German Russians
Tsarina Catherine the Great was from the German statelet of Pomerania. As Russian empress, she encouraged Germans to come to the Russian Empire to establish farms and villages in the late 18th Century. Two centuries later, the modern (West) German state encouraged this group’s descendants to resettle in Germany.
These groups, the Volga Germans, had undergone several eras of mild to brutal repression in the interim, and by the 20th Century, many had given up on the German language generations ago as a means of surviving without being accused of being traitors to Mother Russia.
For many of them, there wasn’t much that was German about them when the program of resettlement into German society began in the 1970s. There were criticisms of the policy from the left from its inception: that it was done as an anti-Soviet propaganda stunt, and that these cultural Germans would be old-fashioned culturally, and thus right-wingers and religious fanatics. Some 2.3 million are estimated now to live in Germany, out of a population of around 80 million.
This Russian-acculturated population in Germany has come in handy for modern Russia to engage with, encouraging their sense of grievance against modern Germany and German society, in no small part by fostering the sense that they are victims of Russophobia whenever they find their pro-Russian views criticized in the German consensus society.
This is a somewhat lengthy prelude to introduce a well done bit of investigative reporting by Reuters published a few days ago. It examined some leading figures in the pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian movement at the fringes of German politics, and found some of the leaders have direct ties to the Putin regime.
Here’s a sample excerpt from the article:
The grandson of a Soviet war hero who was a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party until 1981, [Russian-German construction company president Oleg] Eremenko is on the board of an organisation called “Desant”, which is made up of former Russian servicemen. He has appeared at events alongside Russian diplomats to commemorate the Soviet war dead buried in Germany and has been pictured with German politicians such as Manuela Schwesig, a member of the Social Democrats and state premier of the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In 2020, Eremenko was among a small group of people given citations for service to Russia by the country’s ambassador to Germany. Schwesig did not respond to a request for comment.
His past is less public.
In a photograph dated 2016, Eremenko poses next to Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer recently convicted in absentia by a Dutch court of involvement in the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 over Ukraine. The photo appears on a VKontakte account run by Girkin’s organisation. Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, has denied any role in the shooting down of the plane. Contacted by Reuters for this story, Girkin said: “I don’t give interviews to enemy media.”
Think of this particular story as an example of some of the many entanglements regarding ethnicities, cultures, and group identities spread across many countries around the world. Think of it as a partial explanation for why Germany today seems so tepid, halting, and mealy-mouthed when it comes to standing up to Russia and standing up for Ukraine in the current conflict. And consider how Russia (as well as other autocratic countries) tries to manipulate their ethnic brethren abroad for the purpose of leveraging influence and sowing conflict in free and open societies.
The Wikipedia entry on Volga Germans is quite good as encyclopedia overviews go, in case you’re interested.
Thanks for that bit or history Marque.
Afternoon all ( who are in EST...lol), morning to the rest...
I am going to have a really busy work month in Jan...the end of year tax and payroll reports alone will keep me pretty busy ( and that is after I redo all the 2022 bank reconciliations...lol)...most of this happens to be stuff I like to do, just a bit of angst about getting it all done in time.
Over the week end I have to take down the little bit of Christmas still up in my house.
Today I got good news, the frozen pipes bursting in the condo next to me, with whom I share a wall...did no damage to my wall or molding etc, and no sign of mold or mildew so that is good news.
Should Ukraine go along with Putin's ceasefire proposal?