Deportarea etnicilor germani din România în URSS (ianuarie 1945)
Deportation of ethnic Germans from Romania to the USSR (January 1945)

Summary/Abstract: The deportation to the USSR for the so-called “reconstruction work” represents a dramatic episode in the history of ethnic Germans in Romania, which irrevocably affected their fate. This was officially decided on December 16, 1944 by Decision No. 7161 of the USSR State Defense Committee, signed by I.V. Stalin. The operation to expel Germans from Romania was carried out by the Police and Gendarmerie bodies in collaboration with Romanian military and Soviet soldiers from January 10 to January 30, 1945. The mobilized Germans were then handed over to the Soviet Army, which ensured their transportation to camps in the USSR. Lack of medical care, insufficient food, poor accommodation and extremely hard work led to the deaths of many ethnic Germans in Soviet camps. The first repatriations took place in the fall of 1945 (sick and pregnant women), and the last in 1950. The deportation caused in the short term a sharp decline in the standard of living of the members of the German community due to the departure of young, able-bodied people from their households, caused a state of general dis- content and constant fear of new waves of persecution. In the long term, it determined the negative natural growth of the German minority and played a decisive role in the emergence of the phenomenon of mass emigration of the 1970s-1990s.

• Details
• Contents