Russians in Germany

Last updated
Russians in Germany
Total population
3,500,000 (estimate, 2018) [1]

Ethnic background:

German Russians: 3,500,000–4,000,000

- Ethnic Russians: 2,213,000 [2] - Russian Jews: 118,000-225,000 - Russian citizens: 230,994 (2015) [3]
Languages
Russian, German, German-Russian macaronic, (Hebrew, Yiddish spoken by Russian Jews)
Religion
Russian Orthodoxy, Atheism, Irreligion, Roman Catholic, Protestantism, Judaism
Russian vending kiosk in Waltrop Smak - Russischer Kiosk in Waltrop.JPG
Russian vending kiosk in Waltrop
Russian food at a supermarket in Herford Russian food at Kaufland supermarket in Germany.jpg
Russian food at a supermarket in Herford
Distribution of Russian citizens in districts of Germany in 2021 Russian population relative to total Russian population in Germany 2021.svg
Distribution of Russian citizens in districts of Germany in 2021
Distribution of Ukrainian citizens in districts of Germany in 2021 Ukrainian population relative to total Ukrainian population in Germany 2021.svg
Distribution of Ukrainian citizens in districts of Germany in 2021

There is a significant Russian population in Germany (German: Deutschrussen, Russlanddeutsche or Russischsprachige in Deutschland). The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered mass immigration to the West, with Germany being the top destination, mostly for economic and ethnic reasons. Russians (German Russians) are the 3rd largest migrant group in Germany.

Contents

Soviet and post-Soviet emigration from Russia

German population data from 2012 records 1,213,000 Russian migrants residing in Germany—this includes current and former citizens of the Russian Federation as well as former citizens of the Soviet Union. [4] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that about 3,500,000 speakers of Russian live in Germany, [5] split largely into three ethnic groups:

  1. ethnic Russians (Russen, Deutschlandrussen)
  2. Russians descended from German migrants to the East (known as Aussiedler, Spätaussiedler and Russlanddeutsche (Russian Germans, Germans from Russia))
  3. Russian Jews (Russische Juden, Jüdische Russen, Russen jüdischer Abstammung)

Immigration to Germany surged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to the Global Commission on International Migration research, "In the 1990s ethnic Germans and Jews comprised the largest components of emigration, and the most attractive destinations were Germany, Israel and the United States." [6] Between 1992 and 2000 Germany is said to have received 550,000 emigrants from Russia, 60% of the total amount emigrating to the three main destinations. [7]

Number of Russians in larger cities
#CityPeople
1. Berlin 26,640
2. Munich 9,526
3. Hamburg 9,375
4. Leipzig 8,793
5. Cologne 4,651
6. Düsseldorf 4,430
7. Bonn 3,933
8. Nuremberg 3,617
9. Bremen 3,420
10. Frankfurt 3,176

Ethnic background

"Aussiedler" from Russia

Earlier in history, particularly during the 17th century, Germans migrated to Russia in significant numbers. Article 116 of Germany's Basic Law was approved in 1949 and this provides individuals of German heritage with the right of return to Germany and the means to acquire German citizenship if they suffered persecution after the Second World War as a result of their German heritage. [8] The 1950s saw a rise in the numbers of people with German ancestry applying to emigrate to Germany under the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. According to historian John Glad, by 1957, over 100,000 applications a year to migrate to West Germany were being filed by petitioners, commonly known as "Aussiedler" (singular and plural) or transferred settlers. Several thousand returned in the 1970s, [9] however, the flow of Aussiedler increased with the breakup of the Soviet Union. [9] Between 1992 and 2007, a total of 1,797,084 ethnic Germans from the former USSR emigrated to Germany. Of this total, 923,902 were from Kazakhstan, 693,348 from Russia, 73,460 from Kyrgyzstan, 40,560 from Ukraine, 27,035 from Uzbekistan, and 14,578 from Tajikistan. [10] It is recorded that roughly 3.6 million ethnic Germans moved to West Germany between 1950 and 1996. [8] Annual numbers peaked in 1994, with 213,214 Aussiedler and then gradually began to decline. [11] The number of non-German relatives who emigrated along with them is not known, but many, if not most, are probably counted as members of Germany's ethnic Russian community (see below). The number of Aussiedler fluctuates as many have retained property in the former Soviet republics, and some are presumed to have returned to live there. [9]

Soviet Jews

After the Second World War Germany's Jewish population was 15,000, a small percentage of the country's pre-war Jewish population of 500,000. [12] That number grew to 30,000 by the late 1980s. Then between 1991 and 2005, more than 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union moved to Germany. [13] In total, the Berman Jewish DataBank estimates that over 225,000 Jews from the republics of the former Soviet Union emigrated to Germany between 1989 and 2012. [14]

Most Russian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews and, alongside Russian, grow up speaking Yiddish, the traditional Judaeo-German language of Ashkenazi Jews. Their fluency in Yiddish enables them to pick up the German language easily once in Germany. This gives them an advantage over other Russian immigrants to Germany who in Russia had only spoken Russian, despite their ethnic German heritage.

The Berman Jewish DataBank estimates "Germany's core Jewish population at 118,000 in 2013," of which all but about 5,000-6,000 are post-Soviet immigrants; the community numbers about 250,000 if non-Halachic-Jewish relatives are included." [14] Growth began to diminish in 2005 when the German government replaced the special quota immigration law (Kontingentsflüchtlingsgesetz) with more restrictive rules (Zuwanderungsgesetz).

Other Russian speakers

Other Russian speakers in Germany fall into a few different categories. The German Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office) reported the following figures for Russian speakers from the year 2000: legal aliens (365,415), political asylees (20,000), students (7,431), family members of German citizens (10,000–15,000), special workers in fields of science and culture (5,000–10,000), and diplomatic corps (5,000). [15] The largest proportion of Russian speakers are "legal aliens", the vast majority of whom are mainly ethnic Russians (with smaller numbers of Belarusians, Ukrainians, and other groups). They are family members of returnees (Aussiedler and Soviet Jews), but have yet to receive German citizenship. [15] Many Russian speakers moved to Germany during the existence of the former East Germany (the DDR), and remained after German reunification. This has led to a high concentration of Russian citizens in the new states of Germany.

Integration into German society

Most Russian-Germans have assimilated and integrated quite well into German society. [16] As with most other immigrant groups, there remain some contemporary issues. German authorities have been concerned that the high number of Russian immigrants self-segregating in certain neighborhoods hinders social integration. This has led to restrictions on immigration from Russia and the former Soviet Union. Other issues have included crime, drugs, poverty and unemployment. [17]

The Aussiedler have raised many issues. Although they were expected to assimilate rapidly into German society, Aussiedler and their descendants are struggling with their identity, and most consider themselves Russian. [18] In Russia, due to outside pressure, they had become assimilated into Russian society, in most cases speaking Russian as their first or only language, and this has made their return difficult. [19]

A 2006 study by the German Youth Institute revealed that Russian-Germans face high levels of prejudice and intolerance in Germany, ranging from low job opportunities, to problems in the real estate market. [20]

A 2020 survey found that Aussiedler generally feel more belonging to Germany, their state and even city than their country of origin. [21]

Notable individuals

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Germany</span>

The demography of Germany is monitored by the Statistisches Bundesamt. According to the most recent data, Germany's population is 84,669,326 making it the most populous country in the European Union and the nineteenth-most populous country in the world. The total fertility rate was rated at 1.58 in 2021, significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1. For a long time Germany had one of the world's lowest fertility rates of around 1.3 to 1.4, however there has been a small increase in recent years. Due to the low birth rate Germany has recorded more deaths than births every year since 1972, which means 2021 was the 50th consecutive year the German population would have decreased without immigration. However, due to immigration the population has actually increased during the last half-century. In 2019 the number of people with a foreign background was 26%; this category includes foreigners, naturalized citizens, ethnic German repatriates from Eastern Europe and the children of all of the above.

The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military service in the Russian Empire, large groups of Germans from Russia emigrated to the Americas, where they founded many towns. In 1914, an estimate put the remaining number of ethnic Germans living in the Russian Empire at 2,416,290. During World War II, ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union were persecuted and many were forcibly resettled to other regions such as Central Asia. In 1989, the Soviet Union declared to have an ethnic German population of roughly 2 million. By 2002, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many ethnic Germans had emigrated and the population fell by half to roughly 1 million. 597,212 Germans self-identified as such in the 2002 Russian census, making Germans the fifth-largest ethnic group in the Russian Federation. There were 353,441 Germans in Kazakhstan and 21,472 in Kyrgyzstan (1999); while 33,300 Germans lived in Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Russia</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. Within these territories, the primarily Ashkenazi Jewish communities of many different areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of antisemitic discriminatory policies and persecution, including violent pogroms. Some have described a "renaissance" in the Jewish community inside Russia since the beginning of the 21st century; however, the Russian Jewish population has experienced precipitous decline since the dissolution of the USSR which continues to this day, although it is still among the largest in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration to Germany</span>

Immigration to Germany, both in the country's modern borders and the many political entities that preceded it, has occurred throughout the country's history. Today, Germany is one of the most popular destinations for immigrants in the world, with well over 1 million people moving there each year since 2013. As of 2019, around 13.7 million people living in Germany, or about 17% of the population, are first-generation immigrants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Americans</span> Americans of Russian birth or descent

Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to those who settled in the 19th century Russian possessions in northwestern America. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the U.S., the second-largest Slavic population generally, the nineteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh-largest from Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian diaspora</span> Community of Russian emigrants

The Russian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Russians. The Russian-speaking (Russophone) diaspora are the people for whom Russian language is the native language, regardless of whether they are ethnic Russians or not.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIAS</span> Jewish American nonprofit organization

HIAS is a Jewish American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees. It was established on November 27, 1881, originally to help the large number of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States who had left Europe to escape antisemitic persecution and violence. In 1975, the State Department asked HIAS to aid in resettling 3,600 Vietnam refugees. Since that time, the organization continues to provide support for refugees of all nationalities, religions, and ethnic origins. The organization works with people whose lives and freedom are believed to be at risk due to war, persecution, or violence. HIAS has offices in the United States and across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Since its inception, HIAS has helped resettle more than 4.5 million people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1970s Soviet Union aliyah</span> Immigration of Russian Jews to Israel

The 1970s Soviet Union aliyah was the mass immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel after the Soviet Union lifted its ban on Jewish refusenik emigration in 1971. More than 150,000 Soviet Jews immigrated during this period, motivated variously by religious or ideological aspirations, economic opportunities, and a desire to escape anti-Semitic discrimination.

Georgian Americans are Americans of full or partial Georgian ancestry. They encompass ethnic Georgians who have immigrated to the U.S. from Georgia, as well as other areas with significant Georgian populations, such as Russia.

The population of Armenia includes various significant minority ethnic groups.

In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and for just over a decade thereafter, a particularly large number of Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. The majority of these emigrants made aliyah, while a sizable amount immigrated to various Western countries. This wave of Jewish migration followed the 1970s Soviet aliyah, which began after the Soviet government lifted the ban on the country's refuseniks, most of whom were Jews who had been denied permission to leave the country.

The Greeks in the Czech Republic have a presence dating back to the 20th century. Roughly 12,000 Greek citizens, mainly from Greek Macedonia in Northern Greece, who fled from the 1946–1949 Greek Civil War were settled in several formerly German inhabited areas in Czechoslovakia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belarusian diaspora</span> Communities of Belarusians outside Belarus

The Belarusian diaspora refers to emigrants from the territory of Belarus as well as to their descendants.

Azerbaijan though not a popular destination for immigrants, has recently experienced waves of immigration with the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially from ethnic Azerbaijanis mostly from Armenia, Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. Meskhetian Turks were also relocated to Azerbaijan from Central Asia before and after the end of the Soviet Union. With the booming petroleum industry, immigration from Turkey has also followed. In 2010, every eighth resident in Azerbaijan was a migrant, of whom more than 90% of them are Azerbaijanis and 70% are internally displaced persons from the territories occupied by Armenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian language in Israel</span> Status of the Russian language in Israel

The Russian language is spoken natively by a considerable proportion of the population of Israel, mostly by immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union from 1989 onwards. It is a major foreign language in the country, and is used in many aspects of life. Russian is the third most common native language in Israel after Modern Hebrew and Arabic. Government institutions and businesses often also provide information and services in Russian, and has effectively become semi-official in some areas with high concentration of Russian-speaking immigrants. The Russian-speaking population of Israel is the world's third-largest population of Russian native-speakers living outside the former Soviet Union territories after Germany and the United States, and the highest as a proportion of the population. As of 2013, 1,231,003 residents of the Post-Soviet states have immigrated to Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union. As of 2017, there are up to 1.5 million Russian-speaking Israelis out of total population of 8,700,000 (17.25%).

This article delineates the issue of immigration in different countries.

Immigration to Russia involves foreign citizens seeking permanent residence in the territory of the Russian Federation. Historically, Russian empire was one of the World's leading destination for immigrants starting with the reign of Peter I in ca. 1700, and especially after the ascension of Catherine II to the Russian throne in 1762, until the October Revolution in 1917. Some regions, such as Novorossiya, Slavo-Serbia, Volga Germans' territory and Bessarabia were specifically designated for resettlement of immigrants.

Russian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Russian Jewish communities, who now reside within the State of Israel. They were around 900,000 in 2007. This refers to all post-Soviet Jewish diaspora groups, not only Russian Jews, but also Mountain Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Bukharan Jews, and Georgian Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russia Germans</span> Russian Germans

Russia Germans or Germans from Russia, are ethnic Germans or their descendants who were born in Russia or in the Soviet Union. The term Russlanddeutsche – literally "Russia Germans" in German – is often mistranslated as "Russian-Germans."

Soviet Jews in America or American Soviet Jews are Jews from former Soviet Republics that have emigrated to the United States. The group consists of people that are Jewish by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality, that have been influenced by their collective experiences in the Soviet Union. In the 60s, there were around 2.3 million Jews in the USSR, as ethnicity was recorded in the census. Jews from the Soviet Union consisted mostly of the Ashkenazi sect, and emigrated in waves starting in the 1960s, with over 200,000 leaving in the 1970s. As of 2005, over 500,000 Jews had left Soviet Republics for the United States. American Soviet Jews are often covered by the blanket term, "Russian-speaking Jews", and are a self-selecting group, due to the barriers that people leaving the USSR had to face. Often-times, Soviet immigrants struggle with the abundance of choices that they can make in America, but after learning the language, have been shown to be as well-adjusted as other immigrant groups.

References

  1. "Regarding Upcoming Conference on Status of Russian Language Abroad". Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 2014-06-24.
  2. Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (January 2014). Migrationsbericht 2012 [Migrarion Report 2012](PDF) (in German). Bundesministerium des Innern Referat Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  3. "Pressemitteilungen - Ausländische Bevölkerung - Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis)". www.destatis.de (in German).
  4. "Migration and integration". Federal Statistical Office. Retrieved 2023-09-07.
  5. Kamynin, Mikhail (28 May 2007). "Russian MFA Spokesman Mikhail Kamynin Interview with RIA Novosti Regarding Upcoming Conference on Status of Russian Language Abroad". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  6. Valery Tishkov, Zhanna Zayinchkovskaya, and Galina Vitkovskaya, "Migration in the countries of the former Soviet Union", Global Commission on International Migration, September 2005, 15. http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/policy_and_research/gcim/rs/RS3.pdf
  7. Irina Ivakhnyuk, "The Russian Migration Policy and Its Impact on Human Development: The Historical Perspective," Human Development Reports: Research Paper 2009/14 (United Nations Development Programme, April 2009), 19. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/russian-migration-policy-and-its-impact-human-development
  8. 1 2 Martin, Philip L. (1998). "Germany: Reluctant Land of Immigration" (PDF). German Issues (21): 24. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 John Glad, Russia Abroad: Writers, History, Politics (Tenafly, NJ: Hermitage Publishers, 1999), 415-416.
  10. Stefan Wolff, "German and German minorities in Europe," in Divided Nations and European Integration, edited by Tristan James Mabry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). Also available at http://www.stefanwolff.com/research/germany-and-german-minorities-in-europe
  11. Anlage 4 zum Integrationsbericht LK-GF 2008-06-09 Aussiedlerstatistik seit 1950 - Bundesverwaltungsamt [German], accessed 25 June 2014, http://www.gifhorn.de/pics/medien/1_1222325613/Anlage_4_Aussiedlerstatistik_seit_1950.pdf
  12. Isurin, Ludmila (2011-03-29). Russian Diaspora: Culture, Identity, and Language Change. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   978-1-934078-45-7.
  13. "Latkes and vodka: Immigrants from the former Soviet Union are transforming Jewish life in Germany". The Economist. Jan 3, 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  14. 1 2 Sergio DellaPergola. “World Jewish Population, 2013,” in Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin. (Editors) The American Jewish Year Book, 2013, Volume 113(2013) (Dordrecht: Springer) pp. 279-358. Available at http://jewishdatabank.org/Studies/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=3113
  15. 1 2 Polian, Pavel (20 December 2004 – 9 January 2005). "Russkogovoriashchie v Germanii [Russian]". Demoskop Weekly (183–184). Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  16. Heiner Schäfer (2 October 2006). "The challenges of immigrant descendants´ integration in Europe" (PDF). 11th Metropolis Conference, 2006. Center of Geographic Studies, University of Lisbon. Retrieved 22 June 2012. Russian boys have the reputation of being violent and brutal – although this applies only for a very small group of them. Predominantly they are integrating into the German society.
  17. Ray Furlong (8 December 2004). "Ghetto woes afflict Russian-Germans". BBC. Retrieved 22 June 2012. But Germany wants to stop the influx, concerned that the new arrivals are living in self-created ghettoes. The kids here have typical immigration problems, arrival in a new country where everything is strange: the language, the laws, everything. There is a whole generation of kids uprooted from their homes as teenagers, alienated in Germany.
  18. Schäfer. "During the last 15 years far more than half a million children and youth have come from the countries of former Soviet Union to Germany. Lots of them got immediately German passports by descent but still feel as Russians."
  19. Furlong.
  20. Schäfer. "Although Germany has become an immigration country educational or pedagogical support for young migrants is not very developed. They have low knowledge and information about the background and the needs of young migrants. They are expected to assimilate with the German society and to feel and behave like Germans do."
  21. "Successful integration? The lifeworlds and social participation of ethnic Aussiedler".