Abwehr vs. NKVD, All about spies and their missions

You're kidding, right? Thousands of German ethnics - men, women, even teenage ones - were rounded up post war and taken to the Soviet Union for hard labour. Others were persecuted by Rumanian authorities. Many changed their names to avoid unwanted attention. And so on.
DeadCat, whom I have not seen here for long, perhaps can tell more.

Gen. Dénes

No, I am serious.
This was discussed before in detail under this website, so I will remind only the essentials:
Yes, 100,000 Germans were sent to Soviet Union for forced labor, and yes a part of them never returned (death being one of the reasons).
But the total of German population in Romania was much more - about 800,000 thousand.
I have to check if you want a precise number.
So, in short form: up to 12.5 percent of the German population living in Romania was sent to forced labor in USSR, and a part of this 12.5 percent never returned to their homes/families.

Compare this with the countries that I have mentioned (Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia) were 100 percent (ALL) of the population was forcefully sent to Germany or Austria, with their belongings being confiscated.

Regarding persecutions against some Germans that never left to USSR for forced labor, it is a fact, but remember that in the same span of time even more Romanians were subject to the same kind of persecutions. You cannot claim that the majority (the Romanians) were left untouched while some Germans were persecuted.
If you feel that there is a problem in my logic, you are welcome to reply.

This post has been edited by Florin on December 05, 2014 06:08 pm

What year is this related to? What is your source, please?

Thanks.

Gen. Dénes

What year is this related to? What is your source, please?

Thanks.

Gen. Dénes

The most convenient (easy) for me is to present this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans_of_Romania
where is stated from the beginning that: "786,000 of Germans in interwar Romania in 1939 "

I can also spend some time to find and search a Romanian geographical atlas printed in 1934 or 1935, inherited from my grandparents.
However, for this second option:
1. All available data is from 1933 or earlier. This means a number smaller than the number reached by the same ethnic group 11 years later. I am aware that there was a war in that time span of 11 years, but I still think that there were more Germans in Romania in 1944 than in 1933 or few years earlier.
2. That geographic atlas is a Romanian print - you may object for its accuracy.

Regards,
Florin

This post has been edited by Florin on December 06, 2014 08:15 pm

This is getting off topic. However, let me add just a few words:
1, If in 1933 there were 786.000 Germans, for sure there were much less after the war. I also checked Wikipedia (Rumanian version) and found this: 1948–343.913.
Therefore, I would say, in 1945 there were less than a half mission ethnic Germans left in Rumania.
2, I don't understand your second statement. Why would I object to a Rumanian edition of the inter-war geographical atlas? At that point, only the Rumanian censuses can give official data on the ethnic mosaic of the population in 'Greater Rumania'. We can debate how close to the actual truth those figures are, but that's a different story.

Gen. Dénes

This is getting off topic. However, let me add just a few words:
1, If in 1933 there were 786.000 Germans, for sure there were much less after the war. I also checked Wikipedia (Rumanian version) and found this: 1948–343.913.
Therefore, I would say, in 1945 there were less than a half mission ethnic Germans left in Rumania.
2, I don't understand your second statement. Why would I object to a Rumanian edition of the inter-war geographical atlas? At that point, only the Rumanian censuses can give official data on the ethnic mosaic of the population in 'Greater Rumania'. We can debate how close to the actual truth those figures are, but that's a different story.

Gen. Dénes

The number you are offering, 343.913 in 1948, worth a search about how did this happen. Things are not as simple as to claim that the downfall in numbers is solely due to a forced expatriation by Romanian authorities.
Many people left to Germany on their own will in the years when Germany was occupying the whole Europe and Romania was in the Axis. Hermann Oberth may be the most famous case. He took his family with him, too.
Tens of thousands of Germans of Transylvania were either volunteers in the armies of The Third Reich, either enlisted in the Romanian Army, either in the Hungarian Army. It may sound as an irony, but one of the results of participating to a war is dying.
Other Germans run in 1944 when the frontline moved to Transylvania.
Then came Stalin's request for 100,000 Romanian workers to work in the Soviet factories, fended off by the leadership of Romania by sending instead 100,000 Germans.
Also, if in the census of 1948 some Germans declared themselves as Romanians or Hungarians because this way they felt more secure, it is a good point to ask why they felt more secure this way, but they were still living in Romania and later they may declared themselves Germans again.
This subject worth research from historians, to see all of the reasons that combined into a drop from 786.000 in 1939 to an official census of 343.913 in 1948.
Still is not a completely wiped out German population, as in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Out of topic, while the Germans were in Transylvania for almost 1000 years and they were asked to come and settle by the Magyar kings, the Germans forced out of Poland and Czechoslovakia were living there since the beginnings of the written history, i.e. before the rise of the Roman Empire.

Regarding my geographical atlas, one day I may try some scans.
It is more than interesting, it is fascinating.

This post has been edited by Florin on December 08, 2014 04:44 am

We all know Rumanian and specially 'Greater Rumania' sources cant be trusted, therefore only Hungayrian ones should be cited in this debate.

I don't know what do you mean by 'Hungayrian', and whom do you want to provoke here. I suggest you if you don't have any meaningful to add to this discussion, then just don't add anything, do not attempt to flame this thread. Thank you.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 08, 2014 06:36 pm

Ah! Darn autocorrect ... I didn't mean to write Hun-GAY-rian but that's actually pretty funny LOL

Source - Internet.
Russian book of Anatoly Tereschenko "The SMERSH Purgatory. The Stalin's «wolf-hounds»", 2011.

The romanian mil. inteligence agents.

Bringing Antonescu as prisonier.

This post has been edited by Petre on September 28, 2015 05:45 pm

Firstly, the number 786.000 is for the Kingdom of Romania in the borders of 1939 and the 344.000 for the census of 1948, when most of the deportees were still in the Soviet Union and Romania had a different border.
Second, during ww2 cca 200.000 Bessarabian, Dobrujan and Bukovina Germans were resettled (treaty of 5. Sept. 1940) to Germany, mainly Warthegau.
During the war about 65.000 Germans served in the German armed forces, mainly Waffen SS. Casualties were 15.000 KIA and MIA. Also an undetermined number did flee from the approaching frontline and made it to germany, mostly from Banat. That combined with the birth drop accounts for the reduction from 786K to 343K.

The Chechoslovakian Republic deported the entire german population, just as Poland who had to move her border by 200km. Most Germans from Yugoslavia would flee during 1944-1945. Of those who did not, a large number died in concentration camps. Of those who survived, the overwhelming majority being permitted to leave for the newly created Federal Republic of Germany in an organized fashion, starting from 1948.

Romanians were presecuted because of their political allegiance or because they were wealthy, thus belonging to the burgeoisie. German (and other) minorities were persecuted additionaly because of their ethnicity.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on January 16, 2015 05:41 pm

Hi "dead-cat",

You added some more specific data (sincerely welcomed), but other than what I am quoting next...

...your comments do not contradict what I wrote when I had answered to Dénes.

Best regards,
Florin

Another fragment found from the text written by Boris Sîromiatnikov

This post has been edited by Petre on September 28, 2015 05:49 pm

Upgrade to the text above, from a "full version" of the article.
It seems to me it was also a BBC interview vith the author...

The memories of Gen. Michael Belousov, noted by col. Boris Sîromiatnikov

This post has been edited by Petre on September 28, 2015 05:55 pm