German-American History - 3











Volga German pioneer family commemorative statue in Victoria, Kansas, USA.The
Volga Germans (German: Wolgadeutsche or Russlanddeutsche) were ethnic
Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia
around Saratov and to the south. They maintained German culture, language,
traditions and churches: Lutherans, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites.
Many Volga Germans emmigrated to the Midwestern United States, Canada, Brazil,
Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the
late 20th century, many of the remaining ethnic Germans moved to Germany.

Contents [hide]
1 Catherine the Great
2 The 20th century
3 Present-day
4 North America
5 South America
6 See also
7 References
8 External links


Catherine the Great:

Catherine IIIn 1762, Sophie Fredericke Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, a German
native of Stettin, displaced her husband Peter III and
took the vacant Russian imperial throne, assuming the
name of Catherine II . "Catherine the Great" published
manifestos in 1762 and 1763 inviting Europeans, except
Jews,[1] to immigrate and farm Russian lands while
maintaining their language and culture. Although the
first received little response, the second improved the
benefits that were offered and was more successful. In
addition to land development, an important consideration
for Catherine was the provision of a buffer zone between
her Russian subjects and the nomads to the east.
Germans responded in particularly large numbers due to
poor conditions in their home regions. People in other
countries such as France and England were more inclined to migrate to the colonies
in the Americas than to the Russian frontier. Other countries, such as Austria,
forbade emigration. Those who went to Russia had special rights under the terms of
the manifesto. These were later revoked when the need for conscription into the
Russian army arose in the latter part of the 19th century. This was especially
offensive to the German Mennonite communities, whose doctrine teaches against
war and aggression. Some Germans emigrated to the Americas or Germany to avoid
the draft, though many did remain in Russia.

The 20th century:

Following the Russian Revolution, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic (Autonome Sozialistische Sowjet-Republik der Wolga-Deutschen in
German; АССР Немцев Поволжья in Russian) was established in 1924, and it
lasted until 1942. Its capital was Engels, known as "Pokrovsk" (Kosakenstadt in
German) before 1931.

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin worried that the Volga Germans might
collaborate with them. On August 28, 1941, he dissolved the Volga-German ASSR
and ordered the immediate relocation of ethnic Germans, both from the Volga and
from a number of other traditional areas of settlement. These were stripped of their
land and houses, and moved eastwards to Kazakhstan in Soviet Central Asia, Altai
Krai in Siberia, and other remote areas. Similar deportations happened for other
ethnic groups, including North Caucasian Muslim ethnic groups, Kalmyks and
Crimean Tatars. In 1942 nearly all the able-bodied German population was
conscripted to the labour army. About one third did not survive the labour camps.


Present-day:

The Volga Germans never returned to the Volga region in their prior numbers. They
were not allowed to do so for decades. After the war, many remained in the Ural
Mountains, Siberia, Kazakhstan (2% of today's Kazakh population are recognised
as Germans - approximately 300,000), Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan (approximately
16,000 = 0.064%).[citation needed] Decades after the war, some talked about
resettling where the German Autonomous Republic used to be, but this movement
met with opposition from the population resettled to their territory and did not gain
momentum.

Since the late 1980s, many Volga Germans have emmigrated to their ancestral
homeland of Germany, taking advantage of the German law of return, a policy which
grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German
ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such a person (Greece, as well, had a
similar law for the Greek minority from the former Soviet Union). This exodus
occurred despite the fact that some Volga Germans speak little or no German, since
for decades the language could not be spoken in public.[citation needed] In the late
1990s, however, Germany made it more difficult for Russians of German descent to
settle in Germany,[citation needed] especially for those who do not speak some of
the Volga dialects of German. Today, there are approximately 600,000 Germans in
Russia (Russian Census (2002)), a number that increases to 1.5 million when
including people partly of German ancestry.


North America:

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the neighborhood of Jefferson Park
in Chicago was the point of initial settlement for many Volga German immigrants
coming to the Chicago Metropolitan Area.The largest group of Volga Germans that
emigrated to the United States and Canada settled mainly in the area of the Great
Plains; Alberta, eastern Colorado, Kansas, Manitoba, eastern Montana, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and South Dakota. Outside of the Great Plains, they
also settled in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Washington,
Wisconsin, and Fresno County in California's Central Valley, often succeeding in
dryland farming, a skill learned 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.

Other Volga Germans made a new life for themselves not in the fields but in the
industrialising cities of the United States. Chief among these is Chicago which saw
an immense upsurge in immigration from Eastern Europe during this time and is the
largest Volga German establishment in North America. Although settlement by the
Volga Germans occurred in a number of areas throughout the Chicago Metropolitan
Area, the largest area of concentrated settlement was in Jefferson Park on the city's
Northwest Side mostly between the years 1907-1920. By 1930, 450 families of the
Evangelical faith were living in this area, most of whom originated from Wiesenseite
[2]. Later many of their descendants would move out to outlying suburbs such as
Maywood and Melrose Park but a fair number of family residences surrounding the
Jefferson Park central business district along Lawrence and Milwaukee avenue can
trace their roots back to Volga German immigrants.

Bernhard Warkentin, a German Russian, was born in a small Russian village in
1847, and travelled to America in his early twenties. Interested in flour mills, he was
especially impressed with the wheat growing possibilities in the United States. After
visiting Kansas, Warkentin found the plains much like those he had left behind in his
native Russia. Settling in Harvey County, he built a water mill on the banks of the
Little Arkansas River – the Halstead Milling and Elevator Company. Warkentin's
greatest contribution to Kansas was the introduction of hard Turkey Wheat into
Kansas, which replaced the soft variety grown exclusively in the state.

During the 1970s, Dr. Kenneth Rock, a professor of history at Colorado State
University, collected sixty oral histories of Germans from Russia immigrants and
their descendants as part of the Germans from Russia in Colorado Study Project,
documenting life in the German communities in Russia, the immigration experience,
work and social life in the United States, and interaction between the Russian-
German communities and the wider society in both Russia and the United States.[3]

Approximately one million descendants of these Russian Germans live in the United
States.[4] Modern descendants in Canada and the United States refer to their
heritage as Germans from Russia, Russian Germans, Volgadeutsch or Black
Germans. In many parts of the United States, however, they tend to have blended to
a large degree with the much more numerous "regular" German Americans who are
numerous in the northern half of the United States.


[edit] South America
Germans from Russia also settled in Argentina (see Crespo and Coronel Suárez
among others), Paraguay, and Brazil (see German-Brazilians).

Brazil 1,187,000–1,500,000
Argentina 1,200,000[5]
Paraguay 45,000

[edit] See also
Lt Col. Harold W. Bauer USMC Ace
History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
Volhynia
Gulag
Germans of Kazakhstan
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

[edit] References
^ Lewis, Bernard, Semites and Anti-Semites, New York, W.W. Norton and
Company, 1999 edition, ISBN 0393318397, p. 61.
^ March 1995 issue of the Newsletter of the American Historical Society of
Germans from Russia "German Russians in Chicagoland"
^ "Germans from Russia: On the Trail to Colorado". Colorado State University
Libraries.
^ Chronology : The Germans in America (European Reading Room, Library of
Congress)
^ According to the Asociación Argentina de Descendientes de Alemanes del Volga
(Argentine Association of Descendants from Volga-Germans) there are more than
1,200,000 descendants of Volga Germans in Argentina; (this number does not
include other German communities).

[edit] External links
The Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University
Germans from Russia Heritage Society
Flag
Volga Germans
American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
Germans from Russia Heritage Collection North Dakota State University
Germans from Russia in Argentina Genealogy (Spanish)
Wolgadeutschen (Russian)
The Golden Jubilee of German-Russian Settlements of Ellis and Rush Counties,
Kansas
Germans from Russia in Argentina
German Memories - Volga Germans Migration Towards Americas
[hide]v • d • eGerman diaspora

Africa Namibia

Asia Kazakhstan

Europe Central and
Eastern Bulgaria · Caucasus · Czech Republic (Sudetenland) · Hungary · Moldova ·
Poland · Russia (Volga · Russian Mennonite) · Slovakia · Ukraine (Black Sea ·
Bukhovina · Crimea)

Romania Transylvanian Saxons / Landler · Danube / Banat / Satu Mare Swabians ·
Dobruja · Zisper · Regat


Balkans and
Southeastern Croatia · Serbia · Yugoslavia · Turkey (Bosporus)

Elsewhere Baltic states · Belgium · Denmark · United Kingdom


Americas Argentina · Bolivia · Brazil · Canada · Chile · Cuba · Dominican Republic ·
Jamaica · Mexico · Paraguay · Peru · United States (Pennsylvania Dutch · Puerto
Rico · Texas · Palatines · Hutterites) · Venezuela

Oceania Australia

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans"
Categories: German diaspora | Ethnic groups in Europe | Russian and Soviet
Germans | Germany–Russia relations
Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced
statements since November 2007ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History
Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation


This page was last modified on 20 October 2008, at 13:18. All text is available under the terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-
deductible nonprofit charity.
Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers

Volga Germans
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia