Romanian Banat, 1918–1935
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SCHWABEN, BANATER, DEUTSCHE: FORMULATING GERMANNESS IN THE GREATER ROMANIAN BANAT, 1918–1935 By Christopher Wendt Submitted to Central European University Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Balázs Trencsényi Second Reader: Jan Hennings CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2017 Abstract In this thesis I examine the process by which leaders of an ethnic German minority community, the Banat Swabians, came to promote different conceptions of “Germanness” during the interwar period in the state of Greater Romania. I ask how Swabian leaders conceived of and transmitted conceptions of belonging and affiliation to the wider German-speaking community from the last days of the First World War, when the Banat became dislodged from Austria-Hungary, until 1935, when the local German-Swabian political leadership was incorporated into the newly transformed National Socialist umbrella organization of ethnic Germans in Romania. Using a source base primarily composed of local press and contemporary publications, I examine the fluctuation between consensus and disagreement over what “being German” in the Banat meant, and how different components—a connection to a wider German cultural community, Catholic faith, regional rootedness, and ethnicity—were often emphasized to different degrees, at different times, by different groups. The argument that I ultimately advance regarding the form of “Germanness promoted by Swabian leaders in the Banat rests on a perceived link between “the political” and “the cultural.” Driven by political necessity, Swabian leaders—many of whom before the war had bought into the Hungarian nation-state project—quickly came to espouse a Germanness rooted in an ethno-cultural sense. Through the process of mediating the accompanying cultural image of the German Banat Swabian to the wider community through the 1920s, I argue that an exclusivist discourse on Banat Germanness was established that paved the way for more extreme political demands and calls for radical social reorganization in the 1930s. CEU eTD Collection ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of you who have helped me over these last two years in Budapest. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors, Balázs Trencsényi, and my second reader, Jan Hennings, for the attention and interest you have both shown in my work, and in helping me to move my project along. I am of course indebted to all of the Mitarbeiter at the Institut für donauschwäbische Geschichte und Landeskunde in Tübingen, Germany, at which I was graciously supported while carrying out research. My special thanks goes to Dr. Matthias Beer for the time he granted me to discuss my own work. Of course, I have to thank my fellow classmates and colleagues for their support and kindness— especially over the last couple of weeks of writing. James, Frederik, and Gabi, I am especially indebted to all of you. Lastly, I would be nowhere without my parents. I thank you for all the support, both moral and material, that you continue to provide me with. CEU eTD Collection iii Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Locating the Banat: Between Historical Reality and Contemporary Myth ................................ 8 The Swabian Migrations: A Habsburg Colonial Experiment ................................................... 11 Southern Hungarian Swabians between Ungarndeutsch and Deutsch-ungarisch .................... 13 Zusammenbruch: The Transition from Empire to Nation-State ............................................... 15 Defining “Germanness” ............................................................................................................ 18 Interrogating Self-Representation, Seeking Identity ................................................................. 20 Working in Tandem: Politics and Culture Shaping Germanness ............................................. 22 Chapter One: Shaken Foundations, New Possibilities: Delineating Germanness in a Banat Between Hungary, Serbia, and Romania, 1918–1921 .............................................................. 26 Ceasefire: Temesvár between Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Paris ................................ 31 Early Swabian Reactions .......................................................................................................... 35 “Moderates” and “Radicals” ..................................................................................................... 39 Practical Politics: Shifting Allegiances Within the Romanian Banat ....................................... 49 Conclusions: A United Volksgemeinschaft? ............................................................................ 53 Chapter Two: From Finding the Heimat to “New ways and New Methods”: Minority- Making and Political Dissatisfaction, 1923–1930 ..................................................................... 57 The Politics of Culture in Romania .......................................................................................... 60 Minority-Making: The 200-Year Jubilee in Timișoara ............................................................ 63 Writing the (German) Banat Swabian Heimat .......................................................................... 73 Dissatisfaction, Disappointment, Radicalization ...................................................................... 79 A Critique from the Margins: The Lugoscher Zeitung ............................................................. 81 “New Methods and New Ways” ............................................................................................... 83 Conclusions: A Defunct Volksgemeinschaft? ........................................................................... 88 Chapter Three: German Renewal ............................................................................................. 90 National Socialism in Romania: Self-Help and the Renewal Movement ................................. 93 The Schwäbischer Volkskalender: Delivering Germanness to the Banat ................................. 96 Cultural Acquiescence .............................................................................................................. 99 CEU eTD Collection Conclusions: A True Volksgemeinschaft? .............................................................................. 102 Conclusion: A growing Volk, a narrowing Germanness ............................................................ 104 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 107 iv Introduction In late April of 1916, as the First World War grinded forward on all fronts, Adam Müller- Guttenbrunn, a native of then-Southern Hungarian Banat, composed an agitated letter to Josef Geml, the mayor of Temesvár (Timișoara),1 the unofficial capital of the region. Writing from Habsburg Vienna, Müller-Guttenbrunn, who had already achieved renown as one of the most popular German-language authors and personalities of the Banat, expressed his extreme displeasure over a meeting between Geml and Field Marshal von Mackensen, the commander of the German army operating in Southern Hungary. As it came out in a later letter from Müller- Guttenbrunn, the initial meeting had taken place after the German general had heard of a song sung by Hungarian soldiers, “Mégis hunczut a német,” that disparaged their German allies, and as a result he wanted to have an assessment of the “situation of Germandom” (Lage des Deutschtums) in the Banat.2 In his letter, the writer chastised the mayor for his weak presentation of German national spirit in the region—“Did you have any idea how painful it must have been for the current leader of the German army to realize that those [Banat] Germans are in great danger of losing their nationality…?”—and for presenting the great disparity between the high number Transylvanian Saxon German-language institutions and the lack of such for Banat Swabians as natural and according to law.3 Bemoaning all of the Swabian children who, through the pull of social advancement would pay the “price of their nationality” and join a Hungarian “nation of eight million” instead of a German of “hundred-million nation” CEU eTD Collection 1 In the narrative, I will mostly refer to places by the names used by the governing administrations at the time I am referring to, while providing alternative names in parentheses. 2 Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn, “Ein unhöflicher Breifwechsel,” in Deutsche Sorgen in Ungarn. Studien und Bekenntnisse (Vienna: Ed. Strache, 1918), 155. 3 Ibid., “Ist Ihnen keine Ahnung davon aufgegangen, welch ein Schmerz es für den Führer der heutigen deutschen Armee sein mußte, zu erkennen, daß jene Deutschen in Gefahr schweben, ihre Nationalität Einzüßen.” All translations are my own. For longer passages, I will include the original German in the footnotes. 1 (Hundermillionenvolk), Müller-Guttenbrunn called out Geml, himself a Swabian, for his apparent embarrassment over his own Swabian heritage. Lastly, in a parting shot, Müller- Guttenbrunn added that from what he had heard, General von Mackensen had been none too convinced of Geml’s explanations for the apparent lack of a German consciousness. In his response to the writer (published by Müller-Guttenbrunn), Geml showed himself to be unbowed by the harsh criticism of his countryman.