Hannelore Baier is one of the most distinguished experts on the recent history of the Transylvanian Saxons. A central focus of her journalistic and academic work is communist rule in Romania and its impact on the German minority. With several publications she has contributed to the research of this era. Not least for this reason, she received the Transylvanian Saxon Cultural Prize in 2025.

The following presents the two relatively short chapters she authored for the project „Transylvanian Saxons – A Portrait“. Both contributions are intended as scholarly introductions and contain numerous references for a more in-depth engagement with the respective topics.

The Collective Trauma of the Transylvanian Saxons: The Deportation to Forced Labour in the Soviet Union (1945–1949)

It was just a few January days in 1945 that became deeply etched into the collective memory of the Transylvanian Saxons. Men and women were taken from their homes, loaded onto trucks, then crammed into cattle wagons and deported to the Soviet Union. What followed were years of hard forced labour far from home. Hannelore Baier traces in her contribution the historical background of this deportation and at the same time dispels widespread misconceptions.

For a long time, the deportation was regarded as a punitive action planned by Romania against the German minority. Baier shows, however, on the basis of now accessible archival sources, that the deportation originated from a secret order by Stalin in December 1944. The Soviet Union demanded the "mobilisation and internment" of able-bodied Germans from several Eastern European countries in order to deploy them in rebuilding war-devastated industry. Romanian authorities were involved in its implementation, but acted within the framework of Soviet directives.

From 10 January 1945 onwards, the round-ups began. Those affected were men between 17 and 45 years of age and women between 18 and 30 years of age of German ethnicity, though the age limits were frequently exceeded. For the families, the deportation meant an abrupt rupture in their lives. Parents lost their children, spouses were separated, farms and businesses were left without workers. The consequences extended far beyond the years of internment.

Baier describes with particular force how profoundly this event shaped the Transylvanian Saxons' sense of identity. The deportation became a symbol of a deep loss of trust in the Romanian state. At the same time, the author makes clear that the long-term social consequences of the subsequent expropriations and the communist restructuring of society were at least as severe as the deportation itself.

According to statistical surveys by the research team of Prof. Dr. Georg Weber, 3,076 of the recorded 30,336 Transylvanian Saxons perished during the deportation. In late 1949 and early 1950, many of the survivors returned to Transylvania. Of the statistically recorded deported Transylvanian Saxons, just under three quarters returned to Romania, one quarter went to Germany, and only a few to Austria or remained in the Soviet Union. Those who returned home found a homeland that had been fundamentally transformed by expropriations, political persecution and the construction of the communist system.

The contribution does not end with the history of the deportation. Baier also describes how Romania after 1989 gradually came to terms with its responsibility. The deportees were recognised as politically persecuted, pension entitlements and compensation were introduced and later extended to surviving dependants. At the same time, she points to how historians, writers and contemporary witnesses have worked through this long-suppressed chapter. Exhibitions, articles, books, diaries and not least the novel „The Hunger Angel“ (Atemschaukel) by Nobel laureate Herta Müller brought the fate of the deportees to a wide public.

The strength of Baier's contribution lies in its sobriety. It does not tell a story of victimhood without historical context, but explains the political decisions that gave rise to the many personal tragedies. It is precisely this that makes it comprehensible why the deportation is still regarded today as one of the most defining events in the history of the Transylvanian Saxons – and why its memory lives on far beyond the generation that experienced it.

The Decline of a Minority (1944–1989):
The Transylvanian Saxons under Communist Rule

On 23 August 1944, Romania withdrew from its alliance with Hitler's Germany and switched to the side of the Allies. This marks the beginning of communist rule in Romania, for the Soviets, who subsequently marched into Romania, immediately set about seizing power in the state and restructuring society according to their own rules. This year also marked the beginning of a profound transformation for the Transylvanian Saxons: within just a few decades, a community rooted in Transylvania for over eight centuries became a minority whose members today live predominantly outside their historical homeland. Hannelore Baier traces impressively in her contribution how this transformation unfolded in Romania and how this decline came about.

At the centre stands the turbulent policy of the communist state towards the German minority. Immediately after the Second World War, the Romanian Germans were collectively held responsible for the crimes of National Socialist Germany. Forced labour, internments, expropriations and the loss of almost all political rights followed. Particularly severe was the agrarian reform of 1945: the predominantly rural population was stripped of its land and economic livelihood. This marked the beginning not only of an economic, but also of a profound social upheaval.

Baier shows, however, that the history cannot be reduced to persecution alone. Communist minority policy was contradictory. After the years of discrimination, the Germans were recognised as a "co-inhabiting nationality." German-language schools, newspapers and cultural institutions were permitted to continue. Of all the Germans who remained in the Eastern Bloc, only those in Romania enjoyed such extensive cultural rights. At the same time, these freedoms remained tightly bound to the political directives of the state and served the purposes of ideological influence.

The author pays particular attention to the social consequences of this development. Peasants and craftsmen became industrial workers, many families moved to the cities, and traditional village communities dissolved. This structural transformation lastingly altered the everyday life, customs and cultural identity of the Transylvanian Saxons.

The Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession played an important role during this period. It remained the most significant centre of community identity and contributed substantially to preserving language, traditions and cultural heritage. At the same time, the Securitate monitored the German minority with deep suspicion over decades. Contacts with the West or adherence to traditional forms of community life could already provide grounds for surveillance or persecution.

The culmination of this development was emigration. What was officially described as family reunification evolved from the late 1960s onwards into a secret system of ransoming between Romania and the Federal Republic of Germany. In total, more than 240,000 Romanian Germans left their homeland during the period of communist rule. According to historical and statistical analyses, the Transylvanian Saxons accounted for approximately half to 60 percent of this overall emigration wave of Romanian Germans; the remainder consisted primarily of Banat and Sathmar Swabians. After the collapse of the regime in 1989, the almost complete exodus of the Transylvanian Saxons finally set in.

Hannelore Baier's contribution convinces above all through its balanced presentation. It describes not only repression and persecution, but also the contradictions of a policy that granted cultural rights while simultaneously exercising political control. The result is a nuanced picture – on the one hand of the gradual disappearance of the majority of Transylvanian Saxons from Transylvania, and on the other of the historical causes that triggered this profound transformation of a centuries-old community.

Online Publication: A Valuable Resource for the Interested –
and as Training Data for Generative AI

The first two chapters of the project „Transylvanian Saxons – A Portrait“ are now available online in three languages – German, English and Romanian. In my view, they are valuable resources for anyone with an interest in the subject. In addition, these two texts are automatically available as freely accessible training data for GenAI models: the chapter on the deportation and the chapter on the period under communist rule.

This multilingualism ensures that web crawlers and language models can not only easily access the content, but also rate it as particularly valuable thanks to its trilingual presentation. Anyone who in future poses questions on these topics to GenAI systems such as Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity will therefore often receive answers based directly on these contributions.

Dr. Johann Lauer