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German Places in Slovakia
Duncan B. Gardiner, Ph.D., Certified Genealogist
© Copyright 1997 Duncan B. Gardiner and FEEFHS, all
rights reserved
First Posted: 16 August 1997
The ethnic German population of Slovakia (148,000) amounted to
about five percent of the total according to 1930 census
statistics. Most of these German speakers were descendants of
people who came to Upper Hungary (Slovakia), as early as the
1100s.
These ethnic Germans emigrated to Hungary and other lands east of
the Elbe seeking fertile farmland on which to settle due to
scarcity of land in their native areas. The invention of a
heavier plow in about 1000 A.D. along the Rhine River allowed
farmers to turn over the heavier, wet soils of northern Europe's
river valleys. The three-field crop rotation method was adopted
about the same time.
Together, these innovations produced a more abundant food supply
which led to growth in the population and subsequent settlement
of previously untilled areas of Western Europe. Further
population growth resulted in the need to find new settlement
areas. These were found in the lands beyond the Elbe River-from
eastern Germany eastwards. At first, the migrants were people
from the Rhineland and Saxony.
By the end of the Middle Ages, these ethnic Germans were a
significant minority of most East European countries, the areas
we now know today as Slovakia, Poland, the Baltic States, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. For example, Bohemia (the
western part of the current Czech Republic) up until 1945 had
well over 30% ethnic German population. Moravia had about
22%.
During the early Middle Ages, the territory of Upper Hungary
was relatively thinly settled by Slovak and Rusyn
agriculturalists along with some Magyar landowners and margraves.
Compared to the densely populated Rhineland and northern France,
Upper Hungary (Slovakia) was a frontier region. The Germans,
known for their skills in the crafts, farming and mining, were
invited as settlers by a series of Hungarian rulers.
In 1241, the Mongols invaded Upper Hungary for a short period and
all but destroyed many of the early settlements. The Germans
were again invited to settle. The main period of this later
settlement was under King Bela IV (1235-1270).
German immigration continued until the time of the Black Death,
beginning in 1346 and lasting some years (with outbreaks in
1347-1360 and 1380-1381 in Hungary), which decreased the
population of Europe as a whole by at least 25%. In some places
the mortality rate was something like 75%. The resultant smaller
population reduced pressure to emigrate.
The German population of Upper Hungary during the Middle Ages is
estimated at between 200,000 and 500,000. The Germans were among
the most influential and prosperous citizens, dominating the
political and commercial life of the major towns. In some towns,
only Germans were allowed to own houses and belong to certain
trade guilds.
The Turks invaded Lower Hungary in 1526 occupying most of Hungary
until 1683. Many Magyars, among them many members of the gentry,
fled to Upper Hungary where they gradually began to play an
important role in the economic and political life of the area.
Over time, they gained equal political status both for themselves
and the Slovaks. The Germans began to lose their economic and
political monopolies in the cities.
By the beginning of the 1800s, many towns which were founded by
Germans or previously had a majority of Germans became
predominantly Magyar and Slovak. Towns with a majority German
population, previously distributed generally over most of
Slovakia, gradually shrank to three distinct areas (called
Sprachinseln 'language islands' in German): The Pressburg area in
the southwest, Hauerland in Central Slovakia, and the Zips in
Eastern Slovakia in the High Tatra Mountains and to the
South.
The Zips (Slovak Spis, Hungarian: Szepes) is the best-known
German settlement area in Slovakia. The first German settlers
arrived in the 12th century. Known as the Zipser Saxons, these
early immigrants were apparently from the Lower Rhine region,
Flanders, Saxony, and Silesia.
In the early period, the Zips was a single continuous region
stretching from the northern border with Poland to the
present-day Slovak-Hungarian border. Over time, the Zips divided
into two regions, the Upper and Lower Zips (German Oberzips,
Unterzips).
The Upper Zips towns, in the valley of the Popper (Sl. Poprad)
River, stretch from Deutschendorf (Sl. Poprad) and Leutschau (Sl.
Levoca) in the South to the Polish border along the Tatra
Mountains. The most prominent towns were Deutschendorf,
Kaesmark, and Leutschau. Very early, the Upper Zips towns formed
the Zipser Bund 'Zips League' (Slovak: Spolocenstvo Spisskych
Sasov), a federation of towns whose members were governed by the
Zipser Willkuer, a civil and commercial legal system modelled
after that of Magdeburg.
Most of the Upper Zips towns had charters from the Hungarian king
and were not subject to a local seigneur; they elected their own
governing officials. The economy of the Upper Zips towns was
varied: traditional crafts (masonry, blacksmithing, leather
working, etc.), textiles, mining, farming, commerce.
In 1412 the Emperor Sigismund, to finance his war with Venice,
mortgaged 14 of the original 24 Zipser towns to the King of
Poland, to whom their income belonged until 1772.
The original Zipser Bund towns were Bela, Deutschendorf (Poprad),
Dirn (Odorin), Donnersmarkt (Spissky Stvrtok), Duerelsdorf
(Tvarozna), Eisdorf (Zakovce), Eulenbach (Bystrany), Felka
(Velka), Georgenberg (Spisska Sobota), Großlomnitz /
Grosslomnitz (Velka Lomnica), Hunsdorf (Huncovce), Kabsdorf
(Hrabusice), Kaesmark (Kezmarok), Kirchdrauf (Spisské
Podhradie), Kunzendorf (Vlkovce), Leibitz (L'ubica), Leutschau
(Levoca), Menhardsdorf (Vrbov), Muehlenbach (Mlynica), Neudorf
(Spisska Nova Ves), Palmsdorf (Harichovce), Rießdorf /
Riessdorf (Ruskinovce), Schwabsdorf (Svabovce), Sperndorf
(Iliasovce).
The list of towns changed from time to time between 1248 to 1673.
In 1674 the fraternity was disbanded, a victim of the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation.
The 1930 census indicates that there were 25,162 Czechoslovak
citizens of German nationality in the Upper Zips towns. The
Lower Zips towns stretch from Neudorf (Spisska Nova Ves) in the
North to Metzenseifen (Medzev) in the south, along the valleys of
the Hernad and Goellnitz Rivers. The major Lower Zips towns were
founded as mining communities; iron mines replaced the early gold
and silver mines as the more precious metals gave out.
In contrast to the Upper Zips towns where the German population
was partly replaced by Slovaks, the Lower Zips towns had a bigger
influx of Hungarians after the Turkish occupation of Lower
Hungary in the 1500s. The Lower Zips had a flourishing iron
forge industry until the 1860s and exported hand-forged farming
implements all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire and abroad.
The Industrial Revolution caused a decline in the Lower Zips
metalworking industry. Many of the miners and blacksmiths
emigrated to larger industrial centers in Austria-Hungary,
elsewhere in Europe, and the United States.
According to the 1930 census, there were 13,141 Germans in the
Lower Zips. The major Lower Zips towns were Goellnitz (Gelnica),
Dobschau (Dobsina), Einsiedel (Mnisek nad Hnilcom), Metzenseifen
(actually two towns, Obermetzenseifen and Untermetzenseifen, Sl.
Vysny Medzev, Nizny Medzev), Schwedler (Svedlar), Schmoellnitz
(Smolnik), Stoß / Stoss (Stos), Wagendruessel
(Nalepkovo).
Hauerland (also called the Kremnitz-Deutschprobener Sprachinsel)
is in Central Slovakia and is so called because a number of the
town names are formed with the German word Hau 'clearing' as a
suffix. Many of the German towns in this area were early mining
communities, the best known and earliest of which were Karpfen
(Krupina), Koenigsberg (Nova Bana), Pukanz (Pukanec), Schemnitz
(Banska Stiavnica), Dilln (Banska Bela), Kremnitz (Kremnica),
Neusohl (Banska Bystrica), and Libethen (Lubietova). The 1930
census shows 41,255 Germans in the Hauerland, concentrated in the
Deutschproben (24,415) and Kremnitz (10,662) areas.
Pressburg (Bratislava) and its environs can be considered a
continuation of the Bavarian-Austrian settlement area-Vienna is
only a half hour's drive southwest of Bratislava. In the middle
of the 19th century, ethnic Germans formed over 60% of the
population of the city of Pressburg. The Germans in this area
were tradesmen, craftsmen, and farmers. In 1930, there was a
German population of 31,000 in Pressburg itself and 19,000 in the
environs.
According to the Czechoslovak census of 1930, there were 154,821
ethnic Germans in Slovakia, most of whom were Czechoslovak
citizens. Throughout Eastern Europe the bitter feelings
engendered by the German role in World War II resulted in the
forcible expulsion of the German population to East and West
Germany. Almost all of them were expelled from Bohemia and
Moravia and most from Slovakia as well. At the end of 1946,
after the evacuation, about 24,000 ethnic Germans remained in
Slovakia.
A friend of mine named Margit lives in Medzev. She speaks the
local German dialect as well as standard German, which she
learned in Medzev's German-speaking school in the 1930s. Margit
speaks very little Slovak. I asked her how she escaped being
deported at the end of the war. She explained that when they
heard the authorities were coming, they hid in the hills and
returned only when the danger was past. In this way, many of
Medzev's ethnic Germans were able to remain in their ancestral
town.
Sub-Carpathian Ukraine
This area (also called Sub-Carpathian Rus') was part of
Czechoslovakia between the two World Wars and after 1945 was
ceded to the Soviet Union. Because of this, the literature of
the period after World War II dealing with the German homeland in
Slovakia mention little of the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine. Germans
settled in this area in the 1700s. Between the wars, the
German population was about 10,000.
The list of towns given below are mentioned in Eduard Winter,
(ed.). Die Deutschen in der Slowakei und Karpathorussland.
Munster in Westfalen, 1926 (in German, `The Germans in
Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia') pp. 87-89. Statistics showing
German population along with the total population are from the
1921 census (Statisticky lexikon obci v Podkarpatské
rusi, Praha 1928)
Berezinka, for example, had 89 Germans of 104 total population
and the German population dates to the year 1728.
Berezinka (1728). 89/104
Barbovo, settled by farmers from Kleinberg and Kleinwedel (1736).
446/1169
Deutschkutschowa (Nemecka Kucova) (1763). 249/283
Dorndorf (Draciny), wood-cutters from the Sudetenland (1827).
191/312
Friedrichsdorf (Fridesovo) (1807). 13/314
Hrabovnice and Sinak, originally Rusyn villages, became about 50%
German with the immigration of families from Bohemia (1837).
212/516; 155/159
Maedchendorf (Lalovo) (1763). 178/796
Neudorf (Novo Selo): 12 Bohemian German families (1856).
122/127
Oberschoenborn (Vysni Koropec), Swabians (1763). 334/502
Pausching, (Pausin) Swabian Schwarzwald farmers (1748).
430/605
Podhorod and Palanok (1600s).
Palanok 982/1399.
Podhorod 295/916
Puznakovce, 18 Bohemian German families (1878). 97/416
Unterschoenborn, Bavarian Franks (1728) 0/266
Sophiendorf (Zofia), Bohemian Germans (1800s). 339/368
Zdenovo, settled by 9 families from Germany (1872). 64/710
Besides these towns mentioned by Winter, there are a number of
others which show up in the 1921 census with a fair number of
German citizens. There were 14 administrative counties in the
Sub-Carpathian Ukraine between the two world wars. In the
following table, the numbers after each county name are the
German population and the total population.
County .............. Germans .... Total Population
Berehovo ................... 150 .... 52,138
Berezny ....................... - - ..... 25,044
Chust ......................... 625 .... 56,626
Irsava ........................ 320 .... 45,430
Mukacevo, city .......... 385 .... 20,865
Mukacevo, county ... 3838 .... 69,801
Perecin ........................ 88 .... 21,116
Rachov ...................... 993 .... 51,099
Sevlus ......................... 88 .... 60,505
Svalava ................... 1263 .... 44,144
Tacovo ................... 1862 .... 65,653
Uzhorod, city ............ 433 .... 20,601
Uzhorod, county ....... 156 .... 41,180
Volov ........................ - - ..... 30,391
TOTALS ............ 10,326 .... 604,593
German speakers in the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine were just under 2%
of the total population.
About the author: Duncan Gardiner is a board certified and accredited genealogist who specializes in
Czech, Slovak, and German ancestries. He had a Ph.D. in Slavic linguistics and is fluent
in Czech, Russian, and French, using Slovak, German, Latin, and
Hungarian for research. Since 1988, he has researched Czech and
Slovak ancestries in the state regional archives of the Czech and
Slovak Republics on twice-yearly trips. His other services
include photographs of ancestral towns, and translations from
Czech, Slovak and German into English.
The current article is adapted from a chapter in his book German Towns in Slovakia and Upper Hungary:
A Genealogical Gazetteer. Duncan welcomes research and translation project
inquiries at: 12961 Lake Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio 44107-1533
eMail address: duncan@en.com
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