Germans of Romania
|
|||||||
| Total population | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36,884 (2011 census) [1] | |||||||
| Regions with significant populations | |||||||
| Central and North East Romania (Eastern carpathians) | |||||||
| Languages | |||||||
| mainly German, also Romanian, Hungarian etc |
|||||||
| Religion | |||||||
| Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism | |||||||
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The Germans of Romania or Rumäniendeutsche are an ethnic group of Romania. They were of a number of 786,000 of Germans in interwar Romania in 1939,[1][2] a number that had fallen to 36,884 by 2011 in modern Romania. They are not a single group; thus, to understand their language, culture, and history, one must view them as independent groups:
- Transylvanian Saxons - the largest and oldest, often simply equated with the Germans of Romania
- Satu Mare Swabians and most Banat Swabians, groups of Danube Swabians in Romania
- Transylvanian Landler Protestants
- Zipser Germans in Maramureş (Borşa, Vişeu)
- Regat Germans, including the Dobrujan Germans
- Bukovina Germans (Târgu Neamț, Gura Humorului and Câmpulung Moldovenesc)
- Bessarabia Germans (for the period 1918–1940)
See Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania for their official representation.
Contents
House of Hohenzollern in Romania[edit]
The house of Hohenzollern representative kings from a German family house that ruled over Romania for a period:
- 1866–1914: Karl I (also Prince of Romania)
- 1914–1927: Ferdinand
- 1927–1930: Michael
- 1930–1940: Karl II
- 1940–1947: Michael (again)
Important communities for the German minority[edit]
- Timișoara (Temeschwar / Temeschburg)
- Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg)
- Alba Iulia (Karlsburg)
- Mediaș (Mediasch)
- Sibiu (Hermannstadt)
- Sighișoara (Schäßburg)
- Brașov (Kronstadt)
- Nocrich (Leschkirch)
- Merghindeal (Mergeln)
- Hărman (Honigberg)
- Prejmer (Tartlau)
- Teaca (Tekendorf)
- Bistrița (Bistritz)
- Câmpulung Moldovenesc (Cîmpulung)
- Gura Humorului (Gura Humora)
- Târgu Neamț (Niamtz)
- Piatra Neamț (Kreuzburg)
- Suceava (Suczawa)
Notable Romanian Germans[edit]
- Horst Köhler (Bessarabian German), the former President of Germany, whose parents were from Romania
- Herta Müller (Banat Swabian), Nobel Prize-winning author who has depicted the history of Romanian Germans
- Klaus Iohannis (Transylvanian Saxon), a 2009 opposition candidate for Prime Minister of Romania
- Hermann Oberth (Transylvanian Saxon from Schäßburg), pioneer of rocket development
- Helmuth Duckadam (Banat Swabian), former football goalkeeper
- Johnny Weissmueller (Banat Swabian from Freidorf, Temeschburg), gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer, actor noted for role of Tarzan
- Nikolaus Lenau (Banat Swabian from Lenauheim), renowned lyric poet
Role in Second World War[edit]
After Romania acquired parts of Soviet Ukraine, the Germans there came under the authority of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, which deployed SS personnel to several settlements. They eventually contained German mayors, farms, schools and ethnic German paramilitary groups functioning as police called Selbstschutz.
Those German colonists and Selbstschutz forces engaged in ethnic cleansing, massacring Jewish and Roma population near their settlements. In the German colony Shonfeld gypsies were burned on farms, and during the winter 1941/1942 German Selbstschutz units participated in shooting (together with Ukrainian militia and Romanian gendarmes) 18,000 Jews. In the camp of Bogdanovka tens of thousands of Jews were subject to mass shootings, barn burnings and killing by hand grenades. Heinrich Himmler was most impressed by the Volksdeutsche communities and the work of the Selbstschutz and ordered to these methods be copied in Ukraine.[3]
| Historical population | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1887 | 50,000 | — |
| 1930 | 745,421 | +1390.8% |
| 1939 | 786,000 | +5.4% |
| 1950 | 421,846 | −46.3% |
| 1956 | 384,708 | −8.8% |
| 1966 | 382,595 | −0.5% |
| 1977 | 359,109 | −6.1% |
| 1990 | 200,000 | −44.3% |
| 2009 | 135,088 | −32.5% |
| Starting with the 1930 figures, the reference is to all German-speaking groups in Romania. | ||
References[edit]
- ^ Dr. Gerhard Reichning, Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, Teil 1, Bonn 1995, Page 17
- ^ Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden. - Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1958 Page 46
- ^ Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History by Wendy Lower, A. Dirk Moses Berghahn Books 2008, page 389
