I've been reading around the subject of German immigration into the parts of Europe that were once Hungary, including areas that became Romania and Yugoslavia, and then to the Unites States. The waves of immigration into Hungary may have been documented as early as the 1400's in some places, 1600's in others. These people are called HUNGARIAN GERMANS.
Germany let people go to other countries with the idea that they would always be Germans and could always come back. Often for generations these Germans in their colonies and towns and villages they established, remained German ethnically. They continued to have a German lifestyle in the way they lived, spoke, cooked, dressed, practiced religion, worked, and in the way they saw family life, inheritance, and the roles of women. Of course, after a few generations the Hungarian lifestyle had its influence.
They may have all come from a particular part of Germany - particularly Catholic regions - where they were intermarried with locals - and continued to intermarry in Hungary. Many of them learned the Hungarian language, came to consider themselves Hungarian, intermarried with Hungarians of the same religion. When they came to the United States they lived close with other Hungarian immigrants, spoke German and Hungarian and learned English.
But it's not true that the Hungarians are "all Germans" as I've often been told.
Doing a little research on this subject, I found that there are a number of names for these HUNGARIAN GERMANS. For instance they are sometimes identified by the area or even the town they came from, such as the Palankaer Germans who came from Palanka. They may be called Dabube Swabians or Transylvania Saxons.
Or they are called "expelled Germans." This site is very interesting: EXPELLED GERMANS ORG . A long list of places that Germans have been expelled from through (especially recent) history.
Another interesting site is this one : BLACK SEA GERMANS which begins, "
Approximately 800 villages were founded in Hungary by German settlers from 1711 to 1750. These German settlers came from the regions known as Baden, Württemberg, Alsace, Lorraine, the Rhineland, Westphalia, Bavaria, and Swabia, as well as from other areas. Even though they came from various regions and spoke various dialects, the Hungarians called them Swabians, and the name came to be used in reference to all Germans who settled in the Danube valley.
Although there had been German immigration to Hungary prior to 1711, the expulsion of the Turks resulted in an organized settlement program sponsored by the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs had three aims: 1) fortify the land against invasion, 2) develop farm land, and 3) further the Roman Catholic religion in Eastern Europe. They offered Catholics of the southwest German states inducements such as free agricultural land, home sites, construction materials, livestock, and exemption from taxes for several years...."*****
I continue to also read around the subject of DNA and am fascinated with what we are learning through this science about how human beings moved through the generations around the world.
