country was completely under Soviet control. The head of the Romanian Communist Party, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, was called a Romanian Stalin. In early 1945, many Banat Swabians were expelled or deported to labor camps in the Soviet Union, where thousands of them died. Those who remained, as well as those who fled, lost their citizenship and their property was seized. In 1951 over a thousand German-speakers were displaced and forced to found new villages in the Bărăgan Steppe of southeast Romania. Most were allowed to return home in 1955.
Some families from both Romanian and Yugoslav Banat managed to flee to Germany in the immediate postwar years and were helped to settle in France as Français du Banat by French minister Robert Schumann.[2].
In the 1960s, however, the political atmosphere relaxed. The policy of disfranchising and dispossessing the German-speaking minority was ended. Once again Banat Swabians could enjoy the rights of Romanian citizenship. It was at this time that the final departure of the Banat Swabians for Germany began. Discrimination had caused many to decide to emigrate. The Transylvanian Saxons made similar decisions. Even though the ethnic German families of the Danube and Banat Swabians had lived in the area for ten generations and more, and although their culture had developed quite differently from Germany's, they no longer trusted the Romanian government.
In 1965, Nicolae Ceauşescu came to power in Romania. At first he opened the country to the West, but by the end of the 1970s, he had become ultra-nationalistic and an opponent of all ethnic minorities. Under his rule, any ethnic German who chose to emigrate had to pay a bounty of more than a thousand marks (depending on age and education) for an exit visa. Nevertheless, Banat Swabians annually left by the tens of thousands well into the 1980s. An economic crisis, as well as increased persecution of minorities, which included a village destruction project, caused 200,000 to flee Romania during that time.[1]
After Ceauşescu's fall in 1989 and German Reunification in 1990, almost all the remaining Banat Germans in Romania left for Germany. The ethnic German population in Romania is greatly reduced and includes mostly older people. Some emigrants are returning, generally entrepreneurs with economic ambitions or as part of a development project.
Of about 750,000 ethnic Germans who once lived in Romania, less than 75,000 remain today. Only in cities with large populations is there a functioning German cultural life, sometimes aided by Romanian inhabitants. Still, the Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung is a strong weekly paper, and the German State Theater in Timişoara (Deutsches Staatstheater Temeswar), subsidized by the Romanian government, produces good German theatre. In Timişoara and Arad, there are German-language secondary schools, attended mostly by Romanian students. The ethnic Germans (including Banat Swabians) left in Romania are represented in politics by the DFDR or Demokratisches Forum der Deutschen in Rumänien (Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania).
[edit] Yugoslavia
While the Germans from other areas of Yugoslavia were lucky enough to escape, or were just expelled, the destiny of Banat and Bačka Germans was less fortunate. Due to high conscription of males, mostly women, children and elderly remained in the villages, and were unwilling or unable to flee. In the first wave, following the Red Army invasion in October 1944, women were subject to indiscriminate rape by Red Army soldiers and some local Serbs. Later on, Germans who were in any way involved with military administration – or suspected to be – were placed in provisional concentration camps. Many were tortured, and at least 5,800 were killed. Yet others were compelled to forced labor. After Christmas 1944, around 30,000 of younger people, chiefly women, were transferred to labor camps in Soviet Union by trains, escorted by Partisans. In the framework of agricultural reform, partisan families – chiefly immigrants from Bosnia, Lika and Montenegro – overtook abandoned German farms and houses. In March 1945, the surviving Germans were ghettoized in "village camps", later labelled as "extermination camps" by the survivors; indeed, the death rate was up to 50%. [3] The most notorious one was in Knićanin (formerly Rudolfsgnad), with estimated 11,000-12,500 deaths.[4] By then mostly orphaned, children had their own sections in those camps; most of them were later transferred to state homes and nursing families, but lost their ethnic identity. In 1947, the situation was improved, as foreign humanitarian aid has managed to reach the camps, and regime in the camps had loosened. The camp system was closed down in March 1948, and the inmates were conscripted for work in army or industry. Their fleeing was mostly tolerated, and by the end of 1950s, around 300,000 Swabians gradually "emigrated" to Western countries. [3]
According to research conducted in 1961 by German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler, later supported by independent research sponsored by German emigrant organizations, 7,200 Germans were shot by the Partisans, around 2,000 deported to Soviet Union, while some 48,000 died in labor camps. Around 16,8% of the Volksdeutsche died during and after the war in Yugoslavia.[5]
Serbian census from 2002 records 3,901 Germans in Serbia, of which 3,154 in the province of Vojvodina.[6][7] In december 2007 they formed their own minority council in Novi Sad, which they were entitled to with 3,000 voter signatures. The president, Andreas Biegermeier, stated that the council will focus on property restitution, and marking of mass graves and camp sites. He estimated the total number of remaining Danube Germans in Serbia and their descents at 5,000–8,000. [8]
[edit] Hungary
In Hungary less than 62,000 Danube Swabians remain.[9], but they do have political representation. One city and several villages have German-speaking mayors[citation needed]. Explusion of the German minority from Hungary took place only between 1945 and 1948.
[edit] Swabians in Emigration
The Banat Swabians who emigrated to Germany are generally well integrated into the society in which they live. They keep contact through cultural organisations (Landsmannschaften). In Vienna and in southern Germany, where most Banat Swabians now live, they maintain their customs and dialect, and offer support to those who remain in Romania.
[edit] Notable Banat Swabians
- Geza von Cziffra, film director
- Johnny Weissmuller (born Johann Weißmüller), American actor and Olympic swimming gold medalist
- Nikolaus Lenau, writer
- Stefan Jäger, painter
[edit] References
- The information in this article is based on and translated from that found in its German equivalent.
- German-speaking Europe
- Banat Swabians in Bulgaria: Njagulov, Blagovest (1999). "Banatskite bǎlgari v Bǎlgarija" (in Bulgarian). Banatskite bǎlgari: istorijata na edna malcinstvena obštnost vǎv vremeto na nacionalnite dǎržavi. Sofia: Paradigma. ISBN 954-9536-13-0.
- ^ a b c d http://feefhs.org/BANAT/BHISTORY.HTML
- ^ a b Smaranda Vultur, De l’Ouest à l’Est et de l’Est à l’Ouest : les avatars identitaires des Français du Banat, Texte presenté a la conférence d'histoire orale "Visibles mais pas nombreuses : les circulations migratoires roumaines", Paris, 2001
- ^ a b Sretenovic, Stanislav and Prauser, Steffen. The Expulsion of the German-Speaking Minority from Yugoslavia. European University Institute, Florence. p. 55. http://www.iue.it/PUB/HEC04-01.pdf.
- ^ "Vojvodina Germans Seek Moral and Cultural Rehabilitation". Beta. http://www.media-diversity.org/beta%20articles/Vojvodina%20Germans.htm.
- ^ Sretenovic, Stanislav and Prauser, Steffen. The Expulsion of the German-Speaking Minority from Yugoslavia. European University Institute, Florence. p. 56. http://www.iue.it/PUB/HEC04-01.pdf.
- ^ Laloš, Vesela (2007-09-05). "Zajednica brojnija nego što pokazuje popis". Danas. http://www.danas.rs/vesti/drustvo/terazije/zajednica_brojnija_nego_sto_pokazuje_popis.14.html?news_id=121145.
- ^ "Nemci osnivaju nacionalni savet". Glas Javnosti. 2007-03-27. http://arhiva.glas-javnosti.rs/arhiva/2007/03/27/srpski/V07032601.shtml.
- ^ "Nemci traže da im država vrati oduzetu imovinu". Građanski List. 2007-12-16. http://www.gradjanski.rs/navigacija.php?vest=13601.
- ^ Hungarian census by ethnic groups, 2001 The category "Germans" includes mostly, but not only, the Danube Swabians
[edit] External links
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