Volga Germans

And it was something that was taken very seriously.

The EAK had yet another project for a Jewish republic, to establish it in the place of the former Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where, as we have seen in previous chapters, Jewish settlements were established in the wake of the exile of the Germans.

Esther Markish, widow of EAK member Peretz Markish, confirms that he presented a letter concerning transferring the former German republic to the Jews.

In the Politburo, Molotov, Kaganov, and Veroshulov were the most positively disposed to the EAK, and according to rumors, some members of the Politburo were inclined to support this Crimean idea.

His excuse to deport these groups was that they weren't sufficiently pro-Soviet.

They included the Balkars, Karachays, Chechens, English, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Pontic Greeks, and Volga Germans.

with their destination being mostly into Soviet Central Asia.

While Beria resigned as the head of the NKVD in name, he would retain strong connections throughout the organization.

But, like, my Swiss German people came over in the 1600s.

They were the good Germans.

They were pacifists.

They, like, fucking didn't eat meat.

And he saw that the right wing was easier to manipulate to his ends.

And so he went that way.

I'll remind people that Stalin fucking forcibly relocated a whole bunch of, like, Volga Germans to Kazakhstan, right? Like there's similarities.

Okay.

Right.

He orchestrates the mass deportations of entire ethnic minorities, packing Chechens and Volga Germans onto trains to Central Asia.

And on top of all that, he's put in charge of the Soviet atomic bomb project, successfully testing a nuclear weapon in 1949.

Which is a massive undertaking.

And if necessary to bring socialism, he was gonna have to be very violent, and certain ethnic groups, uh, weren't gonna make it 'cause they were inherently counter-revolutionary.

And so, uh, the, the Volga Germans, the Crimean Tatars, the, uh, the Chechens were, these were all peoples that, uh, uh, had proven themselves unable to integrate, uh, into socialism and so had to, uh, had force had to be used to help them along, uh, by destroying their, uh, organic compact settlements.

But, uh, I think when you're at higher levels, uh, it's more ideological.

I think somebody like Trotsky, somebody like Kaganovich, even somebody like Yagoda, I don't think they were thinking, "I'm doing this, uh, to get back for the fact that, uh, the Russians and Ukrainians, uh, and other peoples, uh, w- You know, engage in pogroms and, and other violence against Jews.

When it came to, uh, Russian forces during World War II, were, were there any German conscripts into it, or were there any Germans who actually volunteered to fight against their own people?

Yes, yes.

Uh, in the beginning, there were over 33,000 Volga Germans who were fighting in the Red Army against the Wehrmacht.

They put up a, a Alamo-type defense at Brest, where they were wiped out by the Wehrmacht.