Volga Germans
The Volga Germans are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and close to Ukraine nearer to the south.
Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their German culture, language, traditions and churches. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
After the October Revolution, the Volga German ASSR was established as an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. During World War II, the republic was abolished by the Soviet government and the Volga Germans were forcibly expelled to a number of areas in the hinterlands of the Soviet Union. There is scholarly debate about whether or not the events constitute a genocide.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Volga Germans immigrated to Germany.
History
Invitation to settle in Russia
In 1762, Catherine II, born a German princess and a native of Stettin, Pomerania, deposed her husband Peter III, born a German prince in Kiel, and took the Russian imperial throne. Following the lead of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria and Hungary, inviting Germans to settle on the Danube in the Balkans, Catherine the Great published manifestos in 1762 and 1763 inviting non-Muslim, non-Jewish Europeans to immigrate, become Russian subjects, and farm Russian lands while maintaining their language and culture. Although the first received little response, the second improved the benefits offered and was more successful in attracting colonists. People in other countries such as France and Ireland were more inclined to migrate to the colonies in the Americas. Other countries, such as Austria, forbade emigration.In the late 18th century the nomadic Kazakhs took advantage of Pugachev's Rebellion, which was centred on the Volga area, to raid Volga German settlements.
Those who went to Russia had special rights under the terms of the manifesto. Some, such as being exempt from military service, were revoked in the latter part of the 19th century when the government needed more conscripts for the Russian army. The Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite communities were opposed to military service because of their pacifist beliefs, so many Mennonites immigrated to the Americas instead.
19th century
At the end of the 19th century, the Russian empire began to apply an aggressive policy of Russification. Although they had been promised a degree of relative autonomy when they settled in the Russian empire, the Russian monarchy gradually eroded their specific rights as time went on. The Germans began to suffer a considerable loss of autonomy. Conscription was eventually reinstated. That was not wanted and was especially harmful to the Mennonites, who practice pacifism. Throughout the 19th century, pressure increased from the Russian government to culturally assimilate. Many Germans from Russia found it necessary to emigrate to avoid conscription and preserve their culture. This caused some Germans to organize themselves and send emissaries to some countries in the Americas in order to assess potential settlement destinations. The chosen destinations were Canada, United States, Brazil and Argentina. Most Volga Germans who settled in Latin America were Catholic. Many Catholic Volga Germans chose South America as their new homeland because the nations shared their religion.North America
Germans from Russia were the most traditional of German-speaking arrivals to North America. In the United States, many settled primarily in the Dakotas, Kansas, and Nebraska by 1900. The south-central part of North Dakota was known as "the German-Russian triangle". A smaller number moved farther west, finding employment as ranchers and cowboys. They also settled in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Fresno County in California's Central Valley. They often succeeded in dryland farming, which they had practiced in Russia. Many of the immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1912 spent a period doing farm labor, especially in northeastern Colorado and in Montana along the lower Yellowstone River in sugar beet fields. Colonies kept in touch with each other through newspapers, especially Der Staats Anzeiger, based in North Dakota. By author Richard Sallet's count, there were 118,493 descendants of Volga Germans of the first and second generation living in the United States according to the 1920 United States census. In Colorado, white farm owners viewed the Volga German immigrants as racially inferior due to their social status as farm laborers.In Canada, the largest groups settled mainly in the area of the Great Plains: Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, many settled in the predominantly German settlement of St. Joseph's Colony, including the town of Luseland.
Image:San Jose1.JPG|thumb|Flags of Argentina, Buenos Aires Province and Germany in front of St. Joseph Catholic Church in San José, Coronel Suárez Partido, Argentina.
South America
Germans from Russia also settled in Argentina and Brazil. Additionally, many of the Volga Germans who had previously settled in Brazil later also went to settle in Argentina due to the difficulties of planting wheat in Brazil, among other reasons.In Argentina, Volga Germans have founded many colonies or villages. For example, around the city of Coronel Suárez in the South of Buenos Aires Province, around the city of Crespo in Entre Ríos Province, along the East of La Pampa Province, etc. Every year, the community of Volga German descendants holds different celebrations in the country in which they keep their traditions alive. For example, the Kerb, the Kreppelfest, the Strudelfest, the Füllselfest, the Schlachtfest, the Fiesta del Pirok, etc.
Today, 8% of the Argentine population or 3.5 million Argentines claim German ancestry. Of those, more than 2.5 million claim Volga German descent, making them the majority of those having German ancestry in the country, and accounting for 5.7% of the total Argentine population. Descendants of Volga Germans outnumber descendants of Germans from Germany itself, who number one million in Argentina.
20th century
Following the Russian Revolution, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1924, and it lasted until 1941. Its capital was Engels, known as Pokrovsk before 1931.Soviet deportation
The deportation of the Volga Germans was the Soviet government's forcible transfer of the whole of the Volga German population from the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Saratov Oblast and Stalingrad Oblast to Siberia and Kazakhstan, with about half being resettled in each region. The Soviets, bearing in mind the collaboration of the Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia with Nazi Germany, decided as a precautionary measure to transfer the Volga German population.These deportations, which also included the deportation of the rest of the ethnic Germans from Russia, had been implemented for several years before World War II and they became particularly exhaustive on September 3, 1941, during the war.
Of all of the ethnic German communities which lived in the Soviet Union, the Volga Germans represented the largest group of ethnic Germans which was expelled from its historical homeland. All of their possessions were confiscated and they were mainly deported because of their ethnicity. Shortly after the German invasion, on June 22, 1941, Stalin sent Beria and Molotov to the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to determine a course of action for its German inhabitants. On return, they recommended the deportation of the entire German population. Consequently, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a resolution on August 12, calling for the expulsion of the entire ethnic German population. With this authority, Beria on August 27 issued an order entitled "On Measures for Conducting the Operation of Resettling the Germans from the Volga German Republic, Saratov, and Stalingrad Oblasts", assigning the deputy head of the NKVD, Ivan Serov, to command this operation. He also allocated NKVD and Red Army troops to carry out the transfer.
On August 26, 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU published decrees concerning the impending deportations. Following that, on August 28, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved and published a decree, according to which the Germans were to be sent to various oblasts in Siberia, Kazakhstan and others, beginning on September 3, and ending on September 20. On September 7, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was officially abolished, clearly showing that the Soviets considered the expulsion of the Germans final. August 28 later became the unofficial Day of Mourning and Memory of Russian Germans.
The Soviet regime stated that the evacuation was a preventive measure, so that the German population would not be misled into collaborating with the German Army rather than a punitive measure, and they did not reveal the sentence to the forced labor camps. Stalin allegedly gave the following "secret" order to the NKVD, produced in German-controlled Latvia on September 20, 1941:
Image:Vorkuta a.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Aerial view of the Vorkutlag, one of the GULAG forced labor camps where many Germans from Russia perished.
"After the house search, tell everyone who is scheduled to be deported that, according to the government's decision, they are being sent to other regions of the USSR. Transport the entire family in one car until the train station, but at the station, heads of families must be loaded into a separate train car prepared especially for them. Their families are deported for special settlements in the far away regions of the Union. must not know about the forthcoming separation from the head of the family."
The document above may be a fabrication, as Latvia was under German occupation at that time. Nevertheless, the instructions were followed by the NKVD troops who directed the deportation. The reason for separating the men could have been that they were all destined to be sent to forced labor camps, known as Trudarmee. The deported Germans coined this phrase, whereas Soviet documents only referred to "labor obligations" or "labor regulations." Able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 55 and, later, able-bodied women between the ages of 16 and 45 were forced to do labor in the forests and mines of Siberia and Central Asia under conditions similar to those prevalent in the Gulag forced labor camps, while other Germans were directly deported to Gulag forced labor camps. After the Nazi invasion began, the NKVD banned ethnic Germans from serving in the Soviet military. They sent tens of thousands of these soldiers to the Trudarmee.
The expulsion of the Volga Germans was finished on schedule at the end of September 1941. According to the Soviet Union, the total number sent to forced internal exile was about 950,000. However, the actual estimated number of victims is much higher. It took 151 train convoys to accomplish the first transfers of the Volga German population. This operation also involved 1,550 NKVD and 3,250 police agents, assisted by 12,150 soldiers of the Red Army.