Patterns of Interwar Transylvanian Saxons Identity

Dr Harald Roth

Panel 5 The German Minorities

Abstract

Subsequent to the national ‘general assembly’ held on the 8 January 1919, the Transylvanian Saxons declared their collective ‘Anschluss’ to Greater Romania and intent to be “loyal members of that state to which we belong.” That said, the Saxons entered the interwar period with a self-perception formulated around two or three generations previously.  When the definition of ‘Saxons’ as a German-speaking protestant ethnic group, historically living in Transylvania, emerged around 1850, a large portion of this group had already developed strong identity patterns that were largely based on the legal guarantees awarded to them between the 13 and 15 centuries as the inhabitants of the autonomous Saxon territories (fundus regius). In early modern times this legal framework very gradually gave way to the self-perception of a group characterised by the same language, religion, and customs, and that only accepted into its ‘natio’ (an estate) those deemed to be similar regardless of where they came from. But it was only during the 19 century that the legal character of the ‘natio Saxonum’ lost its importance. Thus the term ‘Saxon’ could be used for the entire German-speaking group and for its particular Germanic dialect (whereas the previous generic term had been ‘detsch’, i.e. German). But the degree of change was limited: The Saxons – always understood as a group, never as single individuals – constituted a microcosm independent of external factors, meaning that they could be loyal members of whichever state subsumed them. But this was conditional on the state allowing them to preserve their isolationist identity unimpeded. So, for example, as citizens of dualist Hungary they did not cooperate with other German groups, interacting more closely with Transylvania’s Romanians than with, for example, the later so-called Danube Swabians.

This ‘autistic’ identity was perpetuated after 1918 in Greater Romania – the state to which the group officially belonged, but where it never arrived. The Saxons’ (political, ideological) orientation hence lay, from the very beginning, with the Weimar Republic and, to a lesser degree, Austria. So while the Saxon political elite pragmatically cooperated with Bucharest, and the Saxon economic elite took their chance and explored Greater Romania as a new large and profitable market, the minority’s identity did not change: their self-perception was not as a better, but as a culturally fundamentally different group, even vis-à-vis the other Germans in Greater Romania who were now – paradoxically – represented to a large extend by Saxons. This relationship with the other Germans only changed with the growing fascist/national-socialist influence exerted by Hitler-Germany during the mid- and late-1930s. At this point, it turned out to be fateful that the historically grown Saxon identity patterns and the national-socialist ideology were in many ways congruent: isolationism, exclusivity of membership to Germans, and their understanding of Volksgemeinschaft. New though was the racist, biological element, and its aggression towards the different ‘other’ cultivated by a new, young and Berlin-oriented, elite in an extreme form during the years 1940-44. However, their new, Romanian Homeland did not gain any importance to Saxon identity unto perhaps the mid-20 century.

Relevant Publications

• Hermannstadt: Kleine Geschichte einer Stadt in Siebenbürgen. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2007.
• Mariana Hausleitner (eds.). Der Einfluss von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus auf Minderheiten in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa. München. München: IKGS-Verlag, 2006.
• “Von der Nation zum Volk zur Nation: Ethnische Identitäten im Siebenbürgen des 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts.” Ralph Tuchtenhagen, Christoph Gassenschmidt (eds.). Ethnische und soziale Konflikte im neuzeitlichen Osteuropa: Festschrift für Heinz-Dietrich Löwe zum 60. Geburtstag. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac 2004: pp.233-45.
• “Wissenschaft zwischen Nationalsozialismus und Stalinismus: Vom Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Volksgruppe in Rumänien zum Forschungsinstitut für Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Rumänischen Akademie.” Mathias Beer, Gerhard Seewann (eds.). Südostforschung im Schatten des Dritten Reiches (1920-1960). München: Oldenbourg, 2004: pp.123-33.
• Kleine Geschichte Siebenbürgens. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2003.
• (ed.). Handbuch der Historischen Stätten: Siebenbürgen. Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 2003.
• “Geschichtliche Einführung.” Harald Roth (ed.). Handbuch der Historischen Stätten: Siebenbürgen. Stuttgart: Kröner, 2003: pp.XIX-LXXI.
• “Armenier.”  Thomas M. Bohn, Dietmar Neutatz (eds). Studienhandbuch Östliches Europa. Bd. II: Geschichte des Russischen Reiches und der Sowjetunion. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2002: pp.363-6.
• “[Stichwort] Rumänien.” Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens, Bd. 6. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2002: pp.412-15.
• Hans Meschendörfer. “[Stichwort] Siebenbürgen.” Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens, Bd. 7. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2002: pp.84-6.
• “Ethnikum und Konfession als mentalitätsprägende Merkmale: Zur Frage konfessioneller Minderheiten in Siebenbürgen.” Zeitschrift für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde 24 (2001): pp.74-83.
• “Über die Utopie einer modernen Geschichtsschreibung über Siebenbürgen: Oder: Ein Plädoyer gegen die Erste Person Singular und Plural.” Zeitschrift für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde 23 (2000): pp.265-268.