The German Settlements in Bessarabia: A Study of the German Immigration to, Successful Settlement in, and Ultimate Abandonment of Bessarabia

This study uses currently available demographic, economic, social, political and religious data to consider the history of the German settlements in Bessarabia from 1814-1940. Such data including military conditions in late 18th and early 19th century Prussian Poland and the upper Rhineland suggest why small groups of Germans accepted attractive offers from Russia to settle the empty steppe lands of newly conquered Bessarabia. The German settlers struggled until they learned and mastered the different crops and animals suited to the steppe environment. Data from Russian sources, however, show that by the 1850s the German colonies were successfully established with better food supplies and retained earnings from agriculture than they had had in Western Europe. Following the Crimean War the grain trade to Western Europe from Odessa and the development of regional and national trade links within Russia further improved economic prospects for the Bessarabian Germans. Demographic records indicate longer life spans and marriages at early ages with most of the population marrying, all signs of positive economic conditions. Continuing population growth created overcrowded conditions in the original settlements. Some families reacted by moving and leasing or purchasing additional land in Bessarabia with 79 new villages established between 1870-1914. Up to 1914 others chose to emigrate. Perhaps 15,000 came to North America while much smaller numbers moved to lands elsewhere in Russia or nearby Dobrudsha in Romania. Both the establishment of new villages and emigration were supported by the savings German families had developed as well as by community practices of lending saved funds. Conflicts arose with the Russian nobility and middle classes who lacked such access to funding and who felt insulted by having to compete with people they considered to be from a much lower class. The 1870s marked a major turning point in the relationship of the German colonies to the Russian government and brought changes in the attitudes of many Russians toward the German settlements. The Russian government implemented major reforms intended to modernize the legal, judicial and military structures of the state. Among these were two reforms that particularly affected the German settlements: their special rights and separate governance ended and Germans were now subject to military service. This last change was another factor supporting emigration. After 1870 Russian conservatives increasingly worried that the German presence in Russia was supported by or might offer support to the new, rival power of Imperial Germany. After 1870, too, the once isolated German settlements had clear cultural links with other ethnic groups living nearby as well as with Russia and with popular culture in Germany. Such cultural change is marked by the new words added to their German speech and by changing patterns in the first names they gave their children. World War I brought an end to positive economic conditions offering possibilities of land purchase or emigration. The war effort, the Russian Revolution and Bessarabia’s 1918 absorption into Romania brought a major economic setback. The German settlements only slowly and partially recovered. The limited recovery continued the growing social differentiation among the rich, middle class and poor; the landed, land limited or landless; and among craft workers, factory and business owners, managers and workers. In 1940 the Germans in Bessarabia were faced with a shocking turn of events. The Soviet Union suddenly took control of Bessarabia. An agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union offered Germans a terrible choice: abandon Bessarabia and resettle or accept the changes of Soviet rule. Perceiving that remaining in Bessarabia would mean the loss of significant personal freedoms, property and religious rights, virtually the entire population of nearly 90,000 Germans left for a bitter, temporary stay in occupied Poland.