Halfway down the Danube

The land beyond the forests

Imagine you travel through a country where your fellow countrymen have lived for hundreds of years and are now on the verge of extinction. I found this to be incredibly sad and it's not about German nationalism or prejudices against Romanians. It's about witnessing an almost 1000 year-long chapter of history coming to an end.

Sic transit gloria mundi -- thus passes the glory of the world -- is the inscription on the clock tower of the German cathedral in what once was Kronstadt and is now Braşov. It’s a bold and telling statement, and deeply melancholic. The so-called Black Church is falling to pieces. There are no more Sunday masses read. There are signs on the outer walls, warning the unsuspecting to stay away from the building lest he might be hit by falling stones. Statues are missing from their pedestals, the roof looks in need of repair. This once so powerful and rich parish is dying.

The first Germans came to Siebenbürgen probably as early as 1050. (The etymology of the word "Siebenbürgen" is argued over - some claim it means Seven Castles, others think it derives from Seven Mountains. Transylvania is Latin and means "land beyond the forests". )

In the 11th century Transylvania was part of the Hungarian empire. King Geza II, who ruled the area from 1141 - 1161, called settlers from Germany into his lands. It was a decision based on military and economic reasoning. Even back then, the Germans were renowned for being industrious and hard-working, but Geza II needed people not only to tend his lands but also to defend them against the onslaught of the Mongols and Tartars.

The first hospites, guests, settled around Hermannstadt (Sibiu). The Saxons (not from Saxony, mind you, but rather from the Rhine and Mosel areas) were granted substantial and generous rights. Among them were free elections of judges and priests, judicial procedure according to their own customary law, freedom of tariffs, free markets, and more. In return, the settlers -- who were mostly farmers, craftsmen and miners -- obliged themselves to pay a yearly tribute to the king and serve in his military.

In order to protect their settlements, the Saxons built fortified churches wherever they lived, many of which can still be seen today. They formed the “rampart of Christendom” against the Mongols and later the Osmanic people.

In 1486, the “Universitas Saxonum” was founded, the Saxon Union of Nations. This was the highest authority in law and administration, making the settlement area of the Saxons basically a “state within a state”.

Freedom of religion was granted in 1568, at a time that saw the conversion of almost all Saxons to Protestanism. Education was excellent. Almost every village had a school, the first high school was founded in 1541 and in 1722 school attendance became compulsory.

Over the centuries, the Siebenbürger Sachsen managed to maintain a sense of community and only in 1867 the Union of Nations was dissolved and the Saxons lost their privileges and political autonomy.

Times became tough for minorities in general when, after the fall of Austria-Hungary, Transsylvania became a part of the new country of Romania in 1919. Land was taken away from the church and the farmers, Romanian became the compulsory language in schools, enrollment in universities became harder and harder for non-Romanians.

But the ultimate decline of the Saxons began with the Nazi regime in Germany. Romania sought Germany as an ally and in return agreed to various strange laws. As a result, Romanian Germans were drafted into the SS and the Organisation Todt, as well as put to work in the German weapons industry. Many died in the war, and those who returned found themselves arrested and kept in prison for years.

The now Soviet-friendly government took revenge on the Germans, blaming them collectively for “the partaking of Romania in the anit-Soviet war and the occupation of Romania by Nazi Germany.”

In 1945, the German population was largely deported to the Soviet Union to work in the coal mines and work camps as part of “reparations”. One has to say that Romanian government officials and the Romanian King protested against this, but to no avail. Of the 75,000 deported Germans about 15% died and many of those who returned were either sent to East Germany or released into the West.

Back in Romania, Germans lost all their rights. The minority protection law explicity excluded Germans. From 1946 to 1950, Germans did not possess the right to vote. They lost all their property – land and houses, together with livestock, fixtures and fittings. The political and intellectual leaders were imprisoned and sent to work camps in the Soviet Union and Hungary.

The situation got slightly better after Stalin’s death but much of the wrongs couldn’t be righted anymore. Families had been torn apart, village communities and the middle-class in the cities had been destroyed, there was a general loss of the feeling of identity, the Romanian Germans were separated from their language and their culture. However, leaving the country was not an option yet and the reunion of families was an exception still.

It was Helmut Schmidt who came to an agreement with Nicolae Ceausescu. The deal was the every year, 12,000 to 16,000 Germans were allowed to leave the country. In return, the German government agreed to pay a fixed sum per emigrant. This sum was 5,000 DM in 1978 and rose up to 7,800 DM in 1989.

The situation became increasingly difficult for the German minority. In the 1980s the use of the German language in public was restricted, and this, together with the large numbers of emigrants, led to the closing of many schools. This again encouraged even more Germans to leave the country since now they could not even guarantee their children a good education anymore.

80% of all Germans were determined to leave the country, if given an opportunity. After Ceausescu’s fall they poured out of the country in a panicky mass exodus – nobody was going to take any chances. Who knew, maybe the new government would soon restrict travel rights again. There was also the fear that Germany would close its gates to the many, many immigrants that now came into the country. In the first six months of 1990, 115,000 Germans left Romania.

In 1930, 745,421 Germans lived in Romania. In 1997, this number had decreased to about 80,000. Since 1950 almost half a million Saxons have left Romania to live in Germany.

In another generation or two, the Siebenbürger Sachsen will be but a faint memory. In Kronstadt, the Black Church in Kronstadt will have crumbled to pieces.

It’s the end of 1000 years of German history in Transsylvania.

--

Sources:
Die Geschichte der Deutschen in Rumänien
Rumäniendeutsche
Transsylvania (In English)

Posted by claudia at February 10, 2004 12:35 PM