The people of Bessarabia heard the news of a Soviet ultimatum on radio the evening before the invasion. It created profound shock in the German villages that soon paralyzed the entire country. It appeared that the Germans in Bessarabia would now meet the very same fate that they had escaped in 1918 by a stroke of luck. For years their friends and relatives on the other side of the Dniester kept them meticulously informed of the catastrophic effects of Soviet agrarian policies, collectivization and kulak persecutions, about famine and massive dying, political repression and deportation. The uncertainty over their future was enormous.
Gradually it leaked out that the German government was negotiating an evacuation, intending to transfer Germans in Bessarabia and North Bukovina to the German Reich. A precedent had been set in the fall of 1939 with the evacuation of about 67,000 Baltic Germans from Estonia and Latvia. In the winter of 1939–40, German resettlement commandos had removed an additional 130,000 Germans from Volhynia, Galicia and the Narev region towards the West across the new demarcation line.
In fact, a German delegation, residing in Moscow since July 22, 1940, was negotiating over the transfer of the population. On September 5, 1940, the “German-Soviet Russian Agreement Regarding the Resettlement of Germans from Bessarabia and North Bukovina” was signed. As news of this reached the German communities, it was greeted with an overwhelming sigh of relief. Meanwhile, during a better than two-month interval of excruciating uncertainty, it became clear to most of the Bessarabian Germans that the Soviet invasion meant the end of independent farming and a colonist culture founded on it for over five generations. as they had come to know it.
Agreeing to resettlement from their trusted home to a highly uncertain future required of the Bessarabian Germans a difficult decision. Especially for the older ones, evacuation meant a fundamental interruption to their way of life as they knew it that would demand of them and their families even more difficult adjustments ahead. On the other hand, they had no alternative if they wanted to avoid living in a Soviet sphere of power and partaking in the fate of other German colonists in the remaining Black Sea region—collectivization, deprivation of rights and deportation.
All the same, officers of the invading troops had generally treated the German population correctly. The promise of security that Molotov had made to the German government was largely adhered to. That was not true for the other nationalities. While the Germans were hardly bothered by the Soviet secret police (GPU)—except for isolated harassment or arrest—they were forced to observe how their affluent Russian, Jewish or Bulgarian neighbors were hauled off to interrogations—mostly at night—and often never heard of again. The German pastor, Erwin Meyer of the Leipzig, Bessarabia parish, wrote in his April 1941 personal essay:
“Almost none of the Germans were deported—many of the Russians, Bulgarians and well-to-do Jews were, however, taken away. Nothing was done to us, the pastors, but the Orthodox clergy had to immediately remove their vestments, cut their hair and shave off their beards—as was the case in Ismail. None of us Germans were evicted from our homes, but other nationalities were. German property was either not seized or returned immediately, but not in the case of others. Factories, mills and churches were not nationalized until shortly before our departure. We have German protection to thank for this.” (Jachomowski 1984, 61–62)
Not just fear of harassment from the Soviet secret police, but also the grave changes in everyday life in the wake of the Soviet occupation spurred on in the German villages a willingness to resettle. Shortages, mismanagement, deprivation of personal liberties and reprisals were on the horizon. Within a short time, consumer goods such as fabrics, notions, leather goods, sugar, salt, kerosene and tobacco were in short supply or available only at ever-increasing prices. The German community officials were dismissed and new village soviets formed. Local committees were placed under the jurisdiction of regional committees in which Russian communists set the agenda. The business world was also restructured. All private business was dissolved. Larger industrial firms and commercial enterprises remained largely intact but were placed under new managers. Even the German Commercial Association in Artsiz was reorganized after a Soviet model.
In contrast to this creeping dispossession, the property of German farmers, including large estate farmers, was not touched for the moment. They continued going about their work but were under the supervision of the village soviets. Soviet officials insisted that the harvest still be brought in before resettlement and, using absurd measures and harassment, often pressed hard against the work tempo and farming methods. The imposed and arbitrarily fixated taxes frequently exceeded the farmer’s proceeds but still had to be paid. Quickly, the accusation of sabotage came into play. Relatives and neighbors banded together to help out those farmers who had gotten into difficulties.
Church life and Stundist Brethren gatherings went mostly unhindered. Of course, holidays falling on work days were banned and, during the harvest, work had to be done on Sundays, too. In light of the profound disruptions in the lives of the German communities, Pastor Erwin Meyer came to the conclusion in his previously mentioned essay that “all rules and concepts, order and traditions and self-evident assumptions in living together with people” had been “turned upside down in the Soviet state.”
Far Outliers 