Carpathian Germans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carpathian Germans (German: Karpatendeutsche, Slovak: Karpatskí Nemci), sometimes simply called Slovak Germans (German: Slowakeideutsche), is the name for a group of German language speakers on the territory of present-day Slovakia. The term was coined by the historian Raimund Friedrich Preindel, and is also sometimes used to refer to Germans in the Carpathian Ruthenia.
Germans settled in Slovakia from the 12th to 15th centuries, mostly after the Mongol invasion of 1241, though there were probably some isolated settlers in the area of Bratislava earlier. The Germans were usually attracted by kings seeking specialists in various trades, such as craftsmen and miners. They usually settled in older Slovak market and mining settlements. The main settlement areas were in the vicinity of Bratislava (German: Pressburg) and some language islands in the Spiš and the Hauerland. The settlers in the Spiš region were known as Zipser Sachsen, or Spiš Saxons. Until approximately the 15th century, the ruling classes of most Slovak cities consisted almost exclusively of Germans.
The Carpathian Germans were, as the Slovaks, subjected to strong Magyarization policies in the latter half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century (Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary from around the 12th century) .
The status of Slovakia as a client state of Nazi Germany during World War II made life difficult for Carpathian Germans at the war's end. Nearly all remaining Germans fled or were evacuated by the German authorities before the end of World War II. Most Germans from the Spiš evacuated to Germany or the Sudetenland before the arrival of the Red Army. This evacuation was mostly due to the initiative of Adalbert Wanhoff and the preparations of the diocese of the German Evangelical Church, between mid-November, 1944, and January 21, 1945. The Germans of Bratislava were evacuated in January and February of 1945 after long delays, and those of the Hauerland fled at the end of March, 1945. The Red Army reached Bratislava on April 4, 1945.
After the end of war a third of the evacuated or fugitive Germans returned home to Slovakia. However, on August 2, 1945, they lost the rights of citizenship, as did the Sudeten Germans in the Czech area and the Hungarians in the south of Slovakia (see First Vienna Award), by Edvard Beneš's Decree no. 33, and they were interned in camps (German: Sammellager) in Bratislava-Petržalka, Nováky, and in Handlová. In 1946 and 1947, about 33,000 persons were expelled from Slovakia by the Potsdam Agreement, while around 20,000 persons were entitled to remain in Slovakia due to special circumstances. Indeed, out of approximately 128,000 Germans in Slovakia in 1938, by 1947 only some 20,000 (15.6% of the pre-war total) remained.
In 2004 there were fewer than 6,000 Germans in Slovakia. They have enjoyed equal rights, however, since the Velvet Revolution. The Carpathian German homeland association exists now to maintain traditions. The most prominent member of this group is the second Slovak president, Rudolf Schuster.
