The Deportation of Germans from Romania to Forced Labor in the Soviet Union

The year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the deportation of women and men of German origin from Romania to forced labor in the Soviet Union. In January 1945 nearly 70,000 working-age persons were coercively transported to the Donbas. For those affected, it seemed to be a cloak-and-dagger operation. However, documents show that the exploitation of “German laborers” for the reconstruction of the areas of the Soviet Union destroyed by the war was addressed by the Allies and meticulously planned by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), as well as German citizens from all over Central Eastern Europe, were deployed for reconstruction.