Country: Russia

Group: Volga Germans

Date Finalized: 4/4/2022

Team: Hunter Blevins (lead), William Nicholson, Amanda Nelson

Content Warning: forced displacement

Approximate Time Period: 1940-1950

            Volga Germans are descendants of Germans who migrated to Russia after a 1763 decree by Catherine the Great. (Minority Rights Group, 2020). The Russian state labeled them potential conspirators and forcefully deported them during WWII (Minority Rights Group, 2020; Schmaltz & Sinner, 2002).

Catherine the Great proclaimed  “the invitation manifesto” in 1763 that invited European people to settle on Russian lands. Included in this manifesto were privileges and protections which inspired a large wave of immigration involving Germans that continued into the 19th century. Consequently, Germans were more prosperous than their Russian neighbors. Tensions between the two ethnicities escalated and resulted in Alexander II rescinding many of these privileges and effectively ceasing German immigration. Prejudices against Germans briefly culminated in the years following WWI when the state passed a decree aiming to deport Germans in Northwestern Ukraine. However, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolsheviks rescinded this decree and created a worker’s commune for Volga Germans in 1918 and an Autonomous Socialist Republic in 1924 (Norka, 2022; Norka, 2021; Gredinger, 2010, Schmaltz & Sinner, 2002). A minority of the 1.3 million Volga Germans resided in the Republic but it became the centerpiece of their plight in the subsequent decades (Minority Rights Group, 2020).

During World War II, the Russian state dissolved the Republic, deemed Volga Germans potential conspirators, and undertook mass deportations. Between 1941 and 1945, officials relocated and detained over a million Volga Germans in residential areas throughout Siberia, the north of Kazakhstan, and the Altai region. Roughly 300,000 died during these deportations (Minority Rights Group, 2020; Schmaltz & Sinner, 2002). After WWII, the state disbarred Volga Germans from abandoning their dwellings. After 1955, officials lifted some restrictions but still prevented Volga Germans from resettling their villages. This policy persisted even after their partial rehabilitation in 1965. Decrees in 1964 and later 1972 eased settlement restrictions, but the Russian state limited the dissemination of this information. The legislation granted Volga Germans the same settlement rights as other Russians but state officials impeded their newfound freedoms. The collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a mass exodus of Volga Germans repatriating to Germany (Gredinger, 2010; Schmaltz & Sinner, 2002).

Data Quality: The data quality is 3/3. There exists ample evidence from credible sources regarding this case.

Sources

  1. NORKA (2022). Catherine’s manifesto 1763. Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.norkarussia.info/catherines-manifesto-1763.html
  2. NORKA (2021). Deportation 1941. Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.norkarussia.info/deportation-1941.html
  3. Minority Rights Group. Russian or Volga Germans. (2021, February 6). Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/russian-or-volga-germans/#:~:text=The%20republic%20was%20disbanded%20during%20the%20war%20and%20its%20German%20population%20(895%2C637)%20deported%20to%20Siberia%20and%20Central%20Asia
  4. Gredinger, G. (2010). Identity beyond the Nation State: the case of the Russian Germans (Vol. 5). Working Papers.
  5. Schmaltz, E. J., & Sinner, S. D. (2002). ” You will die under ruins and snow”: The Soviet repression of Russian Germans as a case study of successful genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 4(3), 327-356.