German Traces in the Republic of Moldova: 1814-2014

From May 12 to June 6, 2014, the exhibition „German Traces in the Republic of Moldova 1814-2014. Tradition and Modernization” took place at the National Museum of Art of Moldova in Chisinau, recalling the time when 200 years ago the Bessarabian Germans began their settlement in Bessarabia. The exhibition combines the past and the present in a special way. The process of settlement on this territory is presented through various exhibits.  

The works presented were provided by the National Museum of Art of Moldova, the Museum of History of Moldova, the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History, the National Archive and other sources. Among the exhibited objects we find old books, documents, objects used in everyday life and in the household, clothes. We are also presented with objects from the taxidermy technique made by Franz Ostermann, an important German presence on the Chisinau scene at that time, being the first custodian of the Zemstva Museum (1889 – 1905). Franz Ostermann made an important contribution to the development of Bessarabian museography.

200 years ago, the immigration of German colonists began in Bessarabia, to whom Tsar Alexander I guaranteed land and freedom. Most German immigrants settled in the so-called “mother colonies” and other communes in the south of the country (in Bugeac). Also in the north and south-west of Bessarabia, respectively on the current territory of the Republic of Moldova, flourishing German communities appeared, especially in the second half of the 19th century (such as Mariewka, today Marianca de Sus). The colonists were engaged in agriculture and crafts. They lived in peaceful neighborhood and productive exchange with other ethnic communities such as Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Bulgarians and Jews.

In Chisinau, the capital of Bessarabia, the German-born mayor Carol Schmidt (mayor from 1877 to 1903) contributed to the development and planning of the city to transform it into a modern metropolis. He actively supported the construction of new buildings collaborating with renowned architects, ordered the installation of the sewage system and the paving of the streets, initiated the construction of the horse-drawn tram and built cultural and social institutions such as schools and hospitals.

In 1918 Bessarabia passed under the sovereignty of the Romanian state. After the colonists had been subject to compulsory military service in the Russian Army since 1874, they now served in the Romanian Army. The Romanian government introduced agrarian reform and nationalized parish schools.

In 1940 the German colonists were forced to leave their homeland; under the Hitler-Stalin Pact, in the autumn of 1940 they were resettled from Bessarabia.

Today, intensive and friendly relations once again exist between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Moldova, both in private and at the political, economic, scientific and cultural levels.

The Bessarabian Germans (in German Bessarabiendeutschke) were an ethnic community of German origin who lived predominantly in southern Bessarabia (more precisely in Bugeac). They settled in Bessarabia at the beginning of the 19th century, especially between 1814 and 1842, when the region was part of the Russian (or Tsarist) Empire, known as the Bessarabian Gubernia. Most of them came from southwestern Germany, Prussia, as well as Switzerland and Alsace. Some of them moved to Dobrogea between 1841–1856, becoming a community known as Dobrogean Germans.

According to the 1930 Romanian census, Germans represented 3% of the population of Bessarabia (which at that time had 2.8 million inhabitants). In the autumn of 1940, after the occupation of Bessarabia by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), the 93 thousand Bessarabian Germans were transferred, in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, to the territory of present-day Poland, from where they were resettled in 1945, to the present-day state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany. Along with them, the Bukovinian Germans were also resettled, but to occupied Poland (or to the General Government).

In the 1989 Soviet census of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), Germans numbered 7.3 thousand people (c. 0.2% of the republic's population), but they were descendants of the Pontic Germans (Transnistrians; i.e. Pontic from "Pontus euxin", the ancient Greek name for the Black Sea)[1] and the Volga Germans (who were "scattered" by Stalin throughout the former Soviet Union).

In Germany there is a Society of Bessarabian Germans (German: Die Landsmannschaft der Bessarabiendeutschen), headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg.

Horst Köhler reported in an interview that the Germans initially founded 25 settlements on the territory of Bessarabia, their number later expanded (in particular, German colonists settled in the south of Bessarabia, in unpopulated places). After the division of Europe in 1939, the Germans living in the east were forced to either adopt Soviet citizenship or return to their historical homeland. The evacuation of the Germans began in 1939 and continued in 1940, they were resettled according to a rigorous plan, under the slogan „Heim ins Reich” (i.e. „Home to the Reich”). Over 93,000 Bessarabian Germans took refuge in Poland and West Prussia, later arriving in Germany. After the registration procedure, the Bessarabian Germans ceased to be Romanian citizens and came under the protection of the Third Reich. Later, through individual procedures, each received German citizenship.

Carol Schmidt, mayor of Chișinău between 1877–1903, considered one of the most deserving mayors of the city, was a Bessarabian German by father and a Polish by mother.

The parents of the former German President Horst Köhler (the 9th German Federal President to be precise) were Bessarabian Germans originally from Rîșcani, who in 1940 moved to the current territory of Poland, following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. Horst Köhler was born in 1943. Köhler resigned from office in an unexpected and relatively controversial manner in May 2010. Dominic Fritz, the current mayor of Timișoara, was his presidential advisor during his term.

Horst Köhler, German president (2004–2010) born to German Bessarabian parents.

The source of information: fest.md și wikipedia.org.

For more images about the departure of Germans from Moldova, click here.