Integration of East German Resettlers Into the Cultures and Societies of the GDR
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Integration of East German Resettlers into the Cultures and Societies of the GDR Doctoral Thesis of Aaron M.P. Jacobson Student Number 59047878 University College London Degree: Ph.D. in History 1 DECLARATION I, Aaron M.P. Jacobson, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT A controversy exists in the historiography of ethnic German post-WWII refugees and expellees who lived in the German Democratic Republic. This question is namely: to what extent were these refugees and expellees from various countries with differing cultural, religious, social and economic backgrounds integrated into GDR society? Were they absorbed by the native cultures of the GDR? Was an amalgamation of both native and expellee cultures created? Or did the expellees keep themselves isolated and separate from GDR society? The historiography regarding this controversy most commonly uses Soviet and SED governmental records from 1945-53. The limitation of this approach by historians is that it has told the refugee and expellee narrative from government officials’ perspectives rather than those of the Resettlers themselves. In 1953 the SED regime stopped public record keeping concerning the Resettlers declaring their integration into GDR society as complete. After eight years in the GDR did the Resettlers feel that they were an integrated part of society? In an attempt to ascertain how Resettlers perceived their own pasts in the GDR and the level of integration that occurred, 230 refugees and expellees were interviewed throughout the former GDR between 2008-09. These interviewees represented several homeland origin groups and lived in a variety of localities including small, rural villages; middle-sized, established towns; and huge industrial centers. The results of these interviews have been analyzed in conjunction with primary archival sources and the secondary literature. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ..........................................................................................4 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS .................................................................5 INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................6 1) ORIGINS and BESSARABIAN GERMANS…………………..….……………...36 2) BUKOVINA GERMANS….....................................................................................116 3) DANUBE SWABIANS……………………….…………………………......…......158 4) FLIGHT and EXPULSION………………..…………………...…………........…193 5) ARRIVAL and SETTLEMENT...……….………..……………...……………....220 6) LIFE CYCLES........................................................……..........................................241 7) HEIMAT and IDENTITY…….……………..........................................................260 8) RELIGIOUS LIFE……………………………………………......…………….…288 9) POLITICAL LIFE…………………………………………………………….…..308 10) WHY THEY STAYED……………………………………………………......…325 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………....................343 BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................349 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………359 4 ABBREVIATIONS and ACRONYMS BArch Bundesarchiv, Berlin branch SAPMO Stiftung Parteien und Massenorganisation der ehemaligen DDR BLHA Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam BdV Bund der Vertriebenen CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Democratic Republic LHA Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg LDPD Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands MLHA Mecklenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Schwerin NDPD Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands NKVD Narodny commissariat vnutrennich SBZ Sowjetische Besatzungszone SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands SachsHStA Sächsischen Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden SMAD Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland Stasi Staatssicherheitsdienst der DDR ThHStAW Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar ZVU Zentralverwaltung für deutsche Umsiedler 5 INTRODUCTION Prior to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939 approximately 18 million ethnic Germans lived throughout Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.1 The homelands of these people spanned from Yugoslavia in the south to the Baltic countries in the north. They lived from today’s western Poland to the Caucasus Mountains in the east. The majority of these ethnic German groups developed their own cultures, dialects and customs over centuries all the while being surrounded by and living among various other ethnic groups and cultures. The lives of these 18 million ethnic Germans changed forever when from 1939-1950 they formed part of the largest population expulsions in human history. Population transfers in the form of deportations or expulsions from one area to another are documented throughout written record. Examples of these population transfers include the expulsion of the Jews from Judea by the Babylonians in 597 B.C.E.; Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes scattering hundreds of thousands of Huguenots all over the world;2 and the expulsion of ethnic Nepali from Bhutan in the 1990s. The majority of people affected by such events share in common personal and group stories of pain, suffering, disease and death. 1 Andreas Kossert, Kalte Heimat: Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945, (München: Siedler Verlag, 2008), p. 22-23. 2 Marion Frantzioch, Die Vertriebenen: Heimmnisse, Antriebskräfte und Wege ihrer Integration in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, (Berlin: Reimer, 1987), p. 46. 6 The regions of Central and Eastern Europe have experienced innumerable invasions and confrontations over the centuries between Celts, Romans, Germans, Huns, Slavs and other ethnic groups. This tide of warfare resulted in a continuous fluidity of borders and cycles of ethnic reprisals.3 The Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom drafted plans during conferences in Teheran and Yalta to end these cycles once and for all. In August 1945 the Allies decided in Potsdam to put these plans to move several ethnic groups to their own nation-states into action.4 Thus began the transfer of ethnic Germans from all over Europe to Occupied Germany. This process was often accompanied by death, horror, starvation and violence. One group among these millions is called the Flüchtlinge or refugees. This term most often refers to those ethnic Germans who fled the advance of the Soviet Army on the Eastern Front between 1944 and 1945. These refugees originated mostly from East Prussia, Pomerania, Warthegau/Poland, East Brandenburg and Silesia. Another group is called the Vertriebene or expellees. This term refers to ethnic Germans who were expelled from their homeland areas in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. It is in this chaotic setting that approximately 7.5 million refugees and expellees arrived in the future Federal Republic of Germany.5 An additional 4.3 million settled in the area of the future German Democratic Republic where they were known as Umsiedler or Resettlers. 3 Raymond Pearson, National Minorities in Eastern Europe, 1848-1945, (London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1983), p. 4-6. 4 Mathias Beer, Flucht and Vertreibung der Deutschen, (München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2011), p. 48-51. 5 Philipp Ther, “A Century of Forced Migration: the Origins and Consequences of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’”, in Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak, (eds.), Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948, (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001), p. 60. 7 Review of secondary literature Historical research relating to the lives and experiences of ethnic German refugees and expellees were affected by politics and policies during the Cold War. In West Germany, expellee historiography began with the extensive compilation of refugee and expellee experiences by Theodor Schieder and associates. The Ministry for Refugees, Expellees and War Victims in Bonn funded this work which they published in 1954 under the title Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa. The government’s support for this research was part of a larger plan by Chancellor Adenauer to gain political support among the refugees and expellees.6 The government later published part of this compilation in English in an effort to garner sympathy in Western countries for German suffering during and after World War II. Chronicled rapes, pillaging and murders perpetrated by Soviets, Poles and Czechs against ethnic German refugees and expellees provided a great deal of material for this purpose. West German refugee and expellee historiography continued to progress in the following decades concentrating in specific areas. Hans Schoenberg, Ian Connor, Rainer Schulze and other historians and authors researched and published works regarding the refugee and expellee influence on the economic development of Bavaria and other regions; their integration into small, formerly pro-Nazi villages in southern West Germany; and other studies of their settlement patterns.7 Continued focus on the hardships experienced by refugees and expellees culminated in some works and some members of the public putting forward the idea that the 6 Pertti Ahonen, After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945-1990, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,