Talk:Russia Germans

The original German article includes a lengthy list of blue-linked Russia Germans of distinction. Methinks it should also be imported here. Please contribute if you can. XavierItzm (talk) 01:57, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Genocide and repeatedly vandalized references by Russian user

Vandal editions by user Mellk

There is no doubt that it was a genocide what was done against Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia, also known as Russia Germans. And it is a gross and outrageous violation of Wikipedia rules that all those references continue to be vandalized by the Russian user Mellk (see, for example, here), who already has a history of vandalizing references and creating disputes on Wikipedia after editing many articles with an ideological bias in favor of the crimes carried out by Russia.

User Mellk has been vandalizing all the references in this article, but also in Volga Germans (see, for example, here), Saratov (look how he removes the word "genocide", which is abundantly sourced, under the false accusation that such information would be an "unsourced commentary" here, then he continues "pruning" with the conscious objective of hiding the sourced information here, the Russian government forbids talk about genocide, but he hides that information against WP:COMMONSENSE here, the Russian user is not satisfied and finally removes all references in that article as well, which of course is vandalism here), and others, in which he simply removes all the information and references that he doesn't like.

Therefore, the phenomenon of this vandalism must be treated as a whole, since it is being carried out by the same user and in more than one article that addresses the same dark chapter in history.

Genocide and the application of logical reasoning

To say that precisely the version of scholars and experts in the history of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia is not reliable (as said user writes every time he vandalizes the references), would be like saying that to learn about the genocide of Jews you should not consult any source provided by the Jewish community, but only read the version that the Nazis admit.

It is precisely the organizations that represent the victims that have an interest in denouncing what has been done to them, while the perpetrators have an interest in hiding it. This is completely obvious and logical.

In any case, for a person to join this interest in covering up such a crime, the only thing it reveals is their ideological affinity. And also their moral quality.

Applying the criteria of the Russian user Mellk, who says that the information and testimonies provided by the organizations that gather the victims and relatives of victims of genocides is not reliable, for example, we should say that a victim of a robbery cannot report the crime to the police, since it is the thief himself who should determine if he stole or not. As you can see, this reveals a deeply cynical way of seeing reality... Or as cynical as it is interested. In any case, of course, it is the most unethical thing imaginable.

To say that Germans were decimated, deported, enslaved, that they were forbidden to speak their own language, that they were forbidden to be educated in their own language, that many had to emigrate en masse to save themselves and that so many others were killed, that today the survivors and their descendants live scattered all over the world as a result of that, but that that is not genocide, it is as absurd as describing a robbery avoiding saying the word "robbery"... For example, someone admits that a man entered someone else's home, that he took money that did not belong to him, that he did so by threatening the resident family with a firearm, but: he refuses to use the word "robbery"... Completely absurd, right? Or interested and cynical...

The genocide of Germans from Russia has been very well documented by experts from various countries who call it for what it was: a genocide.

Therefore, it is also completely false to say that there is barely a "debate" about that term, just as the Russian user is simultaneously editing in the Volga Germans article (and in this one, he doesn't even accept that).

All the experts on the subject call it genocide, and even many books about the genocide of Russia Germans have been written. The only one that does not call it genocide is Russia, something that is not surprising, since in the same way, Russia goes to the extreme of denying absolutely all the genocides that it carried out. But denying all these genocides seems to be one more way of provoking the victims, of re-victimizing them, of showing that an attitude can never be unabashed enough, that someone can always redouble the bet and be even more evil.

References to the genocide of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia

It is also false to imply that the only book that has been written on the genocide of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia is Kaiser, D. Philipp (2014). Moscow's Final Solution: The Genocide of the German-Russian Volga Colonies. ISBN 9780615157801, as implied by the Russian user Mellk in other talk page, who does not mention the rest of the references that he vandalized.

Many other books and other studies have been published calling the genocide of Germans from Russia or Russia Germans for what it was: a genocide. For example:

Sinner, Samuel D. (2000). The Open Wound: The deportation of West German Ethnic Minorities in Russia & the Soviet Union, 1915-1949 - And Beyond. ISBN 1891193082.

Also: Maier Schwerdt, Héctor (2009). Deportación a Siberia: el genocidio de los alemanes del Volga; memoria de la supresión de la República Germana del Volga en Rusia y de la deportación a Siberia de todos sus habitantes, el 28 de agosto de 1941. ISBN 9789870565536.

Also: Conquest, Robert (1974). Stalins Völkermord: Wolgadeutsche, Krimtataren, Kaukasier. ISBN 3203504855

The Journal of Genocide Research also considers the genocide of the Germans in Russia for what it was: a genocide. Examples:

Pohl, J. Otto (1 June 2000). Stalin's genocide against the "Repressed Peoples. Journal of Genocide Research. 2 (2): 267–293. doi:10.1080/713677598

Eric J. Schmaltz and Samuel D. Sinner. 'You Will Die under Ruins and Snow': The Soviet Repression of Russian Germans as a Case Study of Successful Genocide, Journal of Genocide Research (2002), 4 (3), pp. 327-356.

On the other hand, the website volgagermans.org, initially created in 2009 by Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, also calls the genocide of Germans from Russia for what it was: a genocide. See: https://www.volgagermans.org/history/genocide

In Argentina, each town also remembers the genocide of Germans from Russia, even with the presence of its mayor (See, for example, Act for the 80th anniversary of the deportation and extermination of Germans in Siberia and other regions of the USSR). It is totally absurd that the Russian user wants to make all this look like an international whim.

As you can see, the reason why absolutely all experts in the history of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia agree that what was done to Germans from Russia was genocide leaves no room for doubt: because it was indeed genocide.

The United Nations is very clear on this. In fact, the definition of genocide given by the United Nations Genocide Convention is practically a description of what was done to the Volga Germans and the Germans from the rest of Russia:

"acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly".

Genocide of Germans started long before WWII

While it is true that the genocide carried out against Germans from Russia reached its peak in 1941 (and that this is a very representative date of hatred since it even implied the suppression of the autonomous republic of the Volga Germans), it is false that this genocide began with World War II or the invasion of Russia, and that falsehood is denounced by history experts.

On the contrary, later, WWII was used as a pretext that tried to justify all these genocidal policies that destroyed an ethnic group, because Russia was afraid of being judged.

In fact, policies aimed at destroying this ethnic group and even deportations of Germans began long before World War II:

Korn, Robert. Ungesühntes Verbrechen.

Kaiser, D. Philipp (2014). Moscow's Final Solution: The Genocide of the German-Russian Volga Colonies.

Therefore, the vandal edition of the Russian user Mellk, who tries to show that the genocidal policies against the Germans in Russia began with WWII, is completely false.

It is enough to see that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, many Germans from Russia had to emigrate to Canada, the United States, Argentina and Brazil as a direct consequence of the aggressive policy of Russification imposed by the government, in addition to the killings, confiscations and even deportations. However, the vandal edition of said user suppresses those reasons, showing that the mass emigration of Germans from the Volga to the Americas would have been due to a simple "whim". This is a completely intentional concealment of history.

Of course, all those persecutions and killings worsened in the pre-revolution stage and of course also in the post-revolution stage.

Regards. --Creamb (talk) 12:08, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Germans were not the only ethnic group, which was affected by an aggressive Policy of Assimilation in Imperial Russia and those kind of policy was also practised by a lot of other countries against different ethnic groups, but no one calls for example the aggressive Italianization policy in South Tyrol by Fascist Italy or the aggressive policy of Turkification of Kurds in Turkey a Genocide. There was never a racist-motivated policy of persecution or mass killings in Tsarist Russia or the USSR (which was an explicite polyethnic state that had also leaders who belonged to ethnic minorities) against ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities were surely discriminated but they were not persectued or annihiliated. The massacres against Jews in the late 19th century in Russian Empire were not planned, organized and initiated by the government and the perpetrators were mainly Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Balts and Moldovans. The Deportation of ethnic minorities had not the aim of annihilation of them, but there is no doubt, that there were crimes against humanity. The treatment of German Prisoners of war in occupied Germany by Western Allies, especially the Americans and French, in the so-called Rheinwiesen camps or the British Blockade against Imperial and Weimar Germany were very brutal but both are not clasified as Genocides. The Thesis that Russia Germans were victims of a Genocide was made up by American and other Anglo-Saxon Historians. There was also no continuity between the discrimination policy against ethnic minorities of Tsarist Russia and USSR and the minority policy of the last one also changed fundamentally because the early USSR under Lenin was more tolerant towards minorities.--88.66.153.153 (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)