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 Belarus |  Germany |
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Germany has an embassy in Minsk. Belarus has an embassy in Berlin, a consulate general in Munich, and two honorary consulates in Cottbus and Hamburg.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2022) |
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Belarus | Germany |
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Germany has an embassy in Minsk. Belarus has an embassy in Berlin, a consulate general in Munich, and two honorary consulates in Cottbus and Hamburg.
In the Battle of Tannenberg (1410), the Teutonic Order was defeated by the forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania at that time included the Belarusian territories, so the Lithuanian army at that time also consisted of Belarusian contingents.[ citation needed ]
Since the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793 and 1795) and thus also during the First World War, the Belarusian territories were part of the Russian Empire, so the Belarusians fought on the side of the Triple-Entente. On February 25, 1918, German troops entered Minsk. On March 3, 1918, the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed in the city of Brest between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers. The treaty eliminated Soviet Russia as a participant in the war.
Under German protection, but without the consent of the occupying power, independence was proclaimed for the first time on March 25, 1918.[ citation needed ] The "Rada", the executive body of the First Belarusian People's Congress, declared the secession from Soviet Russia and proclaimed the "free and independent Belarusian People's Republic", which was recognized neither by the German Empire nor by the Western powers. However, the Rada thanked Kaiser Wilhelm II in a telegram for the occupation of Belarus and emphasized that it saw a good fate for its people in the future only under the protectorate of the German state. [1] The Belarusian People's Republic existed only for half a year until the autumn of 1918, but historically and in the consciousness of Belarusians it is considered the founding act of a separate Belarusian statehood.[ citation needed ] The Rada is still active today as a government in exile.
In the wake of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the lapse of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the civil war in neighboring Russia, which also spread to Belarus, the eastern part of the country came under the control of the Communists. The western part of the present Belarusian territory formed the eastern part of the then Poland.
On September 17, 1939, the Red Army occupied eastern Poland. In the secret additional protocol of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, the territories between Slutsch and Bug (i.e. the whole of Belarus) were assigned to the Soviet sphere of interest. From 1940 in Berlin the periodical Ranica - Der Morgen. Weißruthenische Zeitungin Deutschland, which was aimed specifically at Belarusian emigrants, was published in Berlin and promoted by the SS. It was aimed at Belarusians living in Germany and attempted to recruit them for the Waffen SS. [2] In the summer of 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) and the German Wehrmacht conquered Belarus within a few weeks in the course of the Kesselschlacht near Białystok and Minsk. During the invasion, the Red Army evacuated about 20% of the Belarusian population to Russia and destroyed the food supply. [3]
The German invasion brought severe destruction. Although people in many areas of Belarus were initially happy about the Soviet defeat, the Germans quickly disappointed the local population. From 1941 to 1944, the Wehrmacht and SS murdered some two and a half million Belarusians-more than a quarter of the population. The German soldiers waged a war of annihilation against the civilian population. More than 200 towns and 9000 villages were destroyed. In many cases the German soldiers drove the villagers into barns and burned them down, as in 1943 in Khatyn (not to be confused with Katyn). Today, this place near Minsk is a memorial to the victims of World War II. In Minsk alone, the German occupation forces murdered more than 100,000 inhabitants.[ citation needed ] The Jewish population of Belarus was almost completely murdered. About eight to nine percent of all European Jews who were killed in the Holocaust were from Belarus. Almost all cities in the country were completely destroyed. Industrial enterprises had decreased by 85 percent, industrial capacity by 95 percent, seeded land by 40 to 50 percent, livestock by 80 percent. There were three million homeless people after the end of the war. Furthermore, a large part of the ethnic Poles (about 300,000) were forcibly resettled in the German eastern territories that had been annexed to Poland.[ citation needed ] Before World War II, ten million people lived in Belarus. It was not until the late 1980s that the population had returned to its pre-war level.[ citation needed ]
During World War II, the term White Ruthenia (German : Weißruthenien) was used in German, reflecting the efforts of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg, to distinguish the Belarusians as much as possible from the Great Russians. Although, in Belarusian, the term used was Belarus (Belarusian : Беларусь). [4]
During the German occupation, the Belarusian Central Council was installed in Belarus, a puppet government that used historic Belarusian state emblems. The chairman of the BCR was Radasłaŭ Astroŭski. This "government" disappeared after the withdrawal of the German Eastern Front in 1944. On March 25, 1948, the Belarusian Central Council was re-established as a government-in-exile in Germany, competing with the Rada BNR. [5] Other institutions such as the Belarusian Home Guard, the Belarusian Self-Defense Corps, the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, the Belarusian Youth Organization, and the Belarusian Self-Help Organization were also founded. The Belarusian Independence Party (BNP) collaborated with the German occupiers with the aim of establishing a Belarusian nation-state.[ citation needed ]
The armed resistance movement of Belarus was considered one of the strongest in Europe.[ citation needed ] There were over 1000 partisan groups, which were mostly communist, but also nationalist oriented. At the beginning of 1943, the repatriation of about 10,500 Germans from the territory of the so-called Army Group Central and from Belarus began.[ citation needed ] These ethnic Germans were resettled in the Warthegau (in occupied Poland) and the then German Reich. In the fall of 1943, the Red Army recaptured the far east of the country, and by the summer of 1944, the entire country had been recaptured.
After the Second World War, thousands of Belarusians came to Germany for various reasons. In 1945, there were an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Belarusians on German or Austrian territory.[ citation needed ] Belarusian national committees were established in Regensburg, Munich and Braunschweig. Belarusian DP camps were located in Watenstedt, Osterhofen and in the Ganghofer suburb of Regensburg. Belarusians were particularly active culturally in the camp for displaced persons in Michelsdorf in Upper Palatinate. Between 1946 and 1950, the emigrants in Michelsdorf ran their own Belarusian-language high school, which at times had 122 students and was named after the national poet Yanka Kupala. In 1949 the school was moved to Backnang, where it existed until February 1950. [6]
On December 29, 1947, at a meeting in a DP camp in Osterhofen, it was decided to reactivate the Rada of the Belarusian People's Republic under the leadership of Mikola Abramchyk. At that time, the Rada comprised 72 members. [7]
In Mittenwald in Upper Bavaria, east of the Luttensee barracks, there is a memorial to Belarusian prisoners of war.[ citation needed ] In 1948, the former prisoners of war or displaced persons used it to honor the participants of the Slutsk uprising, an anti-Bolshevik uprising in 1920.[ citation needed ]
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Belarus and Germany initially developed positively. Diplomatic relations were established in 1992. However, a turn for the worse was initiated in 1994, when Alexander Lukashenko was elected president. He immediately took action against a press that was politically and economically oriented toward the West and repeatedly denounced the financial transfers of political organizations - including the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation - to friendly organizations and media in Belarus.[ citation needed ] As a result of human rights violations and dissonance regarding the opening of the country to a market economy, the administration of the European Union, with the participation of Germany, imposed an entry ban on the Belarusian government in 1997. On May 18, 2006, the European Union (again including Germany) decided to freeze the accounts of President Lukashenko and 35 other government officials.[ citation needed ]
Security cooperation existed between the Federal Republic of Germany and Belarus from 2008 until at least 2011, with Lukashenko's security forces receiving training in Germany.[ citation needed ] Nearly 400 border guards, senior militia officers, and forensic technicians were also trained by German officials directly in Belarus, and in 2010, Belarusian security forces observed German police officers on duty for several days during the transport of Atomic waste to Gorleben in Lower Saxony.[ citation needed ] As the EU identified improvements in the country's human rights record in 2015 and 2016, much of the sanctions were gradually lifted following the 2015 presidential election in Belarus. [ citation needed ]
As a result of the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests against Lukashenko's dictatorial rule, the Belarusian community "RAZAM" e.V., the first interest group of and for people with a Belarusian background living in Germany, was founded in August 2020. [8] In the course of the protests, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that she was on the side of the peaceful demonstrators. The results of the 2020 presidential election in Belarus would not be recognized because of cases of electoral fraud. Merkel also said she had tried in vain to reach Belarusian President Lukashenko by phone in August 2020. [9] The European Union no longer recognizes Lukashenko as a legitimate head of state. [10]
Belarusian support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine has further deteriorated bilateral relations. The European Union imposed further sanctions on Belarus and trade between Belarus and Germany declined. [11]
On June 24, 2024, German citizen Rico Krieger was sentenced to death for six criminal offenses in a secret trial in Minsk. Among other things, he was accused of "terroris" and "mercenarism". According to the human rights organization Viasna, the conviction is directly linked to the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, a unit of Belarusian volunteers fighting for Ukraine. However, the regiment stated that Krieger was not part of their unit. [12] On July 30, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko pardoned him after he had applied for clemency. [13]
Belarus was an important transit country between Central Europe and Russia due to its location: 50% of Russian crude oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline ending in Schwedt/Oder, which is serviced on Belarusian territory by the company Gomel Transneft. However, due to the political situation in Belarus, Russia is increasingly turning to northern Europe. In 2005, tconstruction of the Nord Stream pipeline through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany began and was completed in 2011 making Russia's gas supplies to Western Europe less dependent on Belarus.
In 2014, only trade with Russia and Ukraine was more important for Belarus than trade with Germany. This amounted to approx. 4 billion US dollars. The representative office of German business in the Republic of Belarus (the Chamber of Commerce Abroad) exists in Minsk. [14] In 2021, Germany was Belarus' fifth most important trading partner. [15]
In 2021 German exports to Belarus were $1.77 billion of goods, led by cars, with Belarus exports valued at $958m with wood as the main product. Between 1995 and 2021 German exports rose at an average of 4.15% p.a. and Belarusian exports by 3.56% p.a.. [16]
Trade has fallen, with the month of August 2023 recording just $140m and $21m in favour of Germany. [16]
Several thousand young Belarusians study in Germany.[ citation needed ] The International Aid Fund of the EU and Germany has opened partnerships with three Belarusian universities in the West. The often lamented isolation was already painful for Belarus during the times of the Soviet Union. Since the country's independence, the universities' hopes for cooperation grew, but hardly succeeded because of authoritarian state policies.[ citation needed ]
The only private university, the European Humanities University, founded in 1992, was closed in August 2004 under pressure from the state. It had offered European studies, linguistics and political science, largely financed by Western funds. The Institute for German Studies was also located there. The university was reopened in June 2005 in exile in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Until 2021, Minsk was also home to a Goethe Institute. [17]
In 2015, there were 21,151 Belarusians living in Germany and about 2,500 Germans in Belarus in 2012.[ citation needed ] Famous German Belarusians include:
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
The lands of Belarus during the Middle Ages became part of Kievan Rus' and were split between different regional principalities, including Polotsk, Turov, Vitebsk, and others. Following the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, these lands were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which later was merged into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century.
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Byelorussia, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and afterwards as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR from 1922 to 1991, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia. It was also known as the White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Reichskommissariat Ostland was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.
The Belarusian People's Republic, also known as the Belarusian Democratic Republic, was a state proclaimed by the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in its Second Constituent Charter on 9 March 1918 during World War I. The Council proclaimed the Belarusian Democratic Republic independent in its Third Constituent Charter on 25 March 1918 during the occupation of contemporary Belarus by the Imperial German Army.
The Belarusian Central Council was a puppet administrative body in German-occupied Belarus during World War II. It was established by Nazi Germany within Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1943–44, following requests by collaborationist Belarusian politicians hoping to create a Belarusian state with German support.
Western Belorussia or Western Belarus is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period. For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion. Following the end of World War II in Europe, most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies, while some of it, including Białystok, was given to the Polish People's Republic. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941 and led to a German military occupation of Byelorussia until it was fully liberated in August 1944 as a result of Operation Bagration. The western parts of Byelorussia became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941, and in 1943, the German authorities allowed local collaborators to set up a regional government, the Belarusian Central Rada, that lasted until the Soviets reestablished control over the region. Altogether, more than two million people were killed in Belarus during the three years of Nazi occupation, around a quarter of the region's population, or even as high as three million killed or thirty percent of the population, including 500,000 to 550,000 Jews as part of the Holocaust in Belarus. In total, on the territory of modern Belarus, more than 9,200 villages and settlements, and 682,000 buildings were destroyed and burned, with some settlements burned several times.
When the Second World War in Europe began, the territory which now forms the country of Belarus was divided between the Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic. The borders of Soviet Belarus were greatly expanded in the Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939. In 1941, the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Following the German military disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk, the collaborationist Belarusian Central Council (BCC) was formed by the Germans in order to raise local support for their anti-Soviet operations. The BCC in turn formed the twenty-thousand strong Belarusian Home Defence (BKA), active from 23 February 1944 to 28 April 1945. Assistance to collaborators was offered by the local Soviet administrative governments, and prewar public organizations including the former Soviet Belarusian Youth. The country was soon retaken by the Red Army in 1944. Devastated by the war, Belarus lost significant populations and economic resources. Many battles occurred in Belarusian territory. Belarusians also participated in the advance towards Berlin.
Belarusian resistance movement are the resistance movements on the territory of contemporary Belarus. Wars in the area - Great Northern War and the War of the Polish Succession - damaged its economy further. In addition, Russian armies raided the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under the pretext of the returning of fugitive peasants. By mid-18th century their presence in the lands of modern Belarus became almost permanent.
The Polish minority in Belarus numbers officially 288,000 according to 2019 census. However, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland the number is as high as 1,100,000. It forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at around 3.1% of the total population according to the official census. According to the official census, an estimated 205,200 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 82,493 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by 33,905. Some estimates by Polish non-governmental sources in the U.S. are higher, citing the previous poll held in 1989 under the Soviet authorities with 413,000 Poles recorded and the census of 1959 with 538,881 Poles recorded in Belarus.
The Hunger Plan was a partially implemented plan developed by Nazi bureaucrats during World War II to seize food from the Soviet Union and give it to German soldiers and civilians. The plan entailed the genocide by starvation of millions of Soviet citizens following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The plan created a famine as an act of policy, killing millions of people.
Belarus and Russia share a land border and constitute the supranational Union State. Several treaties have been concluded between the two nations bilaterally. Russia is Belarus' largest and most important economic and political partner. Both are members of various international organizations, including the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the United Nations.
Belarus and Lithuania established diplomatic relations on 24 October 1991, shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The two countries share 680 kilometres (420 mi) of common border. Lithuania's border with Belarus is the country's longest border. For Belarus it is its 3rd-longest border.
The Belarusian diaspora refers to emigrants from the territory of Belarus as well as to their descendants.
The official languages of Belarus are Belarusian and Russian.
The Rada of the Belarusian National Republic was the governing body of the Belarusian Democratic Republic. Since 1919, the Rada BNR has been in exile where it has preserved its existence among the Belarusian diaspora as an advocacy group promoting support to Belarusian independence and democracy in Belarus among Western policymakers. As of 2024, the Rada BNR is the oldest existing government in exile.
Independence Day of the Republic of Belarus, also known as Republic Day or Liberation Day is a public holiday, the independence day of Belarus and is celebrated each year on 3 July. Independence Day is a non-working day.
Belarusian nationalism refers to the belief that Belarusians should constitute an independent nation. Belarusian nationalism began emerging in the mid-19th century, during the January Uprising against the Russian Empire. Belarus first declared independence in 1917 as the Belarusian Democratic Republic, but was subsequently invaded and annexed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1918, becoming part of the Soviet Union. Belarusian nationalists both collaborated with and fought against Nazi Germany during World War II, and protested for the independence of Belarus during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The white-red-white flag is a historical flag used by the Belarusian Democratic Republic in 1918 before Western Belarus was occupied by the Second Polish Republic and Eastern Belarus was occupied by the Bolsheviks. The flag was then used by the Belarusian national movement in Western Belarus followed by widespread unofficial use during the German occupation of Belarus between 1941 and 1944, and again after it regained its independence in 1991 until the 1995 referendum.
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