Thursday, December 5, 2013

Why did my ancestors come to the Black Sea ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Germans

If you see in the documents that some Russian Germans were bon in the "South Russia", it often means the Region of the Black Sea or Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine had been the part of the Russian Empire.

The Black Sea Germans (German: Schwarzmeerdeutsche; Russian: Черноморские немцы; Ukrainian: Чорноморські німці) or Ukrainian Germans are ethnic Germans and that left their homelands in the 18th and 19th centuries, and settled in territories off the north coast of the Black Sea, mostly in southern Ukraine.



Included in the category of Black Sea Germans are the following groups from the Black Sea area: the Bessarabia Germans, Dobrujan Germans, and the Russian Mennonites.



The Black Sea Germans are distinct from the Volga Germans, who were separate both geographically and culturally, although both groups moved to the Russian Empire at about the same time and for the same reasons.

The Germans settled in southern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, both of which were part of the Russian Empire at the time. This land was annexed by the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great through her two wars with the Ottoman Empire (1768–1774) and from the annexation of the Crimean Khanate (1783). The area of settlement was not settled as compactly as that of the Volga territory; rather it was home to a chain of colonies. The first German settlers arrived in 1787, first from West Prussia, then later from Western and Southwestern Germany and Alsace, France, as well as from the Warsaw area. Catholics, Lutherans, and Mennonites were all known as capable farmers; Empress Catherine herself sent them a personal invitation to immigrate to the Russian Empire.



The majority of Black Sea Germans were resettled in Greater Germany in 1940 as a part of Hitler's Heim ins Reich policy. My great great grandfather Wilchelm Schochenma/eir had been among that fortunate souls. He waited out the WWII in the Switzerland and in 1946 he settled down for good in Radolfzell on the Lake Constance.


No comments:

Post a Comment