The Crimea Germans (, , ) were ethnic German settlers who were invited by Russia to colonize the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

as part of the ''

Ostsiedlung (, ) is the term for the Early Middle Ages, early medieval and High Middle Ages, high medieval migration of Germanic peoples and Germanisation of the areas populated by Slavs, Slavic, Balts, Baltic and Uralic languages, Uralic peoples; the ...

'' ("East Settlement").

History

From 1783 onwards, there was a systematic settlement of

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

, and

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

to the

Crimean Peninsula Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrai ...

(in what was then the

Crimean Khanate The Crimean Khanate, self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatars, Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of th ...

) in order to weaken the Crimean Tatar population. The first planned settlements of

in Crimea were founded over 1805–1810 with the support of

Czar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

Alexander I. The first settlements were: * Friedental – in the district of

Simferopol Simferopol ( ), also known as Aqmescit, is the second-largest city on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, but controlled by Russia. It is considered the cap ...

; formed in 1806 by

Lutherans Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...

* Heilbrunn – in the district of

Feodosiya Feodosia (, ''Feodosiia, Teodosiia''; , ''Feodosiya''), also called in English Theodosia (from ), is a city on the Crimean coast of the Black Sea. Feodosia serves as the administrative center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into w ...

; formed in 1809 by

* Kronental – in the district of

; formed in 1810 by

and

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

* Neusatz – in the district of

; formed in 1806 by

* Rosental – in the district of

; formed in 1806 by

* Staryj Krim (old Crimea) – in the district

; formed in 1805 by

and

* Sudak – in the district of

; formed in 1805 by

* Zuerichtal – in the district of

; formed in 1805 by

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

and

All of these early colonies were located in the Yayla-mountains of

and were mostly

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

n wine-farmers. However over time only Sudak produced quality wine and the other settlements soon turned to agriculture. The second generation didn't have enough land and soon young men started buying land from the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

aristocracy and creating new ("daughter") colonies. Karte der Halbinsel Krim

Later

Mennonites Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

began to move from

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

into

. Details are vague but during the 19th century a "German hospital" and dispensary arose in the

suburb of ''Nowyj gorod'' (called ''Neustadt'' or new city—now this is Kyivskyi District of Simferopol).

Soviet persecution

On 18 October 1921, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (i.e. part of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

). In place of the modern Krasnohvardiiske Raion there were two national districts made for Germans, Biyuk-Onlar and Telman. Under the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

many ''

Volksdeutsche In Nazi Germany, Nazi German terminology, () were "people whose language and culture had Germans, German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." The term is the nominalised plural of ''wikt:volksdeutsch, volksdeutsch'', with denoting ...

'' were persecuted by gangs of Russian peasants as landowning ''

Kulak Kulak ( ; rus, кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈɫak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over ...

s'' or class enemy "bourgeoisie". In 1939, two years before their

deportation Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or is under sen ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, around 60,000 of the 1.1 million inhabitants of

were German and "they had their own administrative raion in the Crimean Republic.".

Nazi invasion, deportation and exile

In late 1941, following the

Axis An axis (: axes) may refer to: Mathematics *A specific line (often a directed line) that plays an important role in some contexts. In particular: ** Coordinate axis of a coordinate system *** ''x''-axis, ''y''-axis, ''z''-axis, common names ...

invasion of the western regions of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

authorities forcibly removed almost 53,000 native Germans of

eastwards to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

and Central Asia on entirely spurious allegations that they were spies for the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

. Consequently, many died in transit, although later they could not be seriously blamed for

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

crimes in the region.

"Stalin had no doubts about the loyalty of the ethnic German minority. He considered them all potential traitors, and in line with his inherent "Great Russian" chauvinism, had already decided to deport the entire community to internal exile in case of war. Therefore, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, a decision was made by Stalin to evacuate all ethnic Germans from the Western Regions of the Soviet Union. The first evacuations, which, in reality, were expulsions, as the inhabitants were never allowed to return to their homes, were decreed by the Supreme Soviet already on June 22. Action to deport every ethnic German from the Crimea began on August 15. Although the decree stated that old people would not have to leave, everyone was expelled—first to
Stavropol Stavropol (, ), known as Voroshilovsk from 1935 until 1943, is a city and the administrative centre of Stavropol Krai, in southern Russia. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 547,820, making it one of Russia's fastest growing cities. E ...
, and then Rostov in Southern Ukraine, near Crimea; but then all were sent on to forced labor camps and special settlements in Kazakhstan, Central Asia. The deportees were not told where they were going, how long they would stay there and how much food to take; they were given only three or four hours to pack. The result was starvation for many and, due to the confusion, the separation of a large number of families. In all, as many as 60,000 ethnic Germans were expelled from the Crimea at this time."

It is unclear whether any Crimea Germans remained at all during the

occupation— German policy called for the evacuation of all surviving

to settlements in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Hitler had claimed that many Germans in Crimea were descended from ancient Goth settlers (the

Crimean Goths The Crimean Goths were either a Greuthungi- Gothic tribe or a Western Germanic tribe that bore the name '' Gothi'', a title applied to various Germanic tribes that remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the ...

), and had intended to "reclaim" the peninsula for Germanic speakers. One plan envisaged a special status for Crimea and its hinterland - an ahistoric resurrection of the territory of the ancient Crimean Goths as a purely Germanic (Goth region) re-settled by ex-SS

Wehrbauer ''Wehrbauer'' (, ''defensive peasant''), plural ''Wehrbauern'', is a German term for settlers living on the marches of a realm who were tasked with holding back foreign invaders until the arrival of proper military reinforcements. In turn, they ...

. The

for Crimea, the Austrian Alfred Frauenfeld, toyed with the idea of resettling ethnic Germans (''Volksdeutsche'') here from

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

South Tyrol South Tyrol ( , ; ; ), officially the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, is an autonomous administrative division, autonomous provinces of Italy, province in northern Italy. Together with Trentino, South Tyrol forms the autonomo ...

after the war, and he re-labelled several cities of the envisaged with constructed German/ Gothic names: (

became and

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

became , for example, honoring the Goths and the

Ostrogothic The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...

king

Theodoric Theodoric is a Germanic given name. First attested as a Gothic name in the 5th century, it became widespread in the Germanic-speaking world, not least due to its most famous bearer, Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Overview The name w ...

). By 1950, all ethnic Germans were expelled from Crimea.

''Perestroika'' and post-Soviet era

Crimean

were only allowed to return to the peninsula after

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

. The

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

brought a rebirth of Crimean-German culture and, in 1994, they had a small representation in the Crimean Parliament. The 1991 RSFSR law '' On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples'' addressed rehabilitation of all ethnicities repressed in the Soviet Union. However the law had various deficiencies, including unclear legal status of a number of peoples, such as Crimean Tatars and Crimean Germans moved across the borders of Soviet republics, after the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia, on April 21, 2014

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

signed the decree No 268 "О мерах по реабилитации армянского, болгарского, греческого, крымско-татарского и немецкого народов и государственной поддержке их возрождения и развития". ("On the Measures for the Rehabilitation of Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Crimean Tatar and German Peoples and the State Support of Their Revival and Development"), amended by Decree no. 458 of September 12, 2015.Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 12.09.2015 г. № 458
/ref> The decree addressed the status of the mentioned peoples which resided in Crimean ASSR and were deported from there.

References

External links

Germans from Russia Settlement Locations Google Map
{{German diaspora German diaspora by country Ethnic groups in Crimea Forced migration in the Soviet Union during World War II Ethnic cleansing of Germans

History

Soviet persecution

Nazi invasion, deportation and exile

''Perestroika'' and post-Soviet era

See also

References

Further reading

External links