Bessarabia Germans
The Bessarabia Germans (German: Bessarabiendeutsche, Romanian: Germani basarabeni, Ukrainian: Бессарабські німці, romanized: Bessarabs'ki nimtsi) were a German ethnic group (formerly part of the Germans of Romania) who lived in Bessarabia (today part of the Republic of Moldova and south-western Ukraine) between 1814 and 1940.
German: Bessarabiendeutsche | |
|---|---|
The coat of arms of the Bessarabia Germans | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Bessarabia in the past (mostly with a significant bygone presence in the Budjak or southern Bessarabia) | |
| Languages | |
| German (with a series of German dialects as well) | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Lutheranism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germans and Austrians | |
Lived in Bessarabia between the early 19th century and mid 20th century |
From 1814 to 1842, 9,000 of them immigrated from the German areas Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, some Prussian areas of modern-day Poland and Alsace, France, to the Russian governorate of Bessarabia at the Black Sea. The area, bordering on the Black Sea, was part of the Russian Empire, in the form of Novorossiya; it later became the Bessarabia Governorate.
Throughout their 125-year history, the Bessarabia Germans were an overwhelmingly rural population. Until their moving to the Greater Germany (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), they were a minority consisting of 93,000 people who made up some 3% of the population. They were distinguished from the Black Sea Germans who settled to the east of Odesa, and from the Dobrujan Germans in Dobruja.
Perhaps the most prominent person of Bessarabian German ancestry is former German President Horst Köhler (elected on behalf of the CDU). Before emigrating in 1940, his parents lived in the German colony of Rîșcani in northern Bessarabia, being later on moved to Poland, which was by that time occupied by Nazi Germany, where Köhler was born.