The German Minority in Hungary

The origins of the Germans in Hungary and their history up to 1920

In the Middle Ages already Germans, collectively called Saxons (Sachsen / szászok) regardless of their real origin, were called to Hungary by different kings and settled especially in Transylvania (Siebenbürgen / Erdély) and Zips (Szepesség, now in Slovakia) in the 12th century. In Transylvania they were to form an ethnic bloc (Sachsenland / Szászföld) until the end of the Second World War around the towns of Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben, Sibiu), Bistritz (Beszterce, Bistrita) and Kronstadt (Brassó, Brasov). Germans were also settled in southern Transylvania in Burzenland (Barcaság). The German influence in Hungary grew especially after the destruction of the independent Hungarian Kingdom by the Turks in 1526 and the following tripartition of the country, in which a not insignificant part of the country was bound to the Austrian Empire by a common Habsburg ruler. Finally, after the failed Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and the following advance of the Habsburg-lead Christian liberation army, all of Hungary got under Austrian rule. The Austro-German influence increased in all parts of the kingdom and even the ethnic structure of the country changed in favour of the Germans, because areas depopulated during the Turkish occupation were resettled, among other nationalities from the neighbouring areas, also with a considerable number of Germans (about 100.000 between 1723 and 1787), who in this case were collectively called Schwaben (sváb). This resulted in large German-inhabited enclaves in the middle of the country, especially around Ofen (Buda) and Pest, Fünfkirchen (Pécs), in the Batschka (Bácska) Banat and Slavonia as well as Sathmar (Szatmár). The Germans were originally called to the country as peasants but they soon became forerunners of urbanisation. During the 18th and the early 19th century in many Hungarian towns the Germans were represented overproportionately. They also formed a big part of the mercenaries and early industrial population, going to Austria and Germany to obtain their skills. Around 1880 the number of Germans in Hungary reached nearly two million.

The Germans in Hungary lived relatively isolated until the end of the last century, and there were few conflicts between the different ethnicities. Only the rise of nationalism started to cause problems, but here the other minorities (Romanians, Serbs, Slovaks) were much more aggressive than the Germans. Actually in this period the Germans, especially the noblemen and a part of the bourgeoisie, started strongly to assimilate to the Hungarians. During the Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-49, the ethnic Germans in Transylvania mainly stood on the Austrian side because they feared that their position might deteriorate in an independent, Hungarian-dominated Hungary, whereas the Germans in Hungary proper usually supported the revolutionaries. The tensions between the Austrians and the Hungarians caused by the brutally crushed war were only relieved by the Settlement (Ausgleich / kiegyezés) in 1867, in which the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy was created. In the Settlement the Principality of Transylvania, which was earlier governed directly from Vienna, was also annexed to the Hungarian Kingdom and subordinated to its administration.

The Settlement granted the Hungarians almost unlimited freedom in their internal affairs, i.e. also in their ethnic policy, which was marked by a strong effort to assimilate the minorities. This was expressed e.g. in the school law of 1873 in which the language of tuition in state owned schools was ordered to be Hungarian. The law left practically only the schools of the church to teach in minority languages. In the law of 1898 the official usage even of geographical names in other languages than Hungarian was prohibited. The era of the Dual Monarchy was a time of fast development in Hungary, but unfortunately the government failed to deal with the country’s huge minorities, which were becoming ever stronger and started to demand similar rights from the Hungarians that, only a few decades earlier, the Hungarians tried and succeeded to achieve from the Habsburgs. Simultaneously aggressive, nationalist states emerged along the Austro-Hungarian border demanding their unification with their compatriots inside the so-called Austro-Hungarian prison of peoples. Such was the situation, when in the summer of 1914 the First World War broke out. By October 1918 the Dual Monarchy had virtually collapsed. Austria and Czechoslovakia proclaimed their independence and Croatia its unification with what was to become Yugoslavia. Finally, on November 3rd, an armistice was signed between Austria-Hungary and the Entente.

The independent Republic of Hungary was proclaimed on November 16th, 1918 with the liberal Mihály Károlyi as Prime Minister. The aim of the new government was to correct the earlier mistakes made in the nationality question before the war by granting the minorities many rights. This way they hoped to be able to prevent the kingdom from falling apart. The attempt failed, however, and the resigning Károlyi government was followed by half a year of communist rule, complete chaos and Romanian occupation. Consolidation in internal and external affairs was only achieved gradually after order was re-established under the leadership of Rear Admiral Miklós Horthy as commander of the National Army and later Regent of the re-established kingdom. The Trianon Peace Treaty was eventually signed on 4 June 1920, although its terms were considered totally unfair and unacceptable by the Hungarians, because more than two thirds of the historical territory of the kingdom were cut off and also one-third of the ethnic Hungarians, i.e. several million people, were left outside of the new borders. Even a considerable amount of Germans ended up in other states, especially those in Burgenland (Austria), Transylvania (Romania) and Batschka (Yugoslavia). The only concession the Hungarian delegation succeeded in achieving was the plebiscite around Sopron (Ödenburg) in the Burgenland area to be ceded to Austria. Although more than half of the population of the town was German-speaking, it remained part of Hungary.

The history of the German nation in Hungary since the Trianon Peace Treaty

Although Hungary became almost a pure nation state after the First World War, a considerable amount of German inhabitants were left back within the new borders. In 1920 they counted for more than half a million, or about 7% of the country's population. There had been a decline in their proportional number during the 1920s and 30s, but after the re-annexations of southern Slovakia, northern Transylvania and the Batschka, the number of the Germans rose to over 700 000 by 1941. The nationalist Gömbös government (1932-36) had passed laws to restrict the rights of non-Magyars e.g. in the education. After his gaining power in Germany Hitler started a campaign to awaken the German spirit in the German-speaking population in East Central Europe and created several organisations to support this. In Hungary the German idealism was divided into to directions, one being faithful to the state and the other stressing the common German origin. The latter line was represented in Hungary since 1924 by the Ungarnländisch-Deutscher Volksbildungsverein and later by the very strong Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn which got the permission to organise in 1938 and which had adopted the ideals of the German national socialism. This was uncomfortable for the government, though, because the principles of the Volksbund included the idea of an independent German nation inside Hungary. Hitler didn't want to provoke the Magyars either, because he needed them as an ally in the war. However, in connection to the Second Vienna Award, in which Hungary regained northern Transylvania, the Hungarian government had to grant the Germans the status of a nation and the Volksbund the exclusive rights to represent them. Later also the founding of bilingual schools was allowed. The Volksbund agitated Germans to re-germanise their names and to support the Reich in its war efforts. It even worked for the recruitment of soldiers to the Waffen-SS. The Volksbund also provoked actions against the Germans faithful to the Hungarian state as well as against the Jews. After Germany had lost the war and the communists gained power in Hungary, millions and millions of German speaking people, among them more than 300 000 in Hungary, were forced to leave their beloved homes in East Central Europe because of the principle of collective German guilt, approved at the Conference of Potsdam in the summer of 1945. One of the criteria for expulsion was the membership of the German Volksbund which was considered a Nazi organisation. However, many Germans who hadn't had anything to do with the Volksbund were also expelled only because of their mother tongue. Being afraid of also having to leave, the remaining Germans tried to assimilate. In many old German speaking villages almost the entire population changed when Hungarians evacuated from Slovakia, Transylvania and Voivodina were settled in the houses of the expelled Germans. Due to this an important part of Hungarian culture nearly disappeared. In the process the German minority also lost most of its educated class and the remaining people were mainly peasants.

The harassment of the Germans in Hungary ended officially in 1950, when they were given back their full civil rights. In 1954 a weekly newspaper started appearing in German and in the following year a cultural association was established. Since 1957 the Hungarian radio has been broadcasting also in German, and some secondary schools were founded. However, during socialism the assimilation process was going on stronger than ever and in the census of 1980 only 31.000 people declared German as their mother tongue. After 1990 the Hungarian Germans have been able to form more effective organisations in order to try to stop the destructive development and keep up with some traditions. Since then the people’s interest in their German roots and the German language in general seems only to be growing. The identity and position of the German minority in Hungary nowadays The definition of identity has proved to be complicated because different people experience it very differently. The main question is, if someone not speaking any German any more can be considered a German only because of his cultural background. Most people seem to take the mother tongue as the most important sign of identity and thus they would classify somebody speaking Hungarian completely as a Hungarian. The group with the strongest identity is mainly the older generation that still has preserved the old mother tongue and culture, but even they are naturally loyal to the Hungarian state. The younger generation is divided into two lines, one of which still bears the marks of the old culture, only weakened by the Hungarian influence, whereas the other has nearly completely lost the German origins through assimilation and can only namely be considered German. The problem is that even in the families, that are considered the last fortress of passing the culture and language on to the new generation, the chain is broken and the children are usually brought up as „plain” Hungarians. However, now there is also a new group emerging, i.e. children and young people who are again made familiar with germanity through kindergarten and school. Although this group still is extremely small, many people consider them to be the future hope for the preservation of the culture. This is also the only way of passing on the traditions, if the parents can’t present them to their children themselves.

It seems that of all the ethnic Germans in East Central Europe, those in Hungary have suffered the greatest loss in the ability of speaking and understanding the language of their forefathers. Estimations are difficult to make but it is possible that only about 15-20% of the ethnic Germans actually still can use the German language, most of which belonging to the old generation. After the political changes in 1990, however, the amount of people declaring themselves German in the population census was three times as large as in 1980 and at the same time many people seem to have rediscovered their German language skills as well. At the moment the size of the German minority is estimated to 200-220.000. Also the general interest towards the German language has grown. There is, however, one important change to be observed: the disappearance of the dialect in favour of the written language, that can be learned in school. Very few people younger than 60 can still speak one of the old dialects. Also in the usage of German names (towns, villages, streets, family and first names, officials etc.) a decline is to be observed in favour of the Hungarian ones.

In the field of education the interest towards the usage of German is increasing. There are experiments with “language bath” kindergartens where the children are gradually made used to the exclusive usage of the German language. As opposed to the conventional primary and secondary schools, bilingual schools have been founded in which German is not only taught as a foreign language but it is used in certain other subjects as language of tuition. Completely German schools do not exist, though. There are also problems in finding competent teachers and suitable books. Some schools supported by the church also exist where it is possible to study partly in German. In general, though, the church doesn’t offer much services in German and traditionally especially the Catholic church has been considered more a means of magyarisation than a help in taking care of the minorities. About 85% of the Germans in Hungary belong to the Catholic church and 10% to the Lutheran. In the latter the situation is more favourable for the Germans already because of its ancient principle of offering God’s word to the people in their own language, but the Catholic church is also making efforts to increase its services in German if demanded. The problem is though the lack of German-speaking priests.

A lot of German cultural associations have been founded since the beginning of the last decade. Their aims are to ward old traditions, keep language courses, arrange festivities and trips, collect objects belonging to German material culture, contribute to the German radio programs etc. In 1993 there were already over 80 such associations working either on country wide or county level and several local ones. Even the young people have founded an association of their own (Gemeinschaft junger Ungarndeutschen), because they have other thoughts and interests than the older generation and they believe that the other organisations cannot represent them well enough. The most work in the county of Branau (Baranya), where one quarter of the Germans live. The German minority in Hungary is supported also by the Federal Republic of Germany and especially the state of Baden-Württenberg, because many of the Germans who moved to Hungary originated from this area and after the Second World War many of them moved back there. The Germans also feel sympathy towards the Hungarians because it was here that the Iron curtain began to fall and the East Germans were first allowed to flee to the west. The German help and co-operate with the Hungarians mainly in the fields of economy, science and environmental protection projects, but also German associations, kindergartens and schools are founded and supported with money from Germany.

On the basis of the new minority law every minority in Hungary has the right to found a self-government. After the first elections for these new organs in 1994-95, 164 local German self-governments came into existence and in March 1995 elections for the “parliament” of the Germans, the Country-wide self-government, were held. The aim of these organisations is to represent the interests of the Germans in Hungary towards the state, to preserve the language and traditions, to support economy, literature and arts together with the different German associations and contribute to the emergence of the new, bourgeois-democratic society in the country. The question is, if it is not already too late to save the strongly assimilated minority, but at least the circumstances are now much more favourable than during the last five decades and many people believe that it is possible to turn back the development by putting efforts into the education of the young generation.

Bibliography

Die Deutschen in Ungarn - A magyarországi németek térképe, Neue Zeitung Alapítvány, Budapest 1996

Geschichte der deutschen Minderheit in Ungarn, Baranya Megyei Pedagógiai Intézet, Pécs 1992

Hanák Péter: One Thousand Years - A Concise History of Hungary; Corvina 1988

Lázár István: A Brief History of Hungary; Corvina 1990

Manherz, Karl: Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Ungarndeutschen, Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest 1990

Tilkovszky Loránt: Zeitgeschichte der Ungarndeutschen seit 1919; Corvina 1991

Ungarndeutsche Identität in europäischer Dimension - A magyarországi németek identitása európai látószögbõ (Ergebnisse einer Symposienreihe - A szimpózium-sorozat eredményei), Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung des Landes Baden-Württenberg, Stuttgart 1995

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