German Hungarians (german: Ungarndeutsche, hu, magyarországi németek) are the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
-speaking minority of
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, sometimes called
Danube Swabians
The Danube Swabians (german: Donauschwaben ) is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in various countries of central-eastern Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in grea ...
(German: ''Donauschwaben'', Hungarian: ''dunai svábok''), many of whom call themselves "Shwoveh". There are 131,951 German speakers in Hungary (according to the 2011 census). Danube Swabian is a collective term for a number of German ethnic groups who lived in the former
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
, including the
Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia ( hr, Kraljevina Hrvatska i Slavonija; hu, Horvát-Szlavónország or ; de-AT, Königreich Kroatien und Slawonien) was a nominally autonomous kingdom and constitutionally defined separate political nation with ...
and
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
.
Hungarian Germans refers to the descendants of Danube Swabians who immigrated to the
Carpathian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...
and surrounding regions, and who are now minorities in those areas. Many Hungarian Germans were expelled from the region between 1946 and 1948, and many now live in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
or
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, but also in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. However, many are still dispersed within present-day Hungary.
History
The migration of Germanic-speaking peoples into Hungary began in approximately 1000, when knights in the company of
Giselle of Bavaria
Gisela of Hungary (or Gisele, Gizella and of Bavaria; 985 – 7 May 1065) was the first queen consort of Hungary by marriage to Stephen I of Hungary, and the sister of Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor. She has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
...
, the German-born wife of
Stephen I, first
king of Hungary
The King of Hungary ( hu, magyar király) was the ruling head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 (or 1001) to 1918. The style of title "Apostolic King of Hungary" (''Apostoli Magyar Király'') was endorsed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 ...
, entered the country. Three waves of Germanic migration can be identified in Hungary before the 20th century. The first two waves of settlers arrived in the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
during the Middle Ages (11th and 13th centuries) and formed the core of the citizenry of a few towns in
Upper Hungary
Upper Hungary is the usual English translation of ''Felvidék'' (literally: "Upland"), the Hungarian term for the area that was historically the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now mostly present-day Slovakia. The region has also been ...
and in Southern
Transylvania
Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...
(
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons (german: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen''; ro, Sași ardeleni, sași transilvăneni/transilvani; hu, Erdélyi szászok) are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania ( ...
, "Siebenbürger Sachsen").
The third, largest wave of Germanic-speaking immigrants arrived in Hungary as the result of a deliberate settlement policy of the
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
government after the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
was driven from Hungarian territory. Between 1711 and 1780, German-speaking settlers from
Southern Germany
Southern Germany () is a region of Germany which has no exact boundary, but is generally taken to include the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, historically the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia or, in a modern context, Bavaria ...
, Austria, and
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
emigrated to Southwest Hungary, including,
Buda
Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...
,
Banat
Banat (, ; hu, Bánság; sr, Банат, Banat) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of T ...
and
Szatmár County
Szatmár County ( hu, Szatmár vármegye ) was an administrative county (Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary), comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary, situated south of the river Tisza. Most of its territory is now divided between Romania and Hungary, w ...
. This influx of immigrants helped to bring economic recovery and cultural distinction to these regions. By the end of the 18th century, over one million German-speaking residents lived in the Kingdom of Hungary. At the time, a flourishing German-speaking culture existed in the kingdom, publishing German-language literary works, newspapers, and magazines. A German-language theater operated in the kingdom's capital,
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
.
Throughout the 19th century, a strong German industrial community developed, particularly in the glass-blowing, masonry and foundry metalworking sectors. In response, a strong Hungarian nationalist political movement rose in the second half of the century to assimilate German-speaking citizens and their economic power into Hungarian culture. The movement's objectives were advanced by a number of policies, including the forced replacement of German in ethnic German schools with
Hungarian.
By 1918, at the end of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, almost two million Danube Swabians and other German-speaking peoples lived in what is now Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia and the former Yugoslav republics. Between 1918 and 1945, several factors greatly reduced the number of German-speaking residents in the former kingdom; only thirty percent of the original German-speaking population was left after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The number of Germans in the Hungarian kingdom was more than halved by the
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon (french: Traité de Trianon, hu, Trianoni békeszerződés, it, Trattato del Trianon) was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace Conference and was signed in the Grand Trianon château in ...
in 1920, as the kingdom was forced to make large cessions of its territory to neighboring countries.
In 1938, a national socialist German organization was formed, the , under the leadership of Franz Anton Basch, becoming the most influential political organization among Hungarian Germans. In 1940, it became the official representative body of Hungarian Germans and was directly controlled by Germany. The Volksbund had representatives in the Hungarian parliament until 1945. Through limited volunteer enlistment and widespread conscription, as well as the wholesale transfer of entities of the domestic armed services, many ethnic Germans ended up serving in military units raised or controlled by the Third Reich and fighting on behalf of the German war effort in World War II. This included several units of the ''
Waffen SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands.
The grew from th ...
'' and spanned combat operations in the proximity of Hungary, its possessions, and beyond.
Toward the end of the Second World War, the German-speaking community in Hungary was seen as a scapegoat by Communists, and a process of
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
was undertaken. Citing "security reasons", the advancing Red Army deported about 600,000 civilians and prisoners of war from Hungary, of whom 40,000–65,000 were Germans.
[ A significant number of Germans, mostly members of Nazi organisations, fearing deportation to Siberia, fled Hungary as well.][ Many Germans were sent to Germany, first to the ]American occupation zone
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...
, and later to the Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...
. Overall, approximately 220,000 Germans were expelled from Hungary.
Expulsion
With World War II still raging in 1945, various factions competing for immediate and postwar Hungarian political power sought to decide how to treat ethnic Germans. Opinions were divided, with the Hungarian Communist Party
The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...
and its ally, the National Peasant Party, calling for the expulsion of all Germans, whereas the major democratic party, the Smallholder
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
Party, favored deporting only former Volksbund and Waffen SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands.
The grew from th ...
members. In May 1945, the Hungarian government announced that the problem was not a larger Swabian one but one of German fascists: it resolved to deport only former Waffen SS soldiers and confiscate the lands of Volksbund members. Shortly thereafter, however, it asked for authorization from Moscow to deport 200,000 to 250,000 ethnic Germans to the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. This was far greater than the number of Volksbund members, reinforcing the theory that the goal was the elimination of an unwanted ethnic group rather than just that of German fascists. The German population in Hungary, however, was never subject to the same brutal persecution and excesses as in Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
or Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
.
The initiative for including the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Hungary at the August 1945 Potsdam "Big Three" conference came from the Soviet Union. Together with the Hungarian Communist Party, the USSR used the argument of collective Swabian guilt to hide their true goal of radical land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
. In the Spring of 1945, Marshall Voroshilov demanded from the Hungarian government the complete expulsion of the Germans from Hungary. All those ethnic Germans who declared German as their native language were considered eligible for transfer. The government estimated the number of Germans to be removed from Hungary to be 200,000 to 250,000.
Certain categories of Hungarian Germans were exempted from deportation, mostly those who had been active members of democratic parties or labor unions or persecuted by the Nazis for claiming Hungarian nationality. Later, in 1947, industrial workers in critical industries, miners, indispensable craftsmen and agricultural workers were also exempted, unless they had been Volksbund or Waffen SS members. Exemption committees established by the government were in reality under the control of the Communist Party. Thus on occasion, wealthy Swabians who had not been Volksbund members were expelled whereas working-class ethnic Germans, now Hungarian Communist Party members, were exempted, even though they had been part of the Volksbund.
Voices were raised in Hungary against these arbitrary expulsions. The liberal parties, particularly the Smallholder Party, and the surviving democratic press, criticized the sweeping nature of classifying every ethnic German as a traitor. Cardinal József Mindszenty
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**'' Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, t ...
(of Swabian origin), head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary and fierce anti-communist, repeatedly protested the confiscation of property and expulsion of ethnic Germans. He appealed to world public opinion, strongly condemning government treatment of ethnic Germans in Hungary. These protests had no effect, and with increasing communist domination of the Hungarian Government, all opposition was gradually eliminated. (In 1949, Cardinal Mindszenty was tried for treason by the Communist government and given a life sentence. In the 1956 Hungarian revolution, he was given asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, from whence he was finally allowed to go into exile in 1971.)
The expulsion of ethnic Germans occurred in two phases: the first phase lasted from January to June 1946 and, after a short interruption in the summer of 1946, continued until December 1946. The refugees were first sent to the American zone of occupation in Germany. The second phase of expulsions began in August 1947. Because the U.S. Government refused to take any more refugees into its zone, the ethnic Germans were sent to the Soviet zone of occupation. About 50,000 Swabian Germans were transferred to camps in Saxony, from which they were later dispersed to other areas in the Soviet zone. But by this time, the majority of the ethnic Germans remaining in Hungary were anxious to leave, as their living conditions had become unbearable. Ironically, in this second wave of expulsions, the most skilled and industrious German workers were removed from Hungary. This had a long-term detrimental effect on the Hungarian economy. The expulsions were completely discontinued in the autumn of 1948.
In all, 239,000 Swabian Germans were forced to leave Hungary. About 170,000 went to the US zone in Germany, 54,000 to the Soviet zone, and 15,000 to Austria. It is estimated that 11,000 ethnic Germans civilians lost their lives during the expulsions.
Those ethnic Germans who had opted for Hungarian nationality in the 1941 census, who selected Hungarian as their native language, and who were completely integrated into Hungarian society, were generally able to avoid deportation. By 1948, with communists dominating the Hungarian Government, class warfare took precedence over nationalism. Communist Party leader Rákosi stated that the remaining Swabians, mostly skilled workers, should be reintegrated into the Hungarian State. In October 1949, a general amnesty of all ethnic Germans was decreed. Six months later, in May 1950, the expulsions were officially ended, and all remaining Germans given Hungarian citizenship. This created another crisis among Hungary's German community, whose members could no longer leave the country because they were Hungarian citizens.
Treatment in Post-World War II Hungary
Things began to improve for minority groups, including Hungarian Germans, under a program of economic liberalization called Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism ( hu, gulyáskommunizmus), also commonly called Kádárism or the Hungarian Thaw, is the variety of socialism in Hungary following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. János Kádár and the Hungarian People's Republic imposed polic ...
. This movement, led by the then-General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party János Kádár
János József Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989), born János József Czermanik, was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, a position he held for 32 years. Declining health le ...
, guaranteed certain economic and cultural rights to minority groups. In 1955, a new organization, the Association of Hungarian Germans (german: Verband der Ungarndeutschen), was founded. A major focus of the group was the teaching of the German language in Hungarian schools. Because of the government's previous position on German culture, very little German was taught in schools at the time, and the group's organizer feared "a mute
Muteness is a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak.
Mute or the Mute may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Mute'' (2005 film), a short film by Melissa Joan Hart
* ''Mute'' (2018 film), a scien ...
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
A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...
, thus gaining legal standing in the Hungarian school system. The number of bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
schools continued to rise. In 2001, 62,105 people declared themselves to be German, and 88,209 people declared an affinity with German cultural values and traditions.
In the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election
The 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election took place on 8 April 2018. This parliamentary election was the eighth since the 1990 first multi-party election and the second since the adoption of a new Constitution of Hungary which came into force on ...
, a representative of Hungary's German minority – Imre Ritter
Imre Ritter (german: Emmerich Ritter; born 5 August 1952) is a Hungarian mathematician, auditor, tax consultant, politician and MP for the National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary (MNOÖ). Between 2011 and 2014, he was the Vice-President o ...
of the National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary
The National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary (german: Landesselbstverwaltung der Ungarndeutschen, LdU; hu, Magyarországi Németek Országos Önkormányzata, MNOÖ) is the nationwide representative organization of the German minority in Hu ...
– was elected for the first time since 1933.
See also
* Germany–Hungary relations
*Society of Germans from Hungary The Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Ungarn or Homeland Society of Germans from HungaryPertti Ahonen. ''After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945-1990''. Oxford University Press. 2003. p. 36 ("Homeland Association of Germans from ...
*Neues Budapester Abendblatt ''Neues Budapester Abendblatt'' was a liberal German-language daily newspaper, published from Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population with ...
References
External links
*
Portal of Hungarian Germans
*
Neue Zeitung, weekly magazine for Germans of Hungary
*
Unsere Post, newspaper for Germans of Hungary
*
Hungarian Germans' Self Government
*
Ungarndeutsche Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Germans Of Hungary
Hungarian German communities
Demographics of Hungary
*
German minorities
Ethnic groups in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...