The German settlements in Bessarabia

This study uses currently available demographic, economic, social, political and religious data to consider the history of the German settlements in Bessarabia from 1814-1940. The German settlers struggled until they learned and mastered the different crops and animals suited to the steppe environment. By the 1850s, the German colonies were successfully established with better food supplies and retained earnings from agriculture than they had had in Western Europe. Following the Crimean War, the grain trade to Western Europe from Odessa and the development of regional and national trade links within Russia further improved economic prospects for the Bessarabian Germans. World War I, the Russian Revolution, and Bessarabia's 1918 absorption into Romania brought a major economic setback. The German settlements only slowly and partially recovered. In 1940, the Soviet Union suddenly took control of Bessarabia. An agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union offered Germans a terrible choice: abandon Bessarabia and resettle or accept the changes of Soviet rule. Perceiving that remaining in Bessarabia would mean the loss of significant personal freedoms, property, and religious rights, virtually the entire population of nearly 90,000 Germans left for a bitter, temporary stay in occupied Poland.