13.1 Forced Conscription for "Reconstruction Work" in the Soviet Union

On 10 January 1945, the conscription of men and women of German ethnicity began in the Banat, in Bucharest, and in Brașov. In Sibiu and other localities of southern Transylvania, ethnic Germans were taken from their homes from 13 January 1945 onward by mixed patrols composed of Romanian police or gendarmerie and Soviet military personnel. According to the order, all able-bodied men between the ages of 17 and 45 and women between 18 and 30 were to be conscripted by 20 January, though these age limits were very frequently disregarded (Baier 1994: 40, Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 103f.; Schipor 2019: 23, 90).

The deportation of Transylvanian Saxons for forced labor in the Soviet Union took place within the framework of the "mobilization and internment of all able-bodied Germans" of both German and other nationalities from Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. The conscription and transfer to labor camps was carried out on the basis of Secret Order No. 7161ss of the State Defense Committee, signed by Stalin on 16 December 1944. According to the order, the direction and organization of the mobilization fell under the authority of the NKWD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Narodny Kommissariat Wnutrennich Del). For purposes of implementation, the commanders of the Ukrainian Front and the deputy chairmen of the Allied Control Commissions were to establish contact with the governmental authorities of the countries concerned. The deportation order stipulated that the mobilized Germans were to be employed in the reconstruction of the mining industry in the Donets Basin and the ferrous metallurgy sector of southern Ukraine. The final point of Stalin's ten-point order directed that the mobilization be carried out in December 1944 and January 1945, with arrival at the labor sites to be completed by 15 February 1945 (Karner 1995: 25–27, Klein 1998: 155f., Poljan 1999: 345–347, Schipor 2019: 15).

The deportation and use of German labor as a potential form of reparations for the reconstruction of the Soviet Union had been raised during preparations for the Allied Foreign Ministers' Conference in Moscow (October 1943) and for the Tehran Conference (November/December 1943), without any agreement being reached. Reparations in the form of labor services were not provided for in the armistice agreement signed between Romania and the Allies on 12 September 1944. An agreement on German reparations, including labor services, was reached at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 — a month and a half after the conscription of German civilians from the territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers had already begun (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 75–79; Poljan 1999: 339–342). Documents from Moscow archives demonstrate that the deportation of German civilians for labor deployment was centrally planned and directed by the Soviet leadership. In November 1944, an NKVD-coordinated census of Germans living in the operational area of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia) was conducted to determine the number of potential laborers of German ethnicity in these states. The results of this "German census" were presented by People's Commissar of the Interior (Interior Minister and head of the NKVD) Lavrentiy Beria on 15 December 1944. The implementation of the forced deportation began once the respective territories had been "liberated" by the Soviet Army (Klein 1998: 154f., Poljan 1999: 344f., 348–350, Schipor 2019: 13f., 17–22).

It remains unclear when and in what form a representative of the Romanian government was informed by the Soviets of the impending deportation. An order from the Romanian Interior Ministry to the regional police inspectorates, dated 31 December 1944, refers to a directive communicated by telephone on 19 December 1944 from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. In this order, the Under-Secretariat of State for Police Affairs within the Interior Ministry forwarded a copy of the Prime Minister's directive, which set out three stages for carrying out the conscription once the relevant command had been received: (1) conscription of persons according to the stipulated age limits and tables per police or gendarmerie unit, (2) transfer to the nearest assembly camp, and (3) handover — accompanied by a nominal list of the persons delivered — of those conscripted in the cities by the police to gendarmerie representatives (Baier 1994: 37f.; Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3: 77). Neither in this order nor in the directive issued by the General Directorate of Police on 3 January 1945 — which communicated details and specifics regarding those to be conscripted and their internment — is any handover to the Soviets mentioned (Baier 1994: 38f., Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3: 79f.).

The Romanian government was evidently informed of the impending forced deportation initially by oral means (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 161). It is on record that Romanian Foreign Minister Constantin Vișoianu reported to Burton Berry, the US political representative in Bucharest, on 3 January 1945 the intention of the Soviet representatives to "conscript citizens of German origin from Romania and transfer them to Soviet Russia" (Baier 1994: 23f., Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 78). General Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov, deputy chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Romania, delivered Note No. 031 of the Allied Control Commission to Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Rădescu on 5 January 1945, which referred to the "mobilization for labor" and deployment "in accordance with the instructions of the [Soviet] Supreme Command" (Baier 1994: 40, Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 92, Schipor 2019: 23, 90).

The ethnic German population of Romania and its representatives had been hearing rumors of the impending forced deportation. Hans Otto Roth (1890–1953), the prominent Transylvanian Saxon politician of the interwar period, records in his notes that Prime Minister Rădescu had cryptically warned him at an audience on 21 December 1944 that all Germans in Romania were threatened by "grave matters." Roth had first heard the rumor of "registrations of Saxons and Swabians" on 10 December 1944; the relevant information grew denser toward the end of the month and was soon confirmed. The authorities in Bucharest only admitted on 4 January 1945 that deportation to the Soviet Union was being prepared. On 8 January 1945, Rădescu told Roth at a further audience that the action could not be prevented (Popa 2003: 702). Roth hoped to be able at least to mitigate the situation and submitted a total of 21 separate memoranda between 10 January and 22 March 1945 — including to the Soviet Embassy — all of which produced no result (Popa 2003: 684–687, 688–692).

The Romanian government addressed the impending deportation in two cabinet sessions on 5 and 10 January 1945. The discussions and resolutions are not known; conclusions may be drawn from the minutes of the meeting of the "National Democratic Front" (Frontul Național Democrat — FND), formed around the Communist Party, held on 11 January 1945. The Soviet-ordered forced deportation of Romania's Germans had triggered a governmental crisis: representatives of the bourgeois parties (the National Peasants' Party/Partidul Național Țărănesc and the National Liberal Party/Partidul Național Liberal) threatened to resign from the government or sought to pressure the Prime Minister into resigning because he had accepted the deportation order, thereby violating Romanian sovereignty. In a letter of protest to the Prime Minister dated 9 January 1945 "regarding the labor deportation," Dinu (Constantin I. C.) Brătianu, chairman of the National Liberal Party and Minister of War Production, pointed out that the measure constituted ethnic discrimination whose abolition had been stipulated in the armistice, and that the mass deportation would create a gap in the country's entire productive capacity (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 101–103). The representatives of the Communist Party (CP) took the view that, given the prevailing wartime situation, the orders of the Soviet Union had to be obeyed. They also held that members of the German minority who belonged to the CP, the Social Democratic Party, and the trade unions should likewise be deported, in order to carry out political education work in the labor camps (ANR, Fond FND, 14/1945).

A first written protest by the Romanian government against the deportation was sent to Vinogradov on 13 January 1945. In it, Prime Minister Rădescu pointed to the "gravest disruption of all economic and administrative activities of the state" as a consequence of such a measure, as well as "the obligation of the Romanian government [...] to watch over the interests of all its subjects, regardless of their ethnic origin." He likewise mentioned the suffering caused to those affected by deportation in the middle of winter and so far from their families (Baier 1994: 51–53; Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 126–129). In the diplomatic correspondence between Romania and the United States and Great Britain, both powers expressed that they had been caught off guard by the Soviet action. In a personal note to his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Winston Churchill remarked on 18 January 1945, however: "Why are we making a fuss about the Russian deportations in Roumania of Saxons and others? It was understood that the Russians were to work their will in this sphere. Anyhow we cannot prevent them" (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 165f.).

The first order concerning the impending conscriptions named as the sole exemptions from forced deportation women with children under one year of age and those unfit for work. On 8 January 1945, it was announced that women married to Romanians and the sick were also not to be conscripted, whereupon hasty marriages to Romanians took place and some individuals obtained medical certificates. Subsequent orders established that children with one Romanian or non-German parent, specialists indispensable to their enterprises, nuns, monks, and clergymen were likewise exempt from the measure. These additions to the original order in many cases only reached those responsible for carrying out the internments after the individuals concerned had already been loaded into cattle wagons and were on their way to the USSR. In many places, all ethnic Germans within the stipulated age limits were initially taken; a selection commission was to decide whether the individuals in question belonged to one of the categories exempt from deportation and should be sent home. Such commissions did not arrive everywhere, and all those conscripted were taken. Where the number of those entered on the lists did not match the number of Germans found on the spot, persons younger or older than the stipulated age limits were also taken. Some individuals were interned directly off the street; others were able to take along the warm clothing, bedding, cutlery, and provisions specified in the conscription order (Baier 1994: 38–45, Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 93, 103–107, 113–116, 132–135, 145–165).

13.2 The Deportees

Many Germans in Romania had suspected that deportation "to Russia" was imminent. Since Romania's switch of allegiance to the Allied side on 23 August 1944, several registrations of "ethnic Germans" as well as of German citizens present in Romania had taken place. Many former deportees are of the view that the registration carried out in September 1944 had already been conducted with deportation in mind, a claim that is contradicted by the documentary record. It was most likely a matter of general "stocktaking" in anticipation of a possible resettlement or expulsion.

Those conscripted by mixed Romanian-Soviet patrols — though often by Romanian patrols, gendarmes, or military personnel alone — were brought to "assembly points" set up in schools, community centers, or even cinemas. A few days later they were taken to the railway station, where the cattle wagons stood ready for transport. From the administrative district of Brașov (which encompassed all of southern Transylvania), a total of 21 trains carrying between 10 and 60 cattle wagons with "conscripted Saxons" departed between 16 and 29 January 1945, according to a note dated 2 February 1945 (Baier 1994: 88, Schipor 2019: 47).

"The assembly point was in the German school, from where the black car took us to the Karlsburg fortress. On 21 January we were loaded onto cattle wagons at the station. How hard it was for us when we caught sight of our relatives, weeping bitterly as they watched this sorrowful scene from a distance — they were no longer allowed to approach us. No one knew where the journey was headed or for how long. And so we traveled toward our uncertain fate." (Maria Kellinger, Petersdorf, in: Russland-Deportierte 1992: 88)

The deportation of the Germans moved their fellow citizens, as well as Romanian and foreign observers. Numerous reports from Romanian police and gendarmerie inspectorates and from foreign diplomats survive, documenting the scenes that unfolded when, for example, parents were separated from their young children. Reports also tell of suicides committed to escape deportation, of desperate attempts to free those arbitrarily conscripted from the wagons, of people being hidden, and of abuses during the conscription process. Many Romanians in Transylvania were alarmed, fearing they might themselves be deported to the Soviet Union in a subsequent operation (Baier 1994: 67–86, Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 144–151, 176–183, 196–202, Schipor 2019: 43–46).

Since information about the planned conscriptions had leaked out, some Germans were able to change their registered nationality or place of residence, or go into hiding. It was often Romanian neighbors who took in those threatened by conscription. Some police and gendarmerie members also signaled to Germans under their watch that they would look the other way if they disappeared.

On 22 February 1945, Beria submitted his report: in the period from 25 December 1944 to 31 January 1945, a total of 112,480 persons — 61,375 men and 51,105 women — had been "mobilized, interned, and brought to the USSR for labor" across the five countries. The largest share — 69,332 persons — consisted of Germans from Romania. This figure also includes 484 Germans from northern Transylvania. These were Transylvanian Saxons from the Bistritz and Cluj regions; the Sathmar Swabians, interned at the assembly points of Sanislau, Carei, and Satu Mare, were among the 31,923 persons deported from Hungary (Klein 1998: 157, Poljan 1999: 353, 355f.).

The figure of nearly 70,000 deported Romanian Germans given above by the NKVD is confirmed in a 1947 report to the Romanian Prime Minister. Drawing on data from the Interior and Foreign Ministries, it states that in 1945 a total of 70,148 Romanian citizens — the great majority of German origin — were sent to the USSR for labor, plus 300 German nationals from the prisoner-of-war camps at Slobozia and Târgu Jiu (Baier 1994: 115, Weber et al. 1995: vol. 3, 269). A Soviet statistical survey of "mobilized and interned ethnic Germans" from March 1946 placed the number of Romanian Germans at 53,946, of whom 27,680 were women and 26,266 were men (Karner 1995: 50). This figure may well be accurate: the first who had become unfit for work were brought home in late autumn 1945, further sick transports followed in February 1946, and the winter of 1945/46 had claimed a great many deaths from hunger, illness, and workplace accidents.

"When at the end of April 1945 the canteen fare — three times daily of cabbage soup and some porridge — was switched to cucumber soup and small salted fish, a mass outbreak of dropsy followed. The result was a rapid increase in deaths, with 23 May 1945 reaching a peak of 123 dead in a single day. The typhus epidemic that broke out on 29 August 1945 also claimed — owing to a total absence of medication — more than 300 victims in the camps at Chanshenkowo, Buros, Yasinovka, Resnaya, Mospino, and Nizhnyaya Krymka." (Gerhard Theiß, Günther Wagner, Labor Battalion 1024, in: Schässburger Nachbarschaft 1994: 77)

"In 1945–46, hunger and labor gave them [the women] the appearance of old women. The infestation of lice forced us to cut some of their hair in order to get their heads clean again. During this period of physical decline, mental numbness, and intolerance, I was sometimes witness to repulsive scenes of quarreling and even fighting among them, provoked by petty thefts or other trivialities." (Hans Juchum, Verschleppt 1991: 222)

According to statistical surveys by the research team of Prof. Dr. Georg Weber, 3,076 — nearly 12 percent — of the 30,336 recorded Transylvanian Saxons did not survive the deportation. The first deaths occurred during the long journey in cattle wagons in bitter cold. The harsh working conditions — mostly in coal mines, which the men and women had to reach on foot after a long walk from the camp — the meager and inadequate food, the catastrophic living conditions, workplace accidents, and homesickness very quickly claimed further lives. Approximately 10 percent of the Transylvanian Saxons died in the camps; the remainder died on the journey home or shortly after their return. The mortality rate among men was three times higher than among women, explained in part by the fact that women managed their own provisions better, a significantly larger proportion of women did not have to work in the mines, men frequently traded their food rations for cigarettes, and some of the male deportees were those who had been deemed unfit for military service for one reason or another. The death rate also varied by camp and workplace, as well as by the arbitrary conduct of the conscription and the degree to which age limits had been observed (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 291–323).

According to Weber et al.'s surveys, the proportion of those conscripted in the administrative districts of Sibiu, Făgăraș, Brașov, and Târnava Mare amounted to approximately 14.5 percent of the total Transylvanian Saxon population living there; in Alba county it was 17.4 percent, and in Târnava Mică county as much as 20 percent. In the latter two administrative districts, the Saxon population lived primarily in villages, where abuses during conscription were more frequent. In Alba county, the stipulated age limits were disregarded in the case of 14 percent of men and 18 percent of women; in Târnava Mică county, 20 percent of conscripted men were younger or older than the 17-to-45 age bracket, and 25 percent of women fell outside the 18-to-30 range (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 234, 239). In total, approximately 15 percent of the Saxon population of Transylvania was deported (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 247), leaving behind many parentless children and elderly persons. In Sighișoara, for example, 455 deportees left behind 333 children (Schässburger Nachbarschaft 1994: 31).

Stalin's deportation order had specified that the "mobilized Germans were to be employed in the reconstruction of the mining industry in the Donets Basin and the ferrous metallurgy sector of the south." Most Romanian Germans were brought to labor camps in the Donets Basin; some ended up in the Urals, where they likewise worked in mining. Under communism no distinction was made between men and women in work assignments, so that according to Weber et al., 33.7 percent of women worked in the mines and 31.2 percent on construction sites — compared with 39.3 percent of men in the mines and 24.9 percent in construction. The remaining persons performed agricultural work, trades, or service functions (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 275).

Those deportees who had become sick and unfit for work, or women who had been taken despite being pregnant and had since given birth, were brought back to the country in several sick transports between October and December 1945. Further sick transports took place in 1946 and 1947, with some directed to the then Eastern Zone — that is, the Soviet occupation zone (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 286). Since it remained unclear until the signing of the peace treaty between Romania and the Allies in Paris on 10 February 1947 whether Germans from Romania would be expelled, or since their status in Romania was unresolved, those Romanian Germans who had reached foreign countries were not permitted to return, and those who nevertheless crossed the border illegally ended up in prisons or labor camps within the country (Baier 1994: 109–116, Baier 2011: 138–149). Some of the deportees brought to the Eastern Zone remained there; others moved to the "Western Zone." From 1948 onward, all transports carrying those who had become unfit for work returned to Romania. Three-quarters of the deportees were released in Romania, and just under a quarter in Germany (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 290).

At the time of the "mobilization" for forced labor, it had been stated that the measure was a wartime one; it may nonetheless be assumed that labor deployment had been planned for the duration of a five-year plan. Those who had not been identified in the labor camp as former National Socialist functionaries, or transferred to a penal camp on account of some offense, and who had endured their time in the camp, returned home at the end of 1949 or the beginning of 1950 (Schipor 2019: 59–65). Of the 30,336 deported Transylvanian Saxons recorded in the statistical survey, it was possible to determine the country to which 23,506 persons returned. In 74.7 percent of cases this was Romania; 25 percent went to Germany; 55 persons went to Austria; and 7 remained in the Soviet Union (Weber et al. 1995: vol. 1, 285).

In some localities the conscriptions had been carried out by mixed Soviet-Romanian patrols; in others, Romanian gendarmes or police officers were sent out alone. In the collective consciousness of the generation that lived through these events — also on account of the blanket persecutory measures taken against Romanian Germans up to 1948 — the conviction took hold that the Soviets had demanded labor and Romania had "handed over the Germans." The "Russia deportation" is regarded as a moment of broken trust between the German communities and Romania, even though the expropriations that followed had deeper consequences for the social structure and transformation of those communities. 

13.3 Reparation

The crediting of years worked in the Soviet Union toward pension entitlements had already been decided by the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the 1950s. Accordingly, former deportees received pension payments covering the months and years spent in the USSR even before the political transition of December 1989 in Romania.

In December 1990, those deported for forced labor to the Soviet Union were recognized as victims of political persecution under Law No. 118/1990 on the compensation of persons persecuted for political reasons by the communist dictatorship installed on 6 March 1945, or deported abroad following Romania's change of sides on 23 August 1944. Since then they have received a supplementary pension as well as the benefits accorded to former political persecutees — including tax exemptions, a free telephone subscription, and others — under Law 118/1990. Since 2013, former deportees residing abroad have also been entitled to the supplementary pension paid by the Romanian state.

In 2020, an amendment to Law 118/1990 (through Law No. 232/2020, published in the Official Gazette No. 1036 of 5 November 2020) extended entitlement to compensation payments to surviving dependants — that is, widows or widowers, though in most cases the children of the deceased. 

13.4 Scholarly Research and Artistic Treatment

The most comprehensive scholarly work on the deportation of Transylvanian Saxons to the Soviet Union was carried out by a team of sociologists at the University of Münster under the direction of Prof. Dr. Georg Weber (1932–2013), theologian and sociologist at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, with a specialization in the sociology of migration. Published in three volumes in 1995, the historical section draws on documents from American, British, Romanian, and Swiss archives; alongside statistical data, a sociological section evaluates narrative interviews and interprets diaries, literature, and art produced during and after the deportation (Weber et al. 1995). In his book likewise published in 1995, Stefan Karner analyzed sources from Soviet archives bearing on the "mobilized and interned ethnic Germans," including those from Romania (Karner 1995). Documents from Soviet archives also formed the basis for the contributions and books of Pavel M. Polyan on the subject of forced labor (Polyan 1997, 2003) and of Ilie Schipor (2019).

In Romania, historical research on the subject began after 1990, as the relevant archival materials gradually became accessible. While the topic and its ramifications were initially addressed primarily by representatives of the German minority, a number of contributions and publications have since appeared, often drawing on interviews with those affected, their children, and contemporary witnesses.

The first literary work on the subject of deportation appeared in 1949 in France: Rainer Biemel published the novel *Mon ami Vassia* (My Friend Vassya) under the name Jean Rounault. A further novel, *Eine Handvoll Machorka* by Bernhard Ohsam, was printed in Germany in 1958. The subject entered world literature when Herta Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009 for her novel *Atemschaukel* (*The Hunger Angel*). The theme was given further literary treatment in novels by, among others, Erwin Wittstock (*Januar '45 oder Die höhere Pflicht*, Bucharest 1998) and Joachim Wittstock (*Bestätigt und besiegelt*, Bucharest 2003). A volume of poetry written during the deportation was also published (Anni Hubbes: *So lang mein Herz noch glüht*, Brașov 1994).

Eyewitness accounts and narratives of the deportation, together with diary entries written during it, have been published in book form, anthologies, and periodicals, particularly since 1990. Drawings, prints, and paintings created during and after the deportation have been collected; a selection, together with photographs, rhymes, verses, and sayings, appeared in *Lagerlyrik* (Sibiu 2015). Testimonies of the deportation to Soviet labor camps have been presented in several exhibitions and are catalogued, among other places, in the exhibition catalogue of the Transylvanian Museum in Gundelsheim, *'… skoro damoi!' Hoffnung und Verzweiflung* (Sedler 2020).

Eyewitness accounts as well as documents relating to the deportation can be found on several online platforms, including: