Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Wallachia (Muntenia and Oltenia) and Western Moldavia | |
Languages | |
German, Romanian | |
Religion | |
Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Lutheranism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Germans and Austrians | |
Lived in Wallachia and Moldavia between the late 19th century and mid 20th century (and, in very smaller numbers, to the present day as well) |
Regat Germans or Old Kingdom Germans (German : Regatsdeutsche or Altreichsdeutsche/Altreich-Deutsche) are an ethnic German group of the eastern and southern parts of Romania. The Regat is a Romanian-language term ascribed for the initial territorial extent of the Kingdom of Romania before World War I, roughly the regions of the current state of Romania to the south and east of Transylvania.
Consequently, this territory includes Western Moldavia, Northern Dobruja, Muntenia, Oltenia, and the Hertsa region (now in Chernivtsi Oblast, southwestern Ukraine). Most of the Regat German population was re-settled in the mid 20th century during World War II through the Heim ins Reich national socialist population transfer policy. Nowadays, the remaining Regat Germans, as all other German groups in Romania, are represented in local and central politics by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR/DFDR). The Regat Germans are part of the Romanian Germans.
As part of the Nazi-Soviet population transfers and the Heim ins Reich ("Home into the Empire") population transfer policy, Nazi Germany called ethnic Germans abroad to settle in the former Polish territories. Consequently, 77,000 Regat Germans were resettled in those regions in 1940. [1]
Ethnic Germans from Romania resettled by Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944 [2]
To Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany | To General Government/Poland | To Oder–Neisse line region | To Austria | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
128,000 | 12,000 | 52,000 | 20,000 | 212,000 |
Territory of origin | Total | Re-settled in annexed eastern territories |
---|---|---|
Bessarabia | 93,342 | 89,201 |
Northern Bukovina | 43,670 | 24,203 |
Southern Bukovina | 52,149 | 40,804 |
Dobruja | 15,454 | 11,812 |
Romania, Regat | 10,115 | 1,129 |
The Heim ins Reich was a foreign policy pursued by Adolf Hitler before and during World War II, beginning in 1938. The aim of Hitler's initiative was to convince all Volksdeutsche who were living outside Nazi Germany that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into Greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Poland, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet pact. The Heim ins Reich manifesto targeted areas ceded in Versailles to the newly reborn state of Poland, various lands of immigration, as well as other areas that were inhabited by significant ethnic German populations, such as the Sudetenland, Danzig, and the southeastern and northeastern regions of Europe after 6 October 1939.
Suceava is a municipality and the namesake county seat town of Suceava County, situated in the historical regions of Bukovina and Moldavia, northeastern Romania and at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe respectively. It is the largest urban settlement of Suceava County, with a population of 84,308 inhabitants according to the 2021 Romanian census.
The Germans of Romania represent one of the most significant historical ethnic minorities of Romania since the late modern period onwards.
The Dobrujan Germans were an ethnic German group, within the larger category of Black Sea Germans, for over one hundred years. German-speaking colonists entered the approximately 23,000 km2 area of Dobruja around 1840 and mostly left during the relocation of 1940. Dobruja is a historical region on the west coast of the Black Sea. They are part of the Romanian Germans.
The Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania is a political party organised on ethnic criteria representing the interests of the German minority in Romania.
The Bukovina Germans, also known and referred to as Buchenland Germans, or Bukovinian Germans, are a German ethnic group which settled in Bukovina, a historical region situated at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe, during the modern period. They are part of the larger group of Romanian Germans since the early 20th century, when they were initially living in the Kingdom of Romania.
In Nazi Germany the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle or VoMi was a Nazi Party agency founded to manage the interests of the Volksdeutsche - the population of ethnic Germans living outside the Third Reich. Ultimately coming under Allgemeine-SS administration, it became responsible for orchestrating the implementation of Nazi Lebensraum policies in Eastern Europe during World War II.
Friedrich Karl Otto Dibelius was a German bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, a self-described anti-Semite and up to 1934 a conservative, who became a staunch opponent of Nazism and communism.
Richard Wagner was a Romanian-born German novelist. He published a number of short stories, novels and essays.
Elisabeth Cruciger, a German writer, was the first female poet and hymnwriter of the Protestant Reformation and a friend of Martin Luther.
Joseph Schubert was a Romanian cleric and a titular bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien (ADZ) is a German-language daily newspaper based in Romania.
Vorwärts ('Forward') was a German-language socialist daily newspaper published from Czernowitz/Cernăuți, Bukovina. The newspaper was founded in 1899 with the name Volkspresse. During its initial phase, Volkspresse was published twice-monthly. Volkspresse was an organ of the Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria and the trade union movement. The newspaper was largely representative of the Jewish labour movement of the town.
Josef Jakob is a Romanian-born former handball player and coach of Banat Swabian descent, who as a player won the World Championship and the EHF Champions League.
Johann Böhm
Horst Wolfgang Böhme is a German archaeologist with a focus on Late Antiquity / Early Middle Ages and research into castles.
The Galician Germans were an ethnic German population living in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire, established in 1772 as a result of the First Partition of Poland, and after World War I in the four voivodeships of interwar Poland: Kraków, Lwów, Tarnopol, and Stanisławów. During World War II, part of the Galician Germans were relocated in January 1940 in the course of Heim ins Reich; the majority of the remaining population later fled the region in 1944–1945.
George Guțu is a Romanian philologist, teacher in the Department of German Language and Literature of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest. He is also director of the Paul Celan Center for Research and Excellence and the Master programme "Intercultural Literary and Linguistic Communication Strategies", initiated by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures together with other departments of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures. His academic activity is based on the history of German literature ; German and Austrian contemporary literature; German literature from Romania, cultural inter-referentiality in Central and Southeast Europe, particularly in Bukovina, poetics, literary theory, translation, the history of German studies and guidance for PhD students. His research domains are the history of German literature; comparative literature; German literature from Romania; cultural inter-referentiality; imagology; the history and aesthetics of reception; theory and practice of translation.
Markus Fischer is a German author of multiple books, as well as a contributor to various volumes He is professor at the faculty of foreign languages and literatures at the University of Bucharest.
Alexander Rubel is a German-Romanian historian of the Antiquity.