The Deportation and Destruction of the German Minority in the USSR

The once large and culturally vibrant German minorities of the former USSR are today rapidly disappearing. In 1897 the Russian Empire had 1,791,000 ethnic German subjects. The German population of the USSR numbered 1,621,000 in 1918, 1,238,000 in 1926, 1,152,000 in 1937, 1,620,000 in 1959, 1,846,000 in 1970, 1,936,000 in 1979 and 2,038,000 in 1989. Descendants of German immigrants to the Russian Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries, the ethnic Germans of Kazkhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia have lost much of their cultural vitality in the second half of the 20th century. In 1926, 94.9% of the Germans in the USSR spoke German as a native language. By 1989, this percentage had been reduced to a mere 48.7%. The elimination of Germans as viable cultural minorities in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) has been exacerbated in recent years by massive emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany. Between 1987 and 1997, 1,584,566 ethnic Germans from the former USSR emigrated to Germany. The 1989, Soviet census counted 2,038,341 ethnic Germans in the USSR. The recent emigration to Germany thus represents a significant majority of the German population of the former USSR. The Germans remaining in the former USSR will undoubtedly continue to assimilate into Russian culture at an even more rapid rate as the number of ethnically conscious individuals steadily decreases through emigration, natural attrition, and assimilation of newer generations. In a few generations the ethnic German population of the former Soviet Union will be negligible due to the combined forces of assimilation and emigration.