Consiliul oamenilor muncii de naţionalitate germană din judeţul Timiş între directivele Partidului Comunist Român şi apărarea intereselor şvabilor bănăţeni (1968–1973)
The Council of German Nationality Workers in Timiş County Between the Directives of the Romanian Communist Party and the Defense of the Swabians’ interests in Banat (1968–1973)

Summary/Abstract: By creating the Council of German ethnic workers, the communist regime aimed to get a larger control on that important ethnic minority in Romania. So, the members of the Council in Timiş County were forced to take part to materializing the RCP politics in the Swabian county community, to indoctrinating them in order to create the so-called new man. The same were the propaganda actions in order to estrange the Swabians from religion, especially the young ones, to make them atheists. All of them had also to involve in diifferent actions to hold back the migrations to FRG, ever intensified the time I have analyzed. But those approaches failed as we can note from the official papers, the ever larger number of those who required visa for FRG, the way the people went on to Roman-Catholic Church or how they preserved the religious nature of important feasts, as Kirchweih for example. The leaders of that German forum acted toward rectifing the abusses of the agrarian reform from 1945, and supporting the old and unwell Swabians devoid of means of subsistence. On the other hand, the members of that Council made efforts to preserve Swabian cultural traditions, increase Swabian cultural life by organizing dance ensembles, fanfares, singing groups or community theatres, etc. in localities with many German people. Museums, museal branches or memorial houses were also initiated, especially for ethographic and local languages heritage. Cultural institutions (the German Public Theatre Timişoara), German litterature and Swabian publications were also encouraged in order to write an objective (as allowed at that time) history of the Swabians in the Banat. The German Council intensively worked for developing the German education there, increasing the education network and the quality of the educational process. It is reasonable so to consider that the work of the Council of German ethnic workers in Timiş County was a favorable one for the Swabians in the county in 1968–1973, and the political and ideological concessions the members of the Council made then were the price they paid to defend the interests of the people they represented.

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