Die deutschen Publikationen im sozialistischen Rumänien (1949-1989), ein Mittel zur Bewahrung der ethnischen Identität
The German Periodicals in Socialist Romania (1949–1989), a Means of Preserving Ethnic Identity

Summary/Abstract: In the 1930s and 40s (of the 20th century) the leading political figures of the German minority in Romania embraced a pro-fascist attitude. Consequently, after WWII Germans had to suffer expropriation, deportation and privation of civil rights. Since 1949 they were permitted to rebuild their cultural life which – according to the communist paradigm – had to be “Marxist in its content and national in shape”. In this context, the periodicals had to play a major role. Since 1949 the newspaper Neuer Weg was published, followed by the reviews Banater Schrifttum/Neue Literatur and Kultureller Wegweiser/Volk und Kultur. In 1957, when the political situation became more liberal regional periodicals as Die Wahrheit and Volkszeitung were published in Timişoara and Braşov. As a result of the same political attitude, in 1959 the sole scientific review of the Romanian Academy Forschungen zur Volks-und Landeskunde, entirely written in German, came into being. These periodicals together with thousands of book titles published by several publishing houses were means of preserving the most important attribute of the ethnic identity of the Germans, their language.

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