ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 19

November 2003
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

Enigma 2000 article - German speaking groups outside Germany - Part 3

Part 3, the concluding section, of this interesting piece from our German Desk.

Sudeten Germans

Bohemia and Moravia which are today part of the Czech Republic had a German population as far back as the 12th Century.

In the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia immediately prior to WW2 there existed a strong German minority. This area was annexed by the Germans just prior to WW2, as a result of Hitler's expansionist policies, his "Drang Nach Osten" [Push to the East].

Post WW2 this area was returned to Czechoslovakia and most of its German residents forcibly expelled.

Not all left however.

Official Czech sources give the number of Ethnic Germans still living there 51000. German sources estimate this number as 200000.

Germans in Slovakia

The region of Carpathia, today divided between Slovakia and the Ukraine was home to German settlements as far back as the 11^th Century. The main regions in Slovakia which were German settled were the areas of Zips and the city of Pressburg. The 1938 estimate of Carpathian Germans living in Slovakia is stated in the records of the time as 130000.

Post WW2 most were deported. A census taken in 1991 showed the number of Germans as 5629. Unofficial estimates suggest 15000.

Sources

This article has been researched using the following sources:

The excellent site at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/deu1.html
[This site is a must for anyone interested in anthropological subjects, minority languages or ethnic groups].
Feldgrau.com: The excellent research site owned by Jason Pipes. If you want information on any 1914 - 18 or 1939-45 war involving the German Armed Forces, Police, Auxiliary or Intelligence Services, try this site.
Waffen-SS by DSV Fosten and RJ Marrion. Published by Almark [Out of print]? An excellent and concise source of information on the many and varied SS Divisions and their uniforms and equipment.
Private conversation with various individuals, over many years. As the majority can no longer be asked for permission to divulge their identity I have given all the courtesy of anonimity. Many belonged to the MSO [Mixed Services Organisation] which all who served in BAOR will recall. I always found them worth getting to know, preferably early in the evening! They can best be described as a type of Balkan Pioneer Corps, fed, housed and clothed by the British Army. In return they performed hard labouring jobs and various guard duties for BAOR [particularly on big NATO schemes.
Interestingly many were Serb, the only language we had in common was German - that of our former enemy.
CIA World Fact Book. An excellent source of information on the internet. It covers everything most researchers will need on any country worldwide; population, armed forces, railway systems, airports and so on.

Historical Notes and comment

Many of the regions mentioned in this article, save Switzerland, were incorporated, forcibly, as a result of conquest into Germany, or, as the times went, Greater Germany.

Luxembourg, Alsace-Loraine, the Sudetenland and East Prussia were amongst these. As such they were subject to the conscription laws in force in wartime Germany. Once conscripted would have served in whatever branch of service they were selected for, be it Army, Navy or Air Force.

Many went voluntarily in thousands of cases into the various 'foreign legions' of the Waffen-SS. Others would be subject to the labour laws and could be forced into the Reichs Arbeits Dienst, the Labour Service.

Ironically, following 20^th July, 1944 attempt on Hitler's life all foreign units serving in the German armed forces were incorporated, by the stroke of a pen, into the SS. Thus those serving had no say in the matter, certainly a case of compulsory transfer!.

All the ethnic German groups mentioned provided a source of voluntary recruitment during WW2, notably the SS who had sufficient volunteers to form complete divisions. These divisions were named after various national groups or heroes ie Belgium: Legion Wallonie, or French: Legion Charlemange.

I have omitted the Legion of St George, a unit formed of disaffected British Nationals who were PoW's. They had a strength of between 60 to 2 to 300 depending on what source one believes. They were omitted because, like many of the other National Legions, they are not relevant here.

So, how do these eastern ethnic groups stand today? Post-reunification times and attitudes have changed.

When East Germany still existed, that existence was never officially recognised by the West German government. Today millions of Marks have had to be invested in rebuilding infrastructure and industry, the technology of which has not progressed beyond the 1950's.

The influx of former East Germans and latterly, ethnic German groups seeking work in the affluent former West Germany has staggered the labour and financial market.

Unemployment, once unknown in East Germany, and not a real problem in West Germany, is now a real threat to the economy.

One of the first acts on the reunification of East and West German Armed Forces was the compulsory retirement of 70000 officers and senior NCO's, along with the East German Border Guard Force.

Presumably, these were considered too indoctrinated by what is considered an extremist regime.

How do today's Germans view all this? One of my long time German friends, an ordinary working class person, expressed this opinion on the influx of Eastern and ethnic groups from East Germany and beyond.

She said, "They come here [the West] and claim they were bitten in the arse by a German Shepherd Dog sixty years ago and now claim it makes them German!"

I too watched an interesting interview some years back, in the immediate reunification times. The interviewee was from the former East Prussia. When asked what he would do about the lack of work in his area he said, "Go West." The interviewer then asked what he would do if the work dried up. "No problem," he replied in heavily accented German, "I can always work 'black'". This is the literal translation of 'Schwarz Arbeiten', to work black or be on the black economy. We would say 'off the books' or 'on the fiddle'.

So, with unemployment rising, the economy faltering, several thousand unemployed servicemen and former secret police men and STASI agents, small wonder the German Numbers keep rolling onto the short waves. We seem to be living, according to the ancient Chinese curse, 'in interesting times'. [Tnx German Desk]. ©ENIGMA2000. May,2003.

[ENIGMA 2000 is privy to the little known fact that the majority of Secret Policemen and STASI agents are now taxi drivers. All former East Germans have to do is tell the driver their name and they are taken straight to their home address]!