By Sigrid Ingeborg Weidenweber as presented at the June, 2009, International Convention of Germans from Russia at Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, and published in the Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, gluten tag mein Damen and Herren.
It is my pleasure to address you this day and share with you some of my observations, which concern the historical, philosophical and humanistic importance, in short, the mission of your organization.
Usually I speak extemporaneously. However, today I will read, for I do not want to forget even one iota of the facts I would like to present.
I believe you chose the site of Medicine Hat for your meeting because of its obvious historical importance. Namely: of 38,000 German POWs interned in Canada during World War II, 25,000 were housed in Ozada, later Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. Mentioning these facts, I feel I am preaching to the proverbial historical choir. Please forgive me whenever, in the following process of making my case, I regale you with facts that are very familiar to you, but which I hope to examine from a new perspective.
Since the publication of my book, The Volga Germans, I have had the opportunity to address many book clubs and talk to many German Americans and American Germans from Russia. These Americans of German ancestry have brought a plethora of concerns to my attention, many of which I also share. The concerns brought before me are as follows: German-Americans are the largest minority in the U.S.A., but their voices concerning the values and political realities of the country are rarely heard. People of German ancestry bemoan the terrible fact that, as a founding majority of a Christian nation, they are now being attacked for their beliefs.
Most of those speaking to me are Lutherans, Catholics, Friends and unaffiliated Christians with a firm belief in the Creator. They, therefore, abhor the fact that the symbols of their faith are eradicated, bit by bit. Russian Germans in particular tell me that their parents and grandparents could not have survived their earthly travails without God and their faith. This was the bedrock upon which they built, from which they derived the strength to survive. There is a clamor that liberal Christians have co-opted the compassionate side of Christ, while studiously ignoring those teachings, which called for righteousness, obedience, and individual achievement as emphasized in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.
Others, who fear the strident political voices of today, clamor that the political opinions of Germans, constituting the U.S.A.’s major minority, are ignored and their contributions to this country are taken for granted. Quote from a friend: “when is the last time you heard someone refer to a citizen as German American or being of German ancestry? We are like Muslim women in burqas—invisable nonpersons.”
In February, I had the honor to address a small group of founders at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, at the opening of the new Volga German Studies Center. As I prepared my notes for this speech, I became cognizant of the multitude of facts, which I had previously ignored, for I had concentrated more or less only on the historical aspects of Germans from Russia. I had never made a concerted effort to connect or relate the material to our present time and political situation. At that time, I was also editing the last book of my trilogy, From Gulag to Freedom. Rereading the daunting, heart wrenching events that led to the gulags and the extermination of the Russian minorities, I was once more overcome with a sense that many countries are, again, beginning to adopt the tenants of a most horrible time in history.
In my examination I intend to show that Russian Germans were a silent political entity in Russia, much as Americans of German ancestry are today. I intend to show that without a political voice and weapons to defend themselves, the Russian Germans were expendable. Furthermore, I intend to show that today the German ancestry population, for various reasons, is integrated so well into the fabric of the nation that it has become almost invisible, and is therefore, politically taken for granted. Once again, this population is silent and their growing discomfort with the concept of class envy, which led to their ancestors’ ill-treatment and demise, is becoming palpable.
At the time of the founding of the United States, the German population numerically equalled the population of British immigrants. My husband reminded me that had it not been for one vote, this country would be speaking German today. So why did no one ever build a monument to the industrious Germans who peopled the fruited plains? Why are no founders’ stories published that speak of the adventures of founding German families? Why are the history textbooks appallingly empty of German achievements? Nowadays you cannot even read in school history books about Wernher von Braun, the father of the American space program, a feat which could not have been accomplished without him. Neither will you hear of Konrad Dannenberg, who later helped develop the first rocket that allowed astronauts to land on the moon.
I would like to read you the names of a few famous German-Americans who helped make this country what it is today. (I am sorry, but I have no list of German Canadian citizens available.) This is an excerpt from the U.S. diplomatic mission statement to Germany, which, by the way, was read to German audiences on German soil. With the exception of one reading to the United States Congress in 1985, when half of its members were probably asleep or frequented the gentleman’s washroom, this document has never been broadcast in our country.
It begins by mentioning Peter Zenger, a printer and journalist who was the first to criticize the colonial government, thereby striking the first blow and victory for the freedom of the press. It was a Philadelphia German-language newspaper, which first reported the Declaration of Independence. You all know of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian officer who turned Washington’s civilian soldiers into a disciplined force capable of defeating the British. The only effort to memorialize this great man, whom the Republic had instantly forgotten, was by a German art commission raising funds for a statue with the festival.
The Diplomatic Mission statement named John J. Pershing, whose German name was Pfoersing, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who appeared to be British by losing the “u” in his name to a “w.” Pennsylvania Germans made the Conestoga wagons, which allowed the West to be won. Clement Studebaker, of automobile fame, stemmed from the Staudebacher family. Perhaps you are familiar with the names John Roebling, Peter Menuit, Astor, Boeing, Chrysler, Heinz, Guggenheim, Westinghouse, Bausch, Lomb, Casey Stengel, John Steinbeck, and H.L. Menken. I could go on for many more pages. These were people worthy to be emulated and remembered, and some are, but most are thought to be descendants of the English nation.
Just a few days ago the Los Angeles Times newspaper in their latimes.com/nation featured an article on immigration files to be archived. The pictures and interviews with 135,000 people, who arrived after 1900, will soon be made available to the viewing by the public. The article mentions: Jews, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese as new arrivals; some, the famous, are even mentioned by name. They totally ignore the thousands of Russian Germans who were fleeing the strangling political situation in Russia, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they deserved no mention.
At this point, you might rightly say: Well, during Hitler’s regime and the war, Germans tried not to draw attention to themselves, because there was an outcry against them, and in many instances, harassment and persecution. Allow me to refresh our memory with a few facts about this persecution. By the way, Canadian Germans were persecuted with the same inhuman methods. They were already led into internment and treated harshly during World War I.
Here are a few examples from: teachers-resources.ca:
- The World War II experience of thousands of German Americans is an unknown to most people in this country. The United States government and many Americans viewed them and others of “enemy ancestry” as dangerous. (Here I must add that this also included recent immigrants, many who came from Russia shortly before and during this time.) The government used many interrelated, constitutionally questionable methods to control persons of German ancestry, including internment, internee exchanges, deportation, repatriation, “alien enemy registration,” travel restrictions, and property confiscation.
- The human costs of these civil liberties violations were enormous. Families were torn apart, if not destroyed, reputations ruined, properties, homes, and bank accounts confiscated. By the end of the war more than 11,000 persons of German ancestry including their American-born children, were interned. Pressured by the United States, Latin American governments collectively arrested at least 4,050 German Latin Americans, who were shipped like slaves in darkened boat holds to the U.S. More than 2,000 of them were later exchanged for Latin Americans held by the Third Reich, regardless of whether their existence was jeopardized by the exchange.
This resource site is quite good and ends by stating that the stories of these people must not be forgotten. They deserve to be told. To date they remain shrouded in history. This is a great goal, but do you know of any teachers using this material? I worked within our school system for 13 years and never came across any mention being made of injustices concerning Germans, or 300,000 Italians for that matter.
Russian Germans from Thousand Oaks, California, who wondered why American Germans are treated so differently from other minorities, sent the following excerpts from the California German Times to me. This from Jes Rau’s German Times, volume 14, number 13, March 28, 2009:
“Thousands upon thousands of innocent German Americans were dragged during WWII out of their homes usually during the darkness of the night. This was done without any provocation or the slightest cause from a standpoint of national security. In just one day, following Pearl Harbor, 60,000 German Americans were rounded up and dragged away, as if Americans of German descent were responsible for Pearl Harbor.”
The same tactics had been employed after each World War, and created a mammoth anti-German hysteria. It is absolutely imperative to emphasize that not one single person arrested and imprisoned was ever charged with a crime, and many were still incarcerated three years after the war ended.
Why were these Americans terrorized and treated so inhumanely, and why has this dark side of history been hushed up so far? It is not taught in schools. It is not reported or mentioned by our media, even though Japanese internment has not only been acknowledged but also has been materially addressed. Already in 1988 on August 10, through the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record H.R. 442), document 00168, 28 pages, January 3, 1985, especially pages 4 through 8, page 7 deals with setting up the trust fund; each surviving Japanese internee was granted $20,000 and a $1.25 billion education fund was instituted for internee offspring. As my children would say: “What is wrong with this picture? Were the Japanese not willing allies of the Nazis? Why treat German-American citizens differently than Japanese?”
Prior to being released, German internees were frequently required to sign an oath never to speak our right of their experiences. The result of these actions was the destruction of every ounce of their human dignity. They were left scarred, afraid to act, to speak out. No one addressed their psychological, emotional, and physical wounds. U.S. Senators Russ Feingold and Chuck Grassley have repeatedly introduced the Wartime Treatment Study Act in the Senate. It is a simple document of acknowledgment of injustices done to citizens of German and Italian ethnicity. So far it has been rejected five times rejected five times.
This is only a small example of German citizens’ war and after-war experiences in this country. So why does no one speak out and draw attention to these horrors? Why does the Feingold-Grassley bill linger in obscurity in a Senate filing cabinet? Why don’t Germans protest and demand justice the way the Japanese did? I cannot answer that question. Have we, people of Germanic origin, become so domicile by the constant whipping of the world press that we do not dare ask for injustice to be corrected anymore? I found one small outcry to redress German citizen abuse by the government. This coming from an internet site by the German-American Internet Coalition, formed in 2005, which is asking for monetary compensation for German internees.
The same fate of ill-treatment and obscurity also befell Russian Germans. Why were they, who were never a part of Nazi Germany, lumped together with the rest of the Germans? I and many others believe that the suppression of the Germans as a minority and the labeling of all Germans present in Germany during Hitler’s reign was and is executed by deliberate design. Instead of treating the German nation like any other country, namely as a society of strata, every citizen was tarred with the same brush and all Germans were held equally responsible for the horrors of the fascists. I know my own family, steeped in Catholicism, never adhered to Nazi-ism, and I know of countless others. Today we know without doubt that this was done to settle Germany with a guilt that can never be expunged and can be exploited forever.
I grew up during these times in communist East Germany, and lo and behold the communists pounded guilt into the very fabric of our souls. Why were Stalin’s East German allies so set upon instilling guilt in us, the children of the aftermath? It was for only one reason, to turn us into unthinking, emoting, pliable tools.
So you can see that the label of “guilty” was useful to both systems: capitalism and communism. Because of this horrendous burden of guilt, international political maneuvers were carried out, with the German population unable to protest. As you well know, we cannot go into the politics of the last 64 years, or I be speaking longer than you care to hear.
Going back in history, we need to remind ourselves, not everyone was in favor of severing America’s ties with dear old England when this country was founded. There were always British subjects and English-Americans intensely interested in keeping a strong British bond alive. That bond was strongly retied during the 20th century, while all bonds between German-Americans and Germany were strongly discouraged because of the Nazi past. Never mind that this blip in history is now six decades past.
So we arrive at today with Germans being the nation’s largest ancestry group of nearly 43 million or 15 percent of the population, as shown in the census of 1990. This count does not include the millions of later German immigrants, thereby making us the largest minority group in the country with 57,985,595 equal to 23.3 percent of the entire population.
Here is a question for you. Why is this an enormous population only a silent partner of political America? This population, which on the whole, never asks for favors, pays their taxes, is tremendously successful, and is rarely involved in crime. Why are there few, if any, streets, parks or buildings ever named after any of these overachievers? I know personally only of the small Hoover House and park in Little Newberg, Oregon, after all, the man had been president. Why were no statues and memorials erected to the millions of Russian Germans killed by Stalin, but we erected a huge monument in Vancouver, Washington, to memorialize the feats of two Soviet flyers? And why is this great German group the largest part of the silent majority when it comes to politics? In contrast to other more vocal minorities, we certainly are neither organized nor politically active. By the way, most of what I bring before you goes without a doubt for Canadian Germans.
Of course, we have a very good idea why this is so. Germans all over the world have been cowed into guilt. The drumbeat of a hostile world press has been relentless over time to instill in all of us a false feeling of guilt for the bloody deeds of Nazis. The label of fascism has never been removed from Germany by the world media. Even though Germany was a tiered society, with different segments of the population holding diverse beliefs; Germany was the only country in world history to be treated like a uniform piece of dough in which every morsel was equal to any other; a fact that could then be exploited here in America to label and silence any opposition from this large immigrant group.
Of course, the guilt drum was not only beaten by other nations, but by German politicians, writers, artists, and philosophers as well. By that I do not mean to say that guilt and the outrages of Nazi-ism should not be discussed. To the contrary, I believe in justice and punishment for crimes committed, but over time I have resented that no amount of atonement by those innocent of Nazi crimes were ever enough.
Days before coming here, I visited with friends traveling across America. Here is what they told me about our president’s visit to Germany. “Well, your newly minted president came and went without our Chancellor Frau Angela Merkel. Did he comment on the wonderful achievements Germany has made in the last 65 years? Did he notice or praise the monumental sacrifices and hardships the last Germans made to erase East Germany’s third world status with which it was left by the Russians and the communists who ran the country? Did he praise the country for their great social systems, these paradigms of welfare and health? No, he went straight to the Nazi camps and that was the entire emphasis of his trip. He thereafter orated volubly about Germany’s guilt, the guilt never to be forgotten. Even the press, never known to dismiss Obama, commented that Frau Merkel went about with a sour, strained face that clearly showed that after 65 years some other, more pleasant things should have been mentioned about Germany.”
I know well how this never-ending flow of the guilt river works on the psyche of the innocent. I was four years old when the war ended and, yet, the reign of endless accusations of guilt by association beat me like all the other innocents into submission. I came to accept guilt for crimes committed before I was born; committed by people I did not know, who had committed crimes I could not imagine in my wildest dreams, and yet, I was often addressed as if I had actively participated in these crimes. To give you an example, some of you might have also heard this, “Well, you coming from Nazi Germany should understand why Germans are lumped together. You all voted for Hitler!”
To which I retorted, time and again, “No, I do not understand. I was four when Nazi Germany ended and I never voted for him, neither did my family. So do not tell me what I should understand.”
Deep in my heart, I felt tremendous sadness for the victims of Nazi-ism, but I also understood that I was blameless. Therefore, after a while, resentment began to grow within me. I wrote a book, Chronicle of Time and Guilt, in an attempt to explain the situation of those Germans, who, like my parents, family, and their friends, were trapped by the machinations of a vicious regime. Needless to say, even though many people believed in my work and tried their best to have it published, I had a renowned agent in Switzerland, no publisher wanted to touch the subject.
Because of this guilt, it is often acceptable to portray Germans as stoic, stupid brutes without feelings. I have yet to read an American book in which a German is portrayed as sensitive, slight of stature and beautiful of face. I have not yet read a book where the author celebrated a German’s goodness, industriousness and ability to solve difficult problems. Just the opposite, I have read more than one book published during the last 20 years, portraying all Germans as beefy, red faced, brutal, semi fascists, as for example in, Snow Falling on Cedars. In this book, even the women are hefty and of unpleasant character, while their Japanese neighbors on Oregon’s Sauvies Island are drawn as slender, sweet, civilized human beings. And, of course, the Germans stole parcels of land from their interned, frail, slender neighbors.
I just read in the Los Angeles Times, that there is an effort underway to make this book a must-read piece of literature in our schools.
I think you all remember the TV show, Hogan’s Heroes. My preteen child devoured this show, which featured rotund, bumbling, but lovable Sgt. Schultz and the semi-retarted Col. Klinck. I admit that I, too, had to laugh about the Americans’ droll attempts to outfox the dimwitted Germans. Ever so often though, I reminded my offspring that, in reality, very few prisoners ever left German stalags because the powers that were in charge were ruthless, smart and very efficient.
Speaking of stereotypes, I still remember the day 44 years ago when my future husband introduced me to his American company commander. I had barely been introduced, when he, still shaking my hand, bellowed out: “Well, hello Kraut!” I was so taken aback; I was speechless. When I finally found my tongue, I blurted out, “Hello, there, hot dog.”
Fortunately, he had the good grace to laugh and not hold my boldness against my husband.
By the way, do any of you know why God invented strong whiskey? It was, of course, to keep the Irish from taking over the world. And do you know how the Germans made German chocolate cake? First, they invade Belgium to get the chocolate.
Now, which joke would you rather claim for your nationality? I, personally, like the first one better. At my time of life, and 65 years after the war, I have lost my sense of humor for yet another stale Nazi German joke.
My gripe about this stereotype also extends to children’s books and plays with which the next generations are indoctrinated. Take, for example, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I just took my six-year-old grandchild to this play and was astounded by blatant racism. Of four despicable children, the first and worst is the German boy named Glook, which the radio announcer in the play promptly pronounces, Poop. He is depicted as demented, as a gross uncivilized, disgusting glutton, and so is his German mother, who relentlessly stuffs food into his mouth. She, too, is portrayed as fat, gross and endowed with the ubiquitous Barbarian hair braid around her head. I assure you, you cannot miss her and her son’s ugly German-ness.
Forgive me, I digress, but I believe racial stereotypes need to be dealt with for all and not only for privileged races.
By now you must be asking yourself why bring these old historical facts up at this point in time? I do so because I found there is an important historical connection to another silenced, fairly compliant group of people: the Russian German people before, during, and after the Soviet revolution.
Their political silence began under the reign of Catherine the Great, which afforded German settlers certain special rights. Exceedingly important rights were abstention from military service and the right to worship their faith freely. However, for those special privileges the settlers were deprived of political participation, the Mitbestimmungsrecht, and had no voice in the inner or foreign political workings of the country. They were, however, saddled with many more laws to obey than they had freedoms. This state of affairs continued very much unchanged until the last days of the tzar, when the Reds in the show of brotherhood pretended to allow Russian German enclaves, like the Volga German autonomous region, a political voice. History shows, that the German minority never had any decision-making power after the revolution turned into a Bolshevik rout, and was totally disenfranchised a short time later; a period, which was followed by what can only be described as pogroms, or the holocaust of the Germans.
And here is your connection to today! The Russian Germans, a silent, compliant population, were being labeled, coerced, and disowned of all their possessions, and then brutally forced into gulags and the wilds of Siberia by a coalition of pan-slavists and communists. These German Russians were as silent as the German-Americans of today. And, just like Hitler’s victims in Germany, they had no weapons to defend themselves. I must note here, that revolutions are successful when the rebels have weapons and the population, although in the majority, is defenseless.
I would like to talk about class envy for a moment. At first, before and during the early days of the October Revolution, the Russian people just wanted a government change; a change toward democracy, a country led by the new ethics and morals of the newly evolved, strong middle class; a change so profound and simple that even exalted, contemporary, forward-thinking members of the Tzar’s own family were calling for the change. But as the revolution progressed, it was not enough for the Red mob to right wrongs and stop the excesses of some of the nobility. No, to garner absolute power, the terms of the revolutionary objectives were changed and with it, the very definition of the words wealthy and rich.
Whereas, at the beginning of the revolution, the definition of rich had been a noble’s latifundia, replete with many villages, bonded farm workers and immeasurable riches. By the end of the societal takeover, a farmer with a cow and a horse was branded Kulak and, therefore, rich. The cow, his grain and his last crust of bread, were asked expropriated from him—for he was a rich Kulak.
The big joke of the Soviet revolution is that the Reds were able to kill the Tzar and his entire hapless family, but that most of the nobility and the truly rich people escaped their machinations. The politically astute had foreseen the trouble, saving most of their wealth by concentrating it outside the country. They saved their lives and fortunes by leaving at the first sign of trouble. I can attest to the fact that Paris was full of wealthy and not-so-wealthy Russian refugees. I met them 30 years later. They had carried their jewels, carpets, and money with them. The rest had been invested in Swiss bank accounts.
So, with the big fish having swam away, the definition of wealth was adjusted to include anyone who owned anything. The big joke is that Lenin’s own mother, a woman of mixed parentage, a Volga German woman of the bourgeoisie, a woman who outrageously spoiled her offspring, abetting them in their revolutionary activity, would have been a target of the Red marauders if she had not been Lenin’s mother. Lenin’s mother, Anna, was the daughter of a baptized Jew and Anna Johanna Groschopf, the daughter of a wealthy German father and Swedish mother. Yekaterina von Essen, her mother’s sister, who provided a truly remarkable education for her, raised her after her mother’s death. Her entire family and social background were solid bourgeois or buergerlich. She had been exquisitely educated in music, French, English, and German literature and was imbued with liberal social ideas. Of course, she was in favor of the socialist changes in the country. However, even she, so sophisticated a woman, would not have been able to reconcile her beliefs to the outrages of the revolution. Fortunately for her, she died the year before.
Who can blame me then that, whenever I hear, “Let us tax the rich,” my blood runs cold. For there are many more of us—small business owners, academics, doctors and lawyers, in short—well-to-do people—than there are really rich people. In a class war, we would be the ones who would get targeted; because we worked hard, saved and invested properly and took care of all our obligations, as good citizens should.
In the last hundred years, the world has witnessed numerous upheavals, where in total suspension of gods and all of man’s laws, men fell upon each other like wild beasts for material gain. They robbed, raped, and killed, ending their rampages by leaving in their aftermath societies under savage dictatorships, which, in turn, presided over inhuman, organized anarchy.
Following the Ottomans’ genocide of the Americans, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, the world then experienced Pol Pot and his legacy of mountains of skulls. Mountains of bones reached for the sky because the communists murdered so many people that it was impossible to bury them. Allow me to read the words of one of his victims: her name is Sath. She is finally, after all these years, allowed to speak out.
She testified that her family owned a nice house with a piece of land along the Mekong River. They were farmers and merchants belonging to the middle class. When the Khmer Rouge communists swept through the area, her husband was rounded up with the rest of the doctors, teachers, businessmen, and intellectuals. The soldiers told her to leave her home and start marching into the countryside with her eight children. Within days, she heard her husband had been killed with all the other men. Next, all her children were taken away and killed; lastly, the Khmer came from her. They beat and clubbed her and left her for dead under the body of another woman. “They killed all of us, because they wanted what we had,” she said.
Her testimony is so familiar to me. I have read it with variations 100 times in the records of Russian Germans. History is replete with a long line of persecuted peoples. Most are the victims of communism who are now seeking redress of their grievances. The newest group clamoring for acknowledgment of their genocide, reaching the ears of our president is the Armenians. The victims of Pol Pot finally get hearings. But you notice that Stalin’s murders and genocides are still not on the world’s attention list, although there is clamor by different groups to do so. They, however, are pushed aside, ignored and haughtily dismissed because of the fascist label. Therefore the powers that be, particularly the United Nations, have never had to deal with injustices done to Germans of any background.
Why were Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot never challenged and brought to justice by international tribunals? Not until today, after many of pull pots henchmen had gone to their graves—in a very peaceful fashion I might add—are their crimes addressed by tribunals? Mao was never called to account for his own, or the murderous excesses of his wife or the young Red Guard, and Uncle Joe Stalin slithered peacefully into the hereafter without so much as a blink because as long as he was alive no liberal humanist would challenge him. Was it perhaps that after the war, his allies were disgusted to have supported a mass murderer much more horrible then the Nazi Hitler? After all, Stalin told Winston Churchill at their first meeting that he had killed all the Kulaks so the allies knew whom they were supporting.
During the last few weeks public broadcasting in California has offered a series on the Russian Revolution, wherein it was revealed that Churchill at one point became so distraught by Stalin’s crimes that he considered attacking Russia, but he never publicly voiced his grievances.
But let me leave this unhappy part of history and turn to the present. At the founding of the Concordia’s new Volga German Studies Center, the question arose, why should any university become a center of Russian German knowledge? Many universities have study centers for women’s studies, Islamic studies, and even gay and lesbian studies. How worthy these subjects might be is not for me to say. I know, however, that compared to the study of the Russian German people, these subjects pale in importance. I firmly believe every university should be endowed with such a center.
At this point, I have to declare that I am neither a Russian German person, nor am I a descendent of Russian German parents. However, having grown up under communism, I can totally identify and empathize with these people. The plight of these colonists has intrigued me all my life. As a young teen I met two girls who told me an unbelievable tale—the story of their Volga German mother and aunt—and their escape from a Russian gulag. My grandmother added to the intrigue by telling me of these valiant people who left house and homeland to settle the lands along the Volga and other Russian lands, facing seemingly insurmountable odds.
The historical importance of the settlements and the people, who civilized the Russian lands, has never been greatly publicized. As one person remarked on my endeavor to write a trilogy about the subject, “Why write about it? No one was interested the first time around.” Needless to say the remark infuriated me and incited need to become even more avid.
And yet, there is historical greatness in the way the Russian Germans civilized a lawless frontier and made the steppe bloom. Every tsar, beginning with Ivan the Terrible, had attempted this feat and every czar failed. Catherine the Great succeeded because of the Volga Germans for one reason, for another because of her enormously bloodied victories over the raiding Islamic tribes of the Russian South and the Crimea, which gave force to her threats to the Kirghiz, Kazakh, and Tartar Khans. Her subjects, the Volga Germans, were a vital part of pulling Russia out of Byzantine Eastern-Orthodox squalor into the circle of the civilized countries of the West.
I, and many others feel that the subject of Russian German history is of the utmost importance. From the time I was a young girl, I wondered why the world, as it should, volubly condemned the Holocaust, but ignored with studied indifference the Holocaust of the Russian minorities, foremost among them, the Ukrainians and the Russian Germans.
Line with world press for many decades, concentrator moral outrage on Germany and 6 million Jewish victims while allowing Stalling’s murder of 22 million and perhaps more people to slide, mostly unreported, into history.
Like-minded people and I came to the conclusion that these murders were excused because they were carried out under the Marxist philosophical banner of lifting the poor and the downtrodden, the farmers, factory and mine workers out of oppression, despair and poverty.
As we all know, the communist experiment, despite its enormous human sacrifices, did not lead to better lives for most people in the Soviet paradise. On the contrary, when I visited Russia in 2002, years after perestroika and opening of the markets, I found the population still suffering from terrible conditions. From St. Petersburg to Moscow to Saratov people were still poor, lived in cramped, unpleasant quarters, and dealt with daily bureaucratic, transportation and infrastructure problems. Everyone who has visited the former Soviet Union knows that it will take perhaps another 20 years before Russian people come close to achieving the living standard of the West.
Furthermore, in the Russia of today, democracy is once more being dismantled bit by constitutional bit by its ex-KGB president. The constitution was just changed making it a crime against the government to criticize the president. This means that everyone, whether citizen, reporter or foreign aid worker, can be arrested and prosecuted for pointing out even small transgressions by the government or its president.
In other communist countries, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, for example, communist dictators are changing the constitution to eventually be granted presidential life terms. In those countries, the intellectuals and the prosperous, in short, the most productive of society, are becoming the oppressed minorities.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the most powerful reason for Russian German Studies Centers:
Just as the Holocaust must never be forgotten, Stalin’s gulags and the communist excesses must be remembered and held up to the American people as a reminder that horrific means never justify the ends of purported human advancement.
I believe so strongly in the relevance of Concordia’s Volga German Center that I wrote a trilogy chronicling the lives and history of the Volga Germans and dedicate all proceeds from the sales of these book to the Center. With my books, I hope to educate the new generations of Russian German offspring to the often-terrible conditions their ancestors had to overcome for survival. I have researched many publications—academic treatises, compilations of data and self-report—and frankly, although well worth being perused, they were terribly boring. Being prepared by Germans, the material is as orderly, precise, and as well-written as data can be presented. The self-reports were moving in content, yet suffer from inadequate vocabulary and expression—farmers are seldom writers. Statistics of the dead and deported or horrific but lack powerful emotional impact. An unknown Russian writer who best makes my point, averred: “When you stand in the cemetery it is hard to cry for all the dead.” When you read numbers it is hard to cry for the unknown millions.
It was for these reasons that I felt it was of importance that the Volga German people be portrayed in a way with which a reader can empathize. I wrote the trilogy especially for students in the hopes they would learn from history and know that when they encounter certain social changes they will recognize what must be rejected as unacceptable—as morally wrong.
As I stand here today, I ask myself what good will come from the thousands of manuscripts, the unaccountable statistics of death, of suffering, torture, and servitude that the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia has collected? Will you bury these accounts of atrocity in the drawers of your archives or will you bring them into the light? Will these heart-wrenching tales and statistics molder in folders with other sand personal accounts, or will you use them to educate today’s youth, who are woefully ignorant of all history. And, might I add, not only today’s youth but also today’s adults who fill their brains with reality TV and the shopping channel.
As I look at you and your immense historical achievements, I see destiny written upon your brow. You did not do this monumental work because you suffered from a case of ancestor worship! Nay, you collected the data so the horrific past might not be forgotten. Well done, I say! So use these fruits of your work, define your purpose and fulfill your destiny! Begin to teach. To openly, loudly educate! Make this your mission. Do not allow history to repeat itself shamelessly anywhere in the world because no one spoke out. No! All of you are stewards of one of history’s greatest criminal secrets and you must divulge it to the rest of the world, because few news agencies do.
I encourage you to begin a dialogue based upon the historic data you have gathered. Russian-German ancestry achievement is based upon traits common to most Germans. We have been blessed genetically with strong minds and bodies. We tend to think in logical, problem-solving terms. We are people of faith, of values, morals and ethics. These traits and values kept the Russian-Germans achieving great deeds under conditions where others, less stout of heart, would have perished. It is become very important to discuss the values upon which these contributions are based, contributions which allowed German immigrants to benefit their adoptive countries.
The abiding faith of the Russian Germans, their work ethic, morals, and family values that enabled them to survive the horrors of the past, and withstand the onslaught of class envy and the concomitant call to take from the successful to endow a corrupt oligarchy is still a virtue to be preached. Don’t misunderstand; I fervently believe in sharing with those less fortunate and I do so. What I object to, are governmental takings to benefit their voting populace.
Just days ago, I heard of the new abominable attempt to end the freedom of expression. Certain newspapers clamor for government monies to bail them out and save them from bankruptcy. Whoever heard of a free press being funded by government money? I have! In East Germany, Poland, Russia and everywhere else behind the Iron Curtain, the government funded the press. And you can guess what was published in those papers. It certainly was not the truth. Of course, no exposés of governmental mistakes and crimes appeared in the pages of those papers, neither were their unvarnished facts to be read. Everything written there was tainted by the censor.
Nowadays, as I look at my emails, the box overflows with angry and worried missives. I have so many referrals to political sites on YouTube and blogs that, sadly, I have to send most to oblivion with a click of the mouse. When I go to my water aerobics class, friends surprised me with newspaper articles, the pertinent bits already highlighted. They hand me notes:
“Please, do something about this,” read one note about the German internees. “You must know some influential people.”
“Write an article to the Los Angeles Times about religious persecution of Christians in this country,” requests another.
“I have relatives in Russia. They are beginning to worry about Putin. Should they emigrate? Could they come to the U.S.A.? Can you help?”
These voices are sadly mistaken. Writing is a very lonely business, politicians read few books and newspapers except very little unsolicited material, and as to help with immigration, this involvement takes energy and passion. The passion remains within me, but the energy has become limited. Therefore, I refer these people seeking help and redress to your organization, to internet sites, and their senators. I do not know if they follow through with their complaints or if the politicians hear them.
Your organization, however, is an invaluable network to instruct citizens and educate. I would be very gratified if the concerns I brought before you were the beginning of a widespread, honest discourse. It is imperative that academics begin debates about historical truths and the ways in which history repeats itself. We must debate political expediency, about Russia’s retreat from democracy. In our country, too, certain groups have demonized those who argue against the destruction of their values, bestowing upon them the label: intolerant bigots.
I see your organization as the one most capable to begin a dialogue. Your network and your newspapers are well established; although you should consider reaching out to a much wider audience. The organization’s multitude of internet sites should present a vibrant historical reality and connect the past to the history in the making. On a smaller scale: every one of us can begin an email dialogue with friends and relatives. We must not be silent!
I thank you for allowing me the honor to address you, and thank you for your attention.