Germans of Hungary

Germans of Hungary ( _de. Ungarndeutsche) are any German-speaking minority group in Hungary who would be counted among the Danube Swabians (German: Donauschwaben). Danube Swabian is a collective term for a number of German ethnic groups who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, now the modern-day countries of Hungary, Romania, and several former Yugoslav republics. Hungary Germans refers to the descendants of Germans who immigrated to the Carpathian Mountains and surrounding regions, and who are now minorities in those areas. Many Hungary Germans were expelled from the region between 1946 and 1948, and many now live in Germany or Austria, but also in Brazil and the United States. However, many are still dispersed within the country of Hungary.

History

The immigration of German-speaking peoples into modern-day Hungary began in approximately 1000, when knights who came in the company of Giselle of Bavaria, the German-born queen of the first King of Hungary, Stephen I, entered the country.

The largest wave of German-speaking immigrants into Hungary occurred after the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire. Between 1700 and 1750, German-speaking settlers from Southern Germany, Austria, and Saxony immigrated to the regions of Pannonia, Banat, and Bačka, which had been depopulated by the Ottoman wars. This influx of immigrants helped to bring economic recovery and cultural distinction to these regions. At the end of the 18th century, the Kingdom of Hungary contained over one million German-speaking residents. During this time, a flourishing German-speaking culture could be found in the kingdom, with German-language literary works, newspapers, and magazines being produced. A German language theater also operated in the kingdom's capital, Budapest.

Throughout the 19th century, a strong German industrial community developed, with glass-blowing, foundries, and masonry being particularly important. In response to this, the second half of the century saw the rise of a strong Hungarian nationalist political movement, whose purpose was to retain German economic power by assimilating the German-speaking citizens into Hungarian culture. As a mean toward this end, the German language was slowly replaced with the Hungarian language.

By 1918, at the onset of World War I, 1.5 million Danube Swabians and other German-speaking peoples lived in what is now present-day Hungary, Romania, and the former Yugoslav republics. Between 1918 and 1945 several factors greatly reduced the number of German-speaking residents in the kingdom so much that only thirty percent of the original German-speaking population was left after World War II. The number of Germans in the Hungarian kingdom was more than halved by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, as the kingdom was forced to make large cessions of its territory to neighboring countries. Meanwhile continuing nationalist pushes under the Magyarization plan to assimilate German-speaking citizens forced a backlash within the German-speaking community. In 1924, under the leadership of Jakob Bleyer, the Hungarian Germans' Peoples' Preservation Society (German: "Ungarnländische Deutsche Volksbildungsverein") was formed to combat the forced dominance of the Hungarian language in schools and government. However, the Hungarian government proceeded with its Magyarization programs. In this situation, the German-speaking community of Hungary looked for foreign intervention in its language predicament. This fact was very interesting to Hitler controlled Germany, and the German and Hungarian governments used the status of German-speaking peoples within the Hungarian state as a political bargaining chip. In 1938 a National Socialist German organization was formed, "The Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn" under the leaderschip of Franz Anton Basch and it became the most influental political organization among the Hungarian Germans. In 1940 it became the official representative of the Hungarian Germans and it was directly controlled from Germany. The Volksbund had representatives in the Hungarian parliament until 1945. [Randolph L Braham: A népirtás politikája, A Holocaust Magyarországon ISBN 9637675 85 X] . After the end of World War II, the German-speaking community in Hungary was seen as a scapegoat. Many were sent to work camps in Soviet Russia, and others were sent back to Germany, first to the American-occupied area of Germany, and later to the Soviet-occupied area. Overall, approximately 220,000 Germans were expelled from Hungary. From that point on, the history of Hungary Germans focuses on two points, the fate of Germans who remained in Hungary, and the fate of the exiles.

Expulsion

The expulsion of German-speaking people from Hungary began in 1946 in Budapest and continued until 1948. It must be noted that the expulsion of Germans from Hungary was opposed by both the government and the population of Hungary. The Hungarian government was forced to take action by the occupying Soviet forces. All of their objections were rejected by the US and British governments. (ref.: from page 35 of [http://www.iue.it/PUB/HEC04-01.pdf] )

The Hungarian Parliament decided in the summer of 1945 that the German-speaking population must be expelled from Hungary, and they passed laws forming the framework of such a movement on December 22, 1945. They took effect under an executive order issued January 4, 1946. The expulsion orders affected anyone who claimed German nationality or German as a mother language in the 1941 Hungarian census, anyone who was a member of a German ethnic organization, former members of the SS, and anyone who changed their Hungarianized surnames back to their German equivalents. At first, expelled Hungarian Germans were sent to the American-occupied section of Germany, but this was stopped on June 1, 1946, because the Americans would not allow Hungary to pay its war debts by simply returning seized assets to the displaced Germans. Approximately 170,000 Germans were sent to the American zone of occupied Germany in this time period. Another round of expulsions began in August 1947, but this time the expelled Germans were sent to the Soviet-occupied area of Germany. Many times, Germans were expelled from Hungary because of forced evictions from their properties. This phase of expulsions was more haphazard and unplanned, as some villages of Germans were expelled, whereas others were left untouched. Most Germans removed in this round of expulsions moved to refugee camps in the Soviet-controlled German province of Saxony.

Treatment in Post-War Hungary

The Germans who remained in Hungary fared even worse. Their citizenship was revoked in 1945, and they were then considered to be stateless. However, they were regranted their citizenship in 1950, and given personal identification. However, a difficult period ensued between 1950 and 1956, when Hungarian Germans were portrayed as enemies to the state and had to work, often for little or no pay, for kulaks, wealthy farmers who owned a majority of the land. Hungary German men were still conscripted into the Hungarian military, but were often given no weapons and substandard training, as they were viewed as expendable. Even given these conditions, the men were expected to serve three-year tours of duty.

In addition to this, many other inequalities could be seen. There are numerous instances where Hungarian German students were denied admission to universities. The discrimination was so widespread and pervasive that many Hungarian Germans abandoned the country in 1956 during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Many moved to West Germany or to the United States, Canada, or Australia. Speaking German in public was widely disdained, and often verbally reproached, even into the 1970sFact|date=March 2008.

However, things began to improve for minority groups, including the Hungarian Germans, under a program of economic liberalization called Goulash Communism. This movement, lead by the then- General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, János Kádár, guaranteed certain economic rights to minority groups, as well as rights to practice their own cultures. In 1955, a new organization, the Association of Hungarian Germans ( _de. Verband der Ungarndeutschen), was founded. Its main goals included the interests of the Hungarian German ethnic group, including the release of the Hungarian Germans from Hungarian rule. Another major focus of the group was the teaching of the German language in Hungarian schools. Because of the government's position on German culture in the recent past, very little German was taught in schools at the time, and the group's organizer feared that "a mute generation" had been raised by the Hungarian school system. The group's organizers felt that the Hungarian German youth had a very poor command of the German language, including limited speech comprehension, which they found disturbing. The group met with success in the 1980s, when German gained status as a minority language, thus gaining legal standing in the Hungarian school system. The number of bilingual schools has continued to rise. In 2001, 62 105 people declared to be German [http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_30_1.html] and 88 209 people had affinity with cultural values, traditions of the German nationality. [http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_31.html]

See also

*Society of Germans from Hungary
*Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938)

References

External links

de icon [http://www.ungarndeutsche.de Website and forums relating to German Hungarians]

An European University Institute working paper
* [http://www.iue.it/PUB/HEC04-01.pdf The Expulsion of the 'German' communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War.] (The relevant section starts on page 35.)