This is the largely unknown story of the peaceful settlement of
German pioneers on the crown lands of Habsburg Hungary from 1683 to
1990,
their incalculable contribution to the development of the region,
the dismemberment of their settlement areas by the victors of World
War I who arbitrarily awarded them to the successor states of
Romania and Yugoslavia in 1919-1920.
In the aftermath of World War II, solely because of their German
origin, and not because of any wrongdoing , they were deported from
Hungary, dispossessed in Romania and eventually sold to Germany. In
Tito's Communist Yugoslavia they became victims of a state-sponsored
genocide secretly sanctioned by the victors. Those who
survived and their descendants now live mainly in Germany, Austria,
and the U.S.A., Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Australia.
This is a capsule history of an upright, industrious, albeit
ill-fated people who bear no animosity toward anyone, including
their former tormentors. They are law-abiding citizens everywhere
they have settled and their only wish is to live in peace to enjoy
the fruits of their labor which they richly deserve, that was denied
them in their former homelands.
By Frank Schmidt
Danube Swabians the indigenous ethnic Germans of Hungary, Romania
and the former Yugoslavia, are sometimes referred to as the newest
German ethnic group. That's probably because they did not exist as
an ethno cultural entity before the latter half of the 17th century.
The primal event in history that led to their formation was an epic
battle fought at the gates of Vienna on September 12th, 1683.
On that fateful day, the combined forces from the southern
principalities of the German Reich, troops under King Jan Sobiesky
of Poland, as well as small Hungarian and Croatian contingents
defeated the invading armies of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. This
put an end to the gradual encroachment of Islam into Christian
Europe.
In the subsequent four decades German forces under the brilliant
leadership of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Frenchman in the service of
the Austrian Crown, drove the Turks out of the Habsburg territory
they had occupied for over 150 years.
Turkish misrule had turned much of the countryside into a vast
wasteland, mainly inhabited by nomadic herdsmen who lived in dugouts
on the plain. There were also no roads or permanent bridges.
Unbelievable as it may seem today, this part of Europe was as
undeveloped as many regions of North America were at that time.
After a final peace treaty was signed between the Austrian and
Ottoman Empires, at Karlowitz in 1722 it became obvious to the
Imperial War Council in Vienna that the territory could not be held
unless it was populated by loyal subjects of the Habsburg crown. At
the behest of Prince Eugene, the German/Austrian emperor, who was
also King of Hungary, promulgated an "impopulation" edict to
colonize and develop the depopulated regions of Hungary.
Imperial heralds were sent to the southwestern German principalities
of Europe, to the Palatinate, Lorraine, Alsace, Luxembourg,
Württemberg, as well as other areas to induce would-be colonists to
settle in the Habsburg crown lands in Hungary with promises of
personal freedom, land grants, establishment credits, and tax
exemptions of up to ten years. This offer by the respected house of
Habsburg fell on receptive ears in an area where recurrent French
invasions and recent crop failures had caused much suffering.
Thousands pulled up stakes and headed for embarkation points along
the Danube, such as Ulm, Donauwörth and Regensburg, where they
boarded specially built barges (called Ulm crates) to float to their
promised land along the Middle Danube, with a required stop at
Vienna to be assigned to their settlement areas and to receive their
travel and land grant documents. The trip took about two weeks.
Since the motive power of the barges was the current of the river -
and it flowed only one way - there was no turning back ! Besides the
barges were dismantled upon arrival because the timbers from the
forests of Germany provided valuable building material on the
treeless plain.
From 1683 to 1790 three major German migrations were sponsored by
the Habsburgs. The first took place under Emperor Charles VI, the
second from 1740to 1780 under Empress Maria Theresia and the third
under the enlightened Emperor Joseph II from 1780 to 1790.
Left to themselves, and communications not being what they are
today, the settlers soon lost contact with their places of origin
and adapted to their new surroundings. In the following centuries
they developed their own customs, culture and unique language, an
amalgam of various southwestern dialects. The German settlers
founded over 1000 unique agricultural villages which were
purposefully located among those of other nationalities so that the
expertise and work ethics of the Germans would be emulated by
others.
The houses were all designed in Vienna and in most cases were
erected before the arrival of the colonists. They in turn had to
help build houses for later arrivals. No one was displaced and the
colonization of the Habsburg crown lands was probably the most
orderly and peaceful settlement of virgin land to have occurred
anywhere, in any age.
Although favored as artisans and farmers, the Germans invariably
received the worst land, more often than not swampy areas endemic to
malaria. More than half of the original settlers perished from this
disease. In Germany, Hungary became known as the graveyard of the
Germans. But the survivors were a tough lot and prevailed over the
elements. They built levees along the great rivers to prevent them
from overflowing, drained marshes, introduced the steel plough to
the virgin soil of Hungary, planted orchards and vineyards, mulberry
trees along village streets to sustain a thriving silk industry, and
used the remaining drained marsh lands to grow hemp to make rope and
linen. They also introduced crop rotation and selective livestock
breeding to the region.
Not only in agriculture did the Danube Swabians excel, but they also
helped develop the cities of Hungary which until the middle of the
19th century were decidedly more German than Hungarian in character.
In Budapest, for instance, the beautiful classical buildings such as
the Parliament Buildings, the Nathional Theater, the Bourse, the
former Royal Palace, the Millennium Monument and the original
bridges across the Danube, that are shown with pride to tourists
from all over the world as Hungarian achievements are mainly the
creation of German-Hungarian architects and engineers.
Danube Swabians throughout the world have every right to take pride
in these achievements of their compatriots in a land whose Communist
rulers deprived them of their legacy in 1945 by deporting them and
covering up their achievements.
Royal Hungary's pre-eminence in mathematics, medicine, and the arts
and sciences , education, etc. was mainly due to people of German
origin. German-Hungarians such as Franz Liszt in music, Ignaz
Semmelweis, the Saviour of Mothers in medicine, the architects
Emmerich Steindl, Haussmann and many others in every imaginable
field of endeavor brought honor and renown to the name of Hungary.
In the wake of the Hungarian Revolution the young emperor Franz
Josef feared that the Habsburgs might loose Hungary altogether. So,
in 1867 a compromise was reached, the so-called Ausgleich,
(Equalization) the union of two major Habsburg realms to form
Austria-Hungary. In the process Hungary became virtually
independent, united with Austria only in the person of the
emperor/king.
Franz Josef I was forced to accept a union which gave the Magyars
(48% of the population) predominance over all other nationalities in
the country. In the process he signed away some of the rights
Emperor Charles VI had granted the German colonists. By 1905 German,
which had been the language of instruction in German communities,
was replaced with Hungarian. No one could get a job with the
government, the railways, or other national institutions, nor take
part in the Olympic Games without adopting a Hungarian name.
Consequently the Danube Swabian community lost many of its more
educated members.
From 1867 to 1918 Greater Hungary made enormous strides in
agriculture and industry. Largely due to the Danube Swabians, this
former backwater of Europe became a Western-oriented society, a
major breadbasket of the world and an emerging industrial power.
Prior to 1918 the story of the Danube Swabians was intertwined with
the history of Hungary. However, Hungary was on the loosing side in
World War I and lost 2/3 of it's territory which was arbitrarily
awarded to the newly created successor states of Romania and a royal
dictatorship called Yugoslavia after 1929.
The partitioning of Hungary split the Danube Swabian settlements
among three mutually antagonistic states. 700,000 remained in
Hungary, 350,000 became "Romanian" and the remaining 550,000 became
the German national minority in Yugoslavia. This was a heavy blow to
the cohesion of the Danube Swabian communities which caused
enourmous social as well as economic upheavals - not to speak of
having to owe allegiance to alien powers with which Austria-Hungary
had only been recently at war.
Farmers found that their fields were across the border and not
readily accessible. In some villages the border ran through the
middle of the main street and people could no longer attend their
parish church or school because these were now in another country.
But, Danube Swabians are adaptable, and in time people adjusted and
life went on, albeit not always to everyone's liking.
The biggest blow to the existence of the Danube Swabians came in the
latter part of and in the aftermath of World War II. At the Potsdam
Conference Allied leaders sanctioned the expulsion of the Danube
Swabians from Communist Hungary to war-ravaged Germany. Only about
250,000 remain in Hungary today and there is some hope that they may
survive as a national minority in their ancestral homeland.
In Yugoslavia, those who had not fled before the arrival of the Red
Army were exterminated by Tito's Partisans in about a dozen major
death camps of which the world still knows nothing. Without it's
most provident minority Yugoslavia became a beggar nation, and as we
know, eventually disintegrated from within.
In Romania in the 1980's in Banat the land generations of Danube
Swabians made arable was expropriated by the state and
collectivized. The greatest "slave trade" in European history took
place when dictator Ciaucescu sold his Danube Swabians to the Bonn
Government for 8000 to 14,000 Deutsche Mark a piece. The slave trade
stopped when Ciaucescu was overthrown and killed. Of the 350,000
Danube Swabians in Romania after the war less than 20,000 remain
today, mostly the aged and the sick. In a few years they, too, will
be gone and the once flourishing Banat, the agricultural jewel of
Austria-Hungary, will have died a slow death. Without its
industrious Germans Romania has become a social and economic basket
case.
That the Germans, i.e. Danube Swabians could live for centuries in
peace and harmony among the most volatile people in Europe, is an
attestation of their boundless tolerance and humanity. The thankless
"state people" in former home countries who would not share the
earth with their Danube Swabian neighbors after World War II should
be reminded that had it not been for the Germans who liberated them
from the Turks, there might still be a Turkish Empire in Europe
today, but no Hungary, Romania or Yugoslavia. In other words had it
not been for the Germans there would be no Hungarians, Romanians or
Yugoslavs today. That they exist is the legacy their Germans, i.e.
Danube Swabians, bestowed on them.
Danube Swabians are now scattered over four continents and have
become good citizens of at least a dozen countries including the
United States of America and Canada. They are, of course, not
newcomers to America. German-Hungarians, as they were called before
1919, have been coming to America from 1882 to the turn of the
century, between the World Wars, and after World War II. They
settled in the cities of New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois and Wisconsin and later in California, as well as Southern
Ontario, Montreal and the western Provinces of Canada. They were
among the early settlers in the Canadian West and founded several
villages on the prairies. In major cities they established cultural
centers where they try to keep their customs, traditions and
language alive. Since the roots to their native soil have been
severed this is not an easy task.
Counting the descendants of the pre-WWII immigrants, as well as
those who came to these shores in the early 1950's, the Danube
Swabian community in America is estimated to number about 400,000
honest souls. Since there has been no immigration for over six
decades the majority of Danube Swabians in North America are
native-born.
All those who came to this country have had to adapt their lives to
new situations. They have learned a lot in the process, but no one
has had to teach them anything about decency, tolerance,
multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence. Those who came after
World War II had lost all their material possessions, but no one has
been able to deprive them of their basic virtues. It is not within
them to seek revenge, nor do they bear grudges or hatred - even
against their tormentors. They only wish to live in peace and
harmony and hope that others would do the same for the well-being of
everyone.
Frank Schmidt
Heimat Publishers
Published with permission from the Author