The deportation of the German population which started in 1941 was the logical continuation of the policy of unfounded mass repression in the 1930s and the violation of basic rights of Soviet citizens laid down in the constitution.
Strictly speaking, to counterbalance the existing legal regulations, an analogous legislation was created, which was manifested by a multitude of illegal collections of statutes passed by the civil and military authorities, and in the end decided about the fate of entire peoples.
Among the decrees which served as a basis for the mass persecutions towards the German population, we have to mention in the first place the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet dated 28 August 1941 “About the resettlement of the Volga-Germans”, a decree retaining a regrettable fame. Accordingly, it was consiedered “ … an inevitable necessity to resettle the entire German population from the Volga regions to other districts, by assigning them suitable pieces of land granting financial support from the part of the government in the new places of residence”.
As we can derive from a report of the Krasnoyarsk regional committee of the VKP (B) dated 8 January 1942 “About the economic situation and job assignment with regard to the newly arrived German resettlers, 77359 individuals had been transported away from the Volga regions to Krasnoyarsk Territory by 1 November 1941. They were working for various sectors of national economy: 15037 families were integrated into kolkhoz farms, 716 into state farms, 25 were working for machine and tractor stations, 1529 for regional establishments and enterprises.
File memorandums and other records kept with record group N°. 26 (“Krasnoyarsk regional committee of the VKP (B)”) give an insight into the scattered settling of the Germans in the Mansk, Karatussk, Minusinsk, Birilyussk, Pirovsk and other districts of the region. The statement of accounts from these districts repeatedly contain information on the fact that all special resettlers are in work and housed in separate, well appointed apartments. However, the palliative notes do not mention a word about all the difficult circumstances and conditions the deported people were living in.
Documents state that the majority of special resettlers was not at all prepared to live in Siberia and that they had to experience and cope with considerable material difficulties. From an application written by a group of German special resettlers from the kolkhoz farm called “1st May” in Tyukhtetsk district we learn: “In view of the fact that they chase us to work day by day, we request to be supported by better food supplies, elsewise we will all starve. From 20 September until 8 October 1941 each individual fit for work received a daily ration of 700 grs of rye flour – our dependent family members 300 grs each. Fortunately, we disposed of some money in our pockets when they took us to this place, otherwise we would have perished since long. As from 8 October each worker has been receiving 1 kg of flour, but it is sheer mockery to call this stuff flour – it is nothing else but chaff”.
In their letters addressed to the regional committee, the executive staff members of the district party committees admit that the “humour of the people does not necessarily play a prominent part (the situation is not that bad); recently, work discipline worsened. Apart from this, we more often state cases, when people refuse to go to work at all, which is due to the payment of very low wages. From the money they earn they cannot even buy foodstuffs such as bread and potatoes – to say nothing of cattle.
The Germans were driven to despair and began to spend the time by arbitrarily lifting potatoes and carrots from the vegetable gardens of the kolkhoz farmers. Thus, on the kolkhoz farm called “In memory of Lenin”, in Sukhobusimo District, German families were stealing potatoes on a large scale. Almost all 25 families were lifting potatoes from the farm gardens of the kolhoz farmers for three days, until the local authorities finally put a stop to these actions.
Quite often similar occurrences were not paid the slightest attention to: the responsible persons used to explain the situation by unpleasant side-effects of the war.
The fate of the Volga Germans stood in close connection with the relations between our country and Germany after the outbreak of the war. This was, of course, a wrong but – consequent reaction. The resettlers became aware of this backround themselves, although, at first, they were sure that they had been deported to Siberia for the sole reason of being of German origin. In spite of the considerable difficulties the resettlers had to cope with, they adapted themselves, were integrated into the production process and “that they did a job when assisting with the harvest, work in the field and other activities”.
The manpower of the German special resettlers was also used for the construction of factories evacuated to Krasnoyarsk territory, mining and milling sites, ships’ wharfs in Yeniseysk and Predivinsk, the lumber mill and wood-processing factory of the “Krasles” Trust, etc.
The difficult economic situation and daily problems of those special resettlers, who had been assigned to work for industrial enterprises, particularly of those, who had been mobilized into the labour army, were attested by a memorandum “About work discipline in import industrial sectors in 1943”. It says that a considerable part of the resettlers working for the “Red Profintern” Factory, are not at all adapted to the local conditions, and that they were facing difficulties due to the lack of suitable changes in the dull routine of everyday life.
By Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet dated 27 March 1953 many Germans were amnestied. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine the exact number of individuals released on the territory on the basis of this document by means of the arcival holdings of record group N°. 26. In 1955 the restrictions of rights of the Germans and their family members, who found themselves in the state of special resettlement, were lifted. However, they were continuously kept under administrative control and were deprived the right to remove to a place of residence of their own choice.
In 1953 a group of 3000 amnestied special resettlers from Yermakovo, after having arrived in Krasnoyarsk, refused to be accompanied to their new residence by guards. They justified their resistence by explaining that they were free citizens and that nobody had the right to apply such measures against them”.
Only in 1972 the Germans were allowed to remove to other districts within the country and to return to their home towns and villages. But the Autonomous Volga Region was not re-established.
1. Center of the preservation and study of documents of contemporary history,
record group
N°. 26, unpublished inventory N°. 4, file N°. 22, sheet N°. 21-22.
2. Ibidem, unpublished inventory N°. 4, file N°. 105, sheet N°. 3.
3. Ibidem, sheet N°. 2-7.
4. Ibidem, unpublished inventory N°. 3, file N°. 248, sheet N°. 56.
5. Ibidem, record group N°. 2816 “Yenisey-stroi” construction site of the MVD (USSR)
(1949-1953); record group N°. 4620 “Norilsk reform labour camp” of the MVD (USSR)
(1941-1953); record group N°. 5482 Administration of the “KrasSpecLes” of the
MVD (USSR) (1951-1953) a.o.
6. Ibidem, record group N°. 26, unpublished inventory N°. 4, file N°. 15, sheet
N°. 114.
Record group N°. 2816, unpublished inventory N°. 42, file N°. 1, sheet N°. 54.
Archival holdings of Krasnoyarsk Territory: Problems regarding the scientific
and practical use of documents.
Statements from speeches held on the occasion of the scientific-practical
conference in Krasnoyarsk on 20 October 1995 – Krasnoyarsk, 1995.