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Markus Wolf / Alexander Frank

No Future for the Ethnic Germans
in Kazakhstan?

In the former Soviet Union, most of the several million members of the German ethnic group were poorly treated. In 1941, they were deported under terrible conditions. The men were separated from their families and sent to the gulag as "soldiers" of a "working army". Only a few of them returned to their relatives. Even after the treason verdict against the Germans in the Soviet union bad been dropped during the Khrushchev period, they were still subject to numerous restrictions, such as the ban on the return to their native territories. This fostered their desire for a life in freedom in Germany as the country from which their forefathers had come a long time ago. Following the disintegration of the USSR the ethnic Germans in Russia, many of whom have in the meantime settled down in Kazakhstan, are confronted with further challenges. Irrespective of the efforts by many state leaderships, such as, in particular, those by the Kazakh president Nazarbaev, which seek to establish good relations, among the country's nationalities, there are growing xenophobic tendencies in Central Asia. Although these are primarily directed against Russians, other Europeans and thus the Germans too suffer. The Federal Republic of Germany always declared that it was willing to integrate Germans from other countries into its territory, but it is at the same time interested in keeping the exodus of Germans from the former USSR as limited as possible. For this reason, the German government has offered assistance to enable the Russlanddeutsche to stay in their settlement areas. Markus Wolf, a Slavist from Munich who has travelled a great deal through Central Asia, and Alexander Frank, who worked in Alma-Ata as the editor of the German-language newspaper Freundschaft and as editor-in-chief of the German language programme Guten Abend! until 1992, outline the problem from the point of view of those affected.

At the request in particular of the welfare and cultural associations for Germans born in the eastern areas of the former Reich and of expellee associations¹the German government already accepted an obligation for the welfare of the ethnic Germans in Russia under Adenauer. As long as ideological demands of the Soviet leadership and their thesis that it was a purely internal matter made any support by relatives of the German ethnic group in the USSR impossible, the help from Bonn was necessarily limited to insisting on possi-

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    ¹   Cf. Karl Stumpp, Die Russlanddeutschen, Stuttgart, Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1980. Tausend Jahre Nachbarschaft: Russland und die Deutschen, Munich, Bruckmann, 1988.
 
 
 

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bilities to travel out of the country. A further obstacle to an improvement of the situation of the ethnic Germans in the former Soviet Union was that this group had no mandatories of their own up until March 1989. The German government thus lacked a contact.²

At the latest following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 a settlement of the German ethnic group in Russia which had lasted almost two centuries came to an end. It changed completely in structural and regional terms. The chief German settlement area - as opposed to the pre-war period - is no longer in the west of the former Soviet Union but in western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. According to the 1989 census, more citizens of German origin (957,518) lived in Kazakhstan than in Russia including Siberia (841,295). Following the collapse of the USSR, the ethnic German question has developed from a bilateral affair to a matter discussed between several parties, since it now affects a number of successor states. Furthermore, three German rally movements have emerged since 1989. Their goals are the restoration of the Volga Republic which existed until 1941 and the creation of comparable autonomous areas.

    A great deal is unclear. In 1989, not all Germans - as in the previous censuses too - apparently had the courage to state their nationality to the Soviet authorities. No-one knows exactly, therefore, how many people really could take advantage of their right to travel to Germany. In Russia's case, the loss of all Germans would hardly be noticed economically in view of a total population figure of 148 million. In Kazakhstan, however, with just under 17 million inhabitants (1991) the situation is completely different. Why almost all of the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan want to leave their homes to either settle down on Russian, Ukrainian or German territory is the focus of the following article.
 

Stages of German Settlement in Kazakhstan

    The population of Kazakhstan by the ethnic Germans from Russia took place in three stages. After Germans already heeded the call of Empress Catherine II to come to Russia in the mid- 18th century, they first settled down in Kazakhstan in 1871. At the beginning of the 20th century, over 110 German settlements had been established in the northwestern territories of Kazakhstan. The German colonies were important in the fields of agriculture and crafts. The 1917 Russian Revolution not only had far-reaching implications for the Kazakh and Russian population, but also for the descendants of German emigrants. The Bolsheviks deprived the big landowners and livestock traders of their livelihood.

    This above all affected the most developed regions, including the German settlements. Social unrest and political uncertainty forced many ethnic Ger-

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    ²M. Schippan/S. Striegnitz, Wolgadeutsche. Geschichte und Gegenwart, Berlin, Dietz, 1992; B. Meissner/H. Neubauer/ A. Eisfeld, Die Russlanddeutschen, Cologne, Markus, 1992; Barbara Dietz/Peter Hilkes, Russlanddeutsche: Unbekannte im Osten, Munich, Olzog, 1992, pp. 121-122 (bibl. footnote).
 

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mans in Kazakhstan to return to the Volga or the Ukraine. One in four Germans left his/her Kazakh home. After the particularly hard years between 1921 and 1930, the compulsory collectivisation in this region also robbed the Germans of the possibility of independent initiative in the agricultural sector. Virtually all smallholder farms were dissolved. The previous farmers were forced to join a large kolkhoz or a commune. In 1931/32, the first trains with expropriated large landowners and smallholders from the Volga region arrived in Kazakhstan. This influx of "de-kulakicised" German farmers from the Black Sea and Volga regions had disastrous effects on the country's already catastrophic supply situation. The persons expelled from their homes in the west were settled in the barren steppes of central and southern Kazakhstan.

    The most crushing blow for the ethnic Germans in Russia, however, were the deportations following the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In the Deportation Decree of 28 August 1941, the Volga Germans were accused of spying, collaborating with the German aggressor, and preparing acts of sabotage.³The first trains with deported persons already arrived in Kazakhstan at the beginning of September 1941. On arrival, the ethnic Germans were placed under special supervision. They were on no account allowed to leave their allocated special settlements and had to report to the commander responsible once a month. This regulation affected 394,000 members of the German ethnic group in Kazakhstan and a total of 949,829 in the whole of the USSR. The use of the German language was strictly forbidden, there were no possibilities of attending school, and religious activities were prosecuted.

    After German-Soviet negotiations on the repatriation of German civilians and prisoners of war began in autumn 1955, the resettled ethnic Germans in Russia were exempted from the special supervision through a decree by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 13 December 1955.⁴Nevertheless, they were still not allowed to return to their former homes and assert claims to lost property. A pronounced internal migration began after the end of the previous restrictions. After the war, only a few members of the ethnic group made an effort, despite the existing administrative obstacles, to leave the settlement areas to which they had been deported (the Urals, Siberia) to live in the less inhospitable regions with better soil and much better job prospects. After the annulment of the 1941 special regime many German resettlers; moved to southern and eastern Kazakhstan.⁵

It was not until the middle of the 1960s that the Germans were able to call for a restoration of their former autonomy.⁶The desire was rejected by the Soviet central government. During this period, however, the Germans experienced a modest cultural upswing. The following was achieved in Kazakhstan:

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    ³Cf. Michael Schippan/Sonja Striegnitz (footnote 2), pp. 233-234.

    ⁴Vedomosti Verchovnogo Soveta SSSR, 20 December 1955.

    ⁵Michael Schippan/Sonja Striegnitz (footnote 2), pp. 234-235.

    ⁶Cf. Peter Hilkes/Peter Marikucza (eds.), Foerderungsmoeglichkeiten fuer Deutsche in der ehemaligen Sowjetunion, Munich, Osteuropa-Institut, 1992, p. 100.
 
 

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- the introduction of lessons in the German language and the admission of German as a subject in schools;

- the establishment of a department for the instruction of mother-tongue teachers;

- the setting up of the German-language daily newspaper Freundschaft (since 1991: Deutsche Allgemeine) in Zelinograd with initially 5,000 and finally 20,000 copies, and

- improvements in many social fields thanks to a simultaneous economic upswing.

    The previously banned activities of the religious community in Kazakhstan, southern Siberia and in the Altai region was also now able to develop modestly. Regardless of all the progress, the social status and level of education of the Germans remained at a low level. In 1970, only 0.9 per cent of all ethnic Germans had a degree. Following many years of oppression, brutal deportation, compulsory collectivisation, a continued ban on the German language, this was hardly surprising. The fact that, especially in rural areas, the ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union were regarded as former prisoners of war who stayed behind made it even more difficult for them to fight for their rights as an organised ethnic group.
 
 

Growing Acceptance

    There was a gradual about-turn in the Soviet attitude towards the Germans living in the country. They were discovered as an important economic factor. This also applied to Kazakhstan. The central committees of the Communist Party in both the Soviet Union as a whole and in particular in Kazakhstan claimed to be keen on an "improvement of the ideological mass activities among the ethnic German population in the republic". This had implications for the emancipatory efforts of the Germans in Kazakhstan. Committed personalities among them tried to induce the Kazakh government to resolve existing problems. Under CPSU General Secretary Andropov, the first official recognition of the economic achievements of the ethnic Germans was issued at union level. In 1983, on the 66th anniversary of the socialist October Revolution, Andropov described the Germans living in the country as an economic factor of the socialist system when acknowledging their contribution towards the reconstruction of the economy after the war and the development of new land in Kazakhstan.

    This recognition, however, was too late. At that time, the emigration of Germans to the Federal Republic of Germany was rapidly rising. In the years 1983-86, more and more members of the older generation, whose memory of their Volga-German homes, the pre-war period in the Caucasus or in the Ukraine was still very much alive, submitted applications to the local authorities for exit permits, admittedly without receiving a reply. The former emigration ban had already been lifted under Brezhnev. The ethnic Germans in
 
 

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Kazakhstan were first able to partially benefit from the exit permits in 1986. During the first year, 1,030 Germans were allowed to leave the country, and 13,000 more followed due to petitions. The exodus occasionally triggered negative reactions in the country. Some regional party secretaries declared that the Germans had been fed and educated by their Soviet homeland. After having afforded them refuge and liberated them from their National-Socialist past, they had recovered and were now leaving the country. Many of the instructions intended for the Interior Ministry organs responsible for exit permits were designed to stem the increasingly rising tide of German emigrants from the Soviet Union after 1987.

    For its part, the Kazakh branch of the ethnic German union association Wiedergeburt (Rebirth) has made repeated efforts since it was founded in March 1989 to convince the Soviet government of the need for radical measures to raise the level of education of the German section of the population. There were demands, for example, for the foundation of schools with extended mother-tongue German lessons, the creation of more departments in higher education institutions to study the literature and history of the ethnic Germans in Russia, better conditions for the preservation of German identity, programmes with German-language radio and television programmes, and the setting up of meeting places and clubs as measures to counteract the pressure of emigration. There was even a call for national districts with an ethnic German majority inside Kazakhstan.
 

The Germans in Emergent Independent Kazakhstan

    The descendants of the German emigrants from Hesse, Bavaria, the Palatinate and the Rhineland are among the biggest ethnic groups in the Kazakh multinational state. For the first time since the 1926 census, the Kazakhs again form the largest share of the population (39.7 per cent) - ahead of the Russians (37 per cent), the Germans (5.7 per cent), and the Ukrainians (5.4 per cent).

    In February 1988, a Section for International Relations was set up inside the "Propaganda and Mass Political Education Activities" Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and entrusted with the task of assessing the state of cultural life and of further education/advanced training for the minorities on the territory of Kazakhstan and of introducing measures to preserve the various ethnic identities through the provision of the funds required. This institution, however, only concentrated on statistical activities and failed to carry out any practical measures. Furthermore, the staff in this section dissociated itself from the activities of the numerous national associations, commissions and committees. The Section was dissolved after two years. The interest of the Kazakh state and party leadership in the problems of the ethnic minorities had waned. The committees for the preservation of the respective national cultural heritage set up by the German,
 
 

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Czech, Korean, Uigurian, Jewish, Greek and a further four ethnic groups were abandoned to their fate.

    The state institutions were increasingly restrictive towards the ethnic Germans. They deprived the German ethnic group - as opposed to the numerous pressure groups of the Kazakhs - of the hitherto provided financial support. This affected, for example, the German Theatre in Alma-Ata, the Germanlanguage daily newspaper, German radio in Alma-Ata, and the German-language television service of the Kazakh television station with its weekly magazine programme Guten Abend!.

    This explains why the editors of the German-language newspaper Freundschaft took the cause of the Germans into their own hands. They directly addressed the inadequacies of the Communist policy towards the German minority and demanded greater media diversity in the fields of the press, radio and television. This prompted the authorities to agree to the introduction of a German-language television programme and to even consider the prospect of financing it. In March 1989, it was launched with a 40-minute broadcast per week (radio and television). As no funds were earmarked for the project in the last Five-Year Plan, the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan agreed to pay part of the annual budget.

    The magazine programme Guten Abend! had a large audience, as the extensive mail from listeners indicated which was sent to the editorial office from all parts of Kazakhstan, the Altai region, northern Uzbekistan and many areas in Russia (as far afield as Orenburg). Surveys conducted in this field also showed that German-language programmes reached quite a large audience. In order to improve the quality of the German-language programmes, its initiators established contact with representatives of West German channels. Following initial talks in October 1989, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) gave colleagues in Alma-Ata a complete set of studio equipment as a gift. The difficulties facing the German minority in Kazakhstan and the integration problems of ethnic German immigrants living in Germany were already important topics in the Guten Abend! programme in 1990.
 

Increasing Problems

    It was already feared at that time that one in three ethnic Germans wanted to leave Kazakhstan as soon as possible. Nevertheless, the Kazakh government did very little to make life easier for the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan. The leadership in Alma-Ata tended to move in the other direction. The number of teachers of the mother tongue and of students for the German Department of the corresponding university in Kokchetav was reduced. German was dropped as a subject in the old German communities of Romanovka, Rozhdestvenka, Krasnolarka, Iermentau and Pavlovka in the region of Zelinograd and in the Thaelmann, Rozovka and Uspenka settlements in the region of Pavlodar. The reason often given was that Kazakh was to become the official language in Ka-
 
 

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zakhstan. The meagre subsidies for national education were often too low to maintain the standard of German lessons at school and at university at their previous level, especially since more money was invested in educational facilities for Kazakh children and youth. The creeping Kazakhisation often directly took place at the expense of the German minority. Wherever a German school class with German lessons for ethnic Germans or a German group in a kindergarten was closed, they were soon replaced by corresponding Kazakh institutions. The situation was improved somewhat through the foundation of German schools and higher education institutions in areas with an overwhelmingly German population, through the promotion of mother-tongue lessons in kindergarten, and, last but not least, through the symbolic support of German interests. At present, there are only two kindergarten groups and two project classes with extended German lessons for the 14,000 ethnic Germans living in the Kazakh capital. Comparable proportions exist in rural areas.

    Back in the days when Kazakhstan was still a republic of the former Soviet Union, President Nursultan Nazarbaev openly rejected efforts by the Germans in the country to achieve political autonomy. This was bound to have an influence on the conditions in Kazakh television. The studio equipment the WDR gave to the programme Guten Abend! as a gift was more and more frequently requisitioned for non-German programmes. This led to considerable conflicts and, more recently, also to the reduction of money for the Germanlanguage programme. The management of the Kazakh television exerted a growing influence on programming. It wanted fewer reports from Germany growing in and more on the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan. For if the viewers only saw pictures from Germany on television they would find it easier to surmount the natural threshold to leaving the country. The programme should help prevent this. Although the programme's editors concentrated on the problems emigrants have with integration in the Federal Republic of Germany, this was not recognised as an argument explaining the focus. Every time something was screened on Germany, this was viewed as "advertising" for emigration, and the programme was either dropped or replaced by something else. Pressure was also put on German editors by delaying their already authorised official visits at the last moment or indefinitely.

    At the economic level, there were also restrictions for the German minority. The relatives of the ethnic group hardly had trouble when it came to being promoted to the level of a director of some insignificant kolkhoz or sovkhoz. However, they hardly stood a chance of moving to higher posts. Kazakhs were often preferred for promotions to the top level of a region or district, but not members of German or other ethnic groups.⁷In the opinion of many ethnic Germans who only recently emigrated from Kazakhstan, the situation there has hardly changed for the better. Up to today, the connections between the

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    ⁷A typical example is the professional career of an ethnic German plant chairman from Kazakhstan, Waldemar Schmidt, in the Karl Marx kolkhoz in the region of Kokchetav. He was initially dismissed as chairman, then reinstated, than dismissed again and then reinstated at a later date after his respective Kazakh successors had turned out to be incompetent.
 
 

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former socialist cadres are almost always decisive. The democratic opposition movements have no financial resources and do not represent a power factor to be taken seriously. The Germans have to lower their sights when it comes to fostering their culture, without receiving any kind of compensation. The fact that one in five of the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan stated that Russian was the mother tongue in the census is cited by the Kazakh government as an argument against the autonomy demands made.⁸

From the perspective of the leadership in Alma-Ata, the restrictive behaviour of the authorities towards the German minority is understandable. The young Kazakh multinational state is afraid that its territorial integrity might be jeopardised if it gives way to territorial-ethnic striving for autonomy. This concern can be sensed in many of the interviews given by President Nazarbaev. He has repeatedly emphasised that national districts on Kazakh soil are not up for discussion. Kazakhstan must remain inseparable and form a whole. It was a matter for the Germans themselves to ensure the preservation of their identity in the country. Although this view may be understandable against the background of the recently attained Kazakh independence, it does seriously impair the situation of the German minority. In comparison with the Soviet period, ethnic Germans are expected to accept a considerable loss of status, to an extent unknown in the Slav successor states, the Ukraine and Russia. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that 225,000 ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan filed emigration applications in Germany in 1991 alone. The ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan no longer regard remaining in the country as an acceptable alternative to leaving. In 1992, 114,382 Germans from Kazakhstan resettled in the Federal Republic of Germany - with no more than 194,596 persons in the successor states of the former USSR (including Georgia but excluding the Baltic states) as a whole.⁹

According to the War-Induced Losses Act of 21 December 1992, no more than 200,000 ethnic German emigrants from the former USSR will be taken in by the Federal Republic of Germany in any one year. If the current tendency continues, this would mean that the question of ethnic Germans in KazakhStan will have been resolved through emigration in seven years. How do the rally movements of the ethnic Germans view the situation? During the Bundestag hearing on the situation of German minorities in Eastern Europe in December 1992, the representatives of the biggest rally movements, Heinrich Groth and Hugo Wormsbecher, described the prospect of a restoration of the Volga Republic as an illusion. In the meantime, Groth's Wiedergeburt has moved away from its earlier "Volga Republic or Mass Exodus" stance. The reason given was that the War-Induced Losses Act adopted by the Bundestag in December (which keeps open the option of resettlement to Germany) had been received with great satisfaction by the ethnic Germans in Russia.

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    ⁸Cf. the remarks made by the Kazakh minister Driller during the Ist Congress of the Kazakhstan Germans on 29/30 October 1992, reprinted in: Neues Leben, 11 November 1992, p. 2.

    ⁹Announcement by the Federal Minister of the Interior in Bonn, 26 January 1993. Before 1992, there were no statistics regarding their origin with respect to the Soviet union republics.
 
 

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The Ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan and the German-Kazakh Relationship
 

    In 1993, the German government provided DM 250 million for relief measures for ethnic Germans in the former Soviet Union and in the rest of Eastern Europe.¹⁰Now that a financing of the Volga Republic within the framework of the new "Ethnic Germans in Russia" Fund seems guaranteed, the Russian President has formally decreed its restoration".¹¹This move was preceded by agreements in the form of a bilateral German-Kazakh declaration on 22 September 1992 on the protection of minorities and ethnic groups and, above all, on economic and security problems.¹²Accordingly, both sides attach "particular importance to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation". Germany declared that it was willing "to support Kazakhstan in the organisation of its market economy system" and "to back the process of reform during the transition to the market economy". This was a clear reflection of the Kazakh interest in German aid and German investments.

    For the German side, efforts focused on legally safeguarding the status of the German minority in Kazakhstan. The decisive passage in the declaration runs as follows:

    "Both sides also acknowledge the contribution of the German population towards the development of today's Republic of Kazakhstan and reaffirm in accordance with their legal system their common interest in preserving the livelihood and ensuring the possibilities of development of the Kazakh citizens of German origin, as for every citizen of Kazakhstan - irrespective of their right to emigrate - for themselves and their children in their homeland Kazakhstan. Germany and Kazakhstan agree that the Kazakh citizens of German origin and the German citizens of Kazakh origin in the Federal Republic of Germany should be able to foster their language, culture and national tradltions and freely practice their religion in accordance with their free decision."

    The "Joint Declaration" took into account almost all international human rights norms. However, the Copenhagen CSCE Human Rights Convention was not included,¹³which incorporates the collective rights of the ethnic minorities into the protection. Although there is a general reference to the "rights of national minorities", the ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan are not expressly mentioned. It is to be feared, therefore, that the declaration is no more than the proclamation of good intentions and not the granting of concrete rights. Nevertheless, this document is an important starting-point for the future varied cooperation between two states. There are already positive approaches. The development of a private economy in Kazakhstan has enabled the creation of several business associations and companies run by Germans. These enterprises already have direct contacts to western firms. It is clear that ethnic Ger-

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    ¹⁰Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 21 January 1993.

    ¹¹Ukaz Prezidenta Rossijskoj Federacii. 0 sozdanii fonda "Rossijskie nemcy", in: Rossijskaja gazeta, 23 December 1992.

    ¹²Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung, 30 September 1992, pp. 975 ff.

    ¹³"Das Dokument vom Kopenhagener KSZE-Treffen ueber die menschliche Dimension vom 29.6.1990", in: Europa-Archiv, 15/1990, pp. D380-D394.
 
 

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mans who are involved in activities here will hardly have plans to emigrate. Due to the business connections of their firm to western countries they have an almost unlimited freedom to travel. According to estimates, there are roughly 10,000 persons in this group. These are mainly directors of agricultural and industrial enterprises (approx. 10 per cent of all plant directors), leading specialists in companies, civil service officials, and well-to-do farmers and workers.

    The overwhelming majority of the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan, however, are confronted with other problems. The very basis of their existence is at stake. Market economy structures have yet to be created in Kazakhstan and are thus not yet well-developed. Even the least assistance here can help a great deal and contribute towards preventing a mass exodus which would not be the best solution for anyone. As in Russia and the Ukraine, Germany could also support firms in Kazakhstan which provide existential and development opportunities for ethnic Germans.¹⁴Such support would be important, even though a territorial autonomy for the German ethnic group is not under discussion because of the country's special situation. The problems facing the Russlanddeutsche in Kazakhstan are specifically Kazakh problems and must thus be resolved in a different way than the "German Question" in Russia with its differing constellation. It is fair to ask whether the attempt to given the "ethnic Germans from Russia" a permanent home should stake everything on the Russian or Ukrainian card. Whether a solution other than emigrating to Germany can be found for the ethnic Germans in the former USSR will depend to a great extent on the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan themselves.
 
 

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    ¹⁴On this aspect, cf. the statement by the Kazakh minister Driller during the 1st Congress of the Kazakhstan Germans on 29/30 October 1992, in: Neues Leben,11 November 1992, p. 2.