RUMANIA PLANS RESETTLEMENT OF 200,000 ETHNIC GERMANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700110614-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 614
• Publication Date: June 29, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700110614-6
SUBJECT
HOW
PUBLISHED Daily newspaper
WHERE
PUB'SHED Salzburg
DATE
PUBLISHED 11 Apr 1953
LANGUAGE
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A Rumanian delegation recently visited East Berlin for about 2 weeks
to negotiate with the East German government for the resettlement of the
Transylvanian ethnic Germans from Rumania to East Germany. Rumanian peas-
ant from the Dobruja are to replace the estimated 200,000 Transylvanian
Germans still in Rumania, according to the resettlement plan. The land
thus evacuated in the Dobruja will be colonized by Soviets. Hence, a So-
viet-occupied zone will be formed from the mouth of the Danube to the Bul-
garian border on the Black Sea. This will include the port of Constants
and the Danube-Black Sea Canal area.
The area around Medias, in Transylvania, is to be evacuated and con-
verted into a heavy industrial region. The area already has some heavy in-
dustry, as well as natural gas which can be used for cheap heating and per
to operate large enterprises. In the city of Medias, natural gas has been
used for domestic purposes for 30 years.
The planned resettlement of the Transylvanian Germans to East Germany in-
volves another factor. For several months the refugee movement of East Ger-
mans to West Germany has included a large number of peasants. Thousands of
East German farms are vacant and will not be worked; the cattle are dying, and
the fields cannot be cultivated. The food shortage in East Germany threatens
to become severe. From time to time, small groups of People's Police are sent
to the abandoned farms to milk and feed the cows. The initiators of the re-
settlement plan thought that this situation could be overcome with the aid of
the efficient Transylvanian farmers.
The German population was called to Rumania by the King of Hungary 800
years ago to cultivate the land and defend it against the Turks. The settlers
possessed a high level of &Ulture and were able to introduce western European
civilization to this area. At the end of World War II, approximately 25,000
Transylvanian Germans were moved westward by the retreating German troops.
CLASSIFICATION CC ~gtREE~SSyTRICTED TT
CENTRAL INTELLIG6NG % NCYION
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS
Political -.Minority groups, oppressive
measures
CD NO.
DATE OF
DATE DIST. .q Jun 1953
NO. OF PAGES 2 .
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
STATE
ARMY
NSRB
FBI
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08_ CIA-RDP80-00809A000700110614-6~
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700110614-6
RESTRICTED
Approximately 15,000 of this number now live in Austria and 10,000 in West
Germaiyy. Of the 200,000 5 !7 remaining in Rumania after the war, thousands
were moved by the Soviets to the Donets coal fields, where they died. All
the property of the Transylvanian Germans was confiscated by the Cc?unist
government, and many of the people were imprisoned.' Nov this group, which
has suffered so greatly in the past, is to be uprooted completely.
The ethnic German group in the Rumanian Banat, which once comprised
300,000 persons, is constantly dwindling. On the one hand, this group is
being "de-Germanized" by nationalization, control of schools, and other meas-
ures. On the other hand, it is constantly being reduced by deportations to
Dobruja, where the deportees are assigned to hard labor on the Danube-Black
Sea Canal project. Thousands of deportees spent two terrible winters on the
icy steppes of Baragan without roofs over their heads or help of any kind, or
perished in hard work on the canal.
This treatment of the Banat Germans and the proposed resettlement of
the Transylvanian Germans appear to constitute a considered plan to do away
with ethnic Germans in Rumania, and to obliterate the Central European civil-
ization which may be traced to their influence.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08 _CIA-RDP80-00809A000700110614-6