Deportation of the Volga Germans (1941)

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued Ukaz (Decree) No. 21-160, ordering the deportation of the Volga Germans to special settlements in Kazakhstan and Siberia

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) decided to deport the Volga Germans en masse.

NKVD records revealed that between roughly 365,000 to 371,000 Germans were removed from the Volga German ASSR, along with more than 46,000 from Saratov Oblast and more than 26,000 from Stalingrad Oblast, for a total of approximately 438,000 to 444,000.

The brutal Nazi-Soviet war and the period of forced resettlements and hard labor in the east resulted in the death of about 300,000 Soviet Germans (Volga and others) between 1941 and 1949.

Another 200,000 to 300,000 perished as a result of the deportations and the Labor Army (trudarmiia) in exile from 1941 to 1949.

the resolution of the State Defense Committee (GKO) “Concerning the Kind of Use for German Evacuees of Conscript Age from 17 to 50 Years”; it called for the labor conscription of 120,000 Germans then living in the eastern territories.

GKO Order 2383 expanded Labor Army conscription to all ethnic German men aged 15 to 55 and all ethnic German women aged 16 to 45 who held Soviet citizenship; as a result, 123,500 additional Germans, including 52,700 women, were inducted into the Labor Army.

the remaining ethnic German population was released from the “special settlements”; however, it called for no compensation or return of property confiscated during deportation and exile, nor were Germans allowed to return to their old homelands and native villages.

this “partial rehabilitation” policy did not allow the ethnic Germans to return to their old homelands, nor did it provide for the re-establishment of a Volga German republic and various national districts

this “partial rehabilitation” policy did not allow the ethnic Germans to return to their old homelands

more than two million ethnic Germans from the former USSR have migrated to united Germany since the early 1990s.

it provides for the transfer of the entire German population of the Volga German Republic to Kazakhstan, the Altai region and the Omsk and Novosibirsk districts.

the presence of such great numbers of spies who have not been denounced by the German population proves that the people there are harboring enemies of the Soviet Union.

I have no means of judging to what extent disaffection or fifth column activities exist in this area

that this removal had actually been started before issuance of the decree

the carrying out of this decree will undoubtedly place thousands of innocent human beings in tragic circumstances.

According to reliable reports received from military authorities among the German population living in the region of the Volga exist thousands and tens of thousands of diversionists and spies who are now awaiting a signal from Germany

In order to avoid this undesirable occurrence and to prevent serious bloodshed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet deemed it necessary to resettle the whole German population, living in the region of the Volga, to other regions

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M. Kalinin Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR A. Gorkin

On 30 August 1941, the two largest newspapers in the Volga German ASSR, Nachrichten and Bolshevik , printed the deportation order in its entirety.