BeyondTheMargins

During my time in rural northern areas, I met people from different cultures, including the unique German Russian communities. Most of these individuals were ethnically German but were born in Russia. When they returned to Germany after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall in 1985, they were called “home comers.” They were neither fully ethnically Russian nor fully ethnically German. You might wonder, “Aber was ist das problem?” or in Russian, “no v chem problema?”

For those unfamiliar, being a German born in Russia and identifying as “German Russian” creates a complicated cultural mix that can be hard to understand.

If you’re not aware of history, World War II was very brutal, as was World War I. Both world wars were started by Germany. Germans have a strong work ethic and a daft resilience that helps them recover from the hardest blows. They face reality bravely and accept it rather quickly, which is similar to Russians. The ability to look at the world a bit darkly and yet to be on the borderlines of depressiveness, ingenuity and hard work. Historically, Germany has had a significant influence over Europe, both economically and through military power. While Mahatma Gandhi is often credited for India’s independence, understanding the context of World War II and events around that time might lead one to consider Germany and Adolf Hitler’s role in shaping India’s history.

In today’s politically charged environment, it seems unlikely that certain changes will occur. India owes some of its situation to the Germans, who aggressively challenged Great Britain to the brink, forcing them to retreat from their colonies and focus on protecting London from the Nazis. With their home base under threat, Britain had little time to manage India and its other colonies. During World War II, Germany had invaded much of Europe; countries like Norway, Scandinavia, Poland, Italy, and France surrendered, while Britain withdrew from its colonies. The German Nazi Empire stretched into North Africa, defeating Britain in the first round under commander Erwin Rommel aka ‘the dessert fox’. One could say that the German war machine was on the path to world domination, as Hitler had planned. Nothing seemed to stop them, and America was hesitant to help Britain and had refused to enter the war. It was clear that things were going well for Germany… until…

Hitler made a decision to Annex Soviet Russia…

It can be said that to have the sudden flashing inspirational idea of “annexing” Soviet Russia, one must be under the influence of some kind of psychedelic drugs…

In comparison the size…

A map of the USSR and the countries it entailed at the time.

Not ignoring the obvious size of ‘Mother’ Russia – for those who aren’t familiar, Germany is called ‘Father’ Germany, but there is no feminine term for ‘fatherland’ as in India and Russia, – where the homeland is called a feminine ‘Motherland’.

Another issue was that, besides the size, the USSR was led by this person.

Joseph Stalin, was the dictator of Soviet Russia, and he was initially Hitler’s ally – until Hitler decided to invade Russia. For the unversed, Stalin was known to be an equally fierce dictator just like Adolph Hitler, and has been accredited with over 50 million deaths in the USSR and the injunction of labor camps called “gulags” in Siberia for the mining of precious metals sped by Germany’s annexation of Russia.

Although native towns were set up in Siberia to discover rare minerals from Russia’s depths in the north of Siberia and many died mining in -50 degrees in the 1940’s during WW2, it is important to know that today Russia uses a nuclear powered ice breaker to break the ice all around the year in its northern hemisphere and mine uranium and minerals. Needleless, to say, the “mining towns” or gulags were set by Joseph Stalin during WW2 to counter Adolph Hitler’s invasion of Russia, where reportedly every 15 meters in – 50 degree, one miner fell while building a road to Siberia. One of those native gulags is ‘Norilsk’ for those interested, still operational.

Today:

The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker works all year round, 24/7, breaking ice in Siberia without sleeping, refueling, or emitting pollutants.

Tomorrow:

Apart from Joseph Stalin, ruling Russia , if one brings in a third death blow to all the factors in the mix, then one can make a very poor decision to invade Russia in the depths of the winter…. .

This way, one can confirm that Adolph Hitler was quite the enthusiast when it came to drugs. Reports later revealed he was on a cocktail of methamphetamine and heroin, courtesy of his doctor. Back in the day, meth was the “it” drug. Soldiers and politicians were on methamphetamine and it was popular due to its ‘magical’ powers that made them feel invincible, albeit with wild fantasies of grandiosity accompanied by a lack of sleep. Methamphetamine could create the grandest case of narcissism with a sprinkle of psychosis—perfect for any dictator

Today methamphetamine leaves people something like this …

From a “Fuhrer’s” prescriptive drug which ended WWII, to a mass societal epidemic which is uncontainable… history has come a long way…

Regardless, Germany was badly defeated by Soviet Russia, leading to the invasion of Berlin by Russia, where Berlin was destroyed. A Jewish soldier raised a flag with the ‘Star of David’ on the Reichstag, sewn by a Jew, symbolizing the freedom of the Jews from Nazi persecution and the end of World War II.

The flag – a matter of great pride for Russia is a part of the Russian army parades even today. It is worthy to note, that Russia is known for and prides itself, on the sacrifice, courage and bravery of its men and women both in war and in the construction of gulags in the north of Siberia. Leading to most of its male population having been wiped out as a result of WWI and WWII causing a higher proportion of female to male ratio. The tales of Russian courage, bravery and sacrifice are one of the most sought out of in novels and story telling’s in the world.

Back to the topic at hand, ever since before WW2, when immigration rules were more lax between USSR and Germany, some Germans emigrated to the USSR from Germany and settled there. These Germans however, preserved their native German culture and married other German’s in Russia thus being part of an iconoclast society of Germans in Russia who did not comingle with the traditional Slavic culture of Russia. During WW2 and Hitler’s invasion of the USSR the German’s suffered from persecution in Soviet Russia under Stalin’s rule leading to events, such as mysterious vans appearing in German towns, and people never being seen again…

These German’s having no partaking in Germany’s history of the Nazi regime, and having no ancestors who partook in the persecution of jews became part of a particular sect of the Germans – one that bypassed one of the biggest blows of fascist world history and genocide.

In 1985 when the Berlin wall fell, and Soviet Russia relaxed its emigration rules – one does not simply just “leave” communist soviet Mother Russia……Germans were allowed to finally leave Soviet Russia after 150 years.

This small pocket of Germans who had bypassed history somehow, now made their way back to “Father Germany” – now being called the “home comers”. The home comers now, spoke not only German but also Russian, ate not only German but also Russian, possessed not only German reliability but also Russian courage, but being back in Germany, meant not sharing any of the generational traumas, the curses, the pain of the Nazi regime so central to Native Germany with peers, and not having grandparents who coalesced in Jewish persecution due to the regime, leaving one feeling alone, misunderstood and with a sort of identity crisis. Regardless to say, having immigrated from a country which defeated Germany and ravaged it in war, meant that you were now somehow a “Russian”. Much is not spoken about the racism suffered by Home comer Germans at the hands of their own Native Germans on account of having just “lived” in Russia and having immigrated from Russia. Indeed, Racism maybe does not even know skin color, it just only needs a ‘reason’.

Regardless, the German Russians, endured, just as they had endured Stalin’s persecution in Russia, now enduring a different kind of rejection from native Germans. Racism at school through teachers, being called a “Russian” and being left out of groups, it did not matter if one was blonde and blue eyed just like all of the others. By virtue of not sharing a common history, one was left out now. One can firmly say that racism, is not just skin color. It is the false perception of some unnecessary insurmountable difference perceived as concrete by some fools. The German Russians tried to adjust – Afterall this was their home country, and they were ‘home comers’, albeit they were treated poorly. How strange was this world?, where one had no partaking in any persecution and neither in any lawlessness, a mere bystander, yet one was somehow a target – this world was unfair.

Leading to the entry of another great Country into the mix – A country which gave everyone a chance regardless of who they were.

Thus began the second round of emigration for the German Russians from Native Germany now across the Atlantic ocean…

The German Russians now settled in Canada, a country with a completely different mindset, a different psychology. This country prided itself on concepts of personal freedom and rights as demonstrated by The Charter of Rights. It had a history with its native aboriginal population which it attempted to reconcile through the process of ‘truth and reconciliation’. The truth and reconciliation started by Nelson Mandela was a new approach to enable the abused or traumatized to have a peaceful union and capacity to ‘live’ with the perpetrator without the gob smearing of hatefulness and vengefulness . Canada was a pioneer in the enactment of world-class truth and reconciliation public policies with scientific modularity’s behind it.

It is noteworthy to say, some German Russians settled in South America, Paraguay as well. But many settled in Manitoba, the Prairies, British Columbia, and Alberta as provinces. Many integrated and took up jobs in big cities, and many owned large acres of land of few hundreds for personal farming and agriculture. A personal fest called the German “Oktoberfest” was celebrated every year in the German Russian communities. Needless to say, there were some who were native German beer drinkers, and some who brought in their strong Christian Protestant family values from Russia and said no to alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis altogether. Regardless to say, if one had the chance of befriending the community, One had the chance of indulging in both German cuisine and native Russian cuisines. A strange acumen towards engineering, chemicals, chemistry, existed in the culture. Regardless the community excelled in chemistry, Automobile engineering, house building and selling. These were not the best “business men” or “business type people”, – you could see them buying 5000$ coffee machines almost stupidly because they wanted “good coffee”. But these were sort of the “builder” variety types.

They set up construction companies and built houses and sold them, often having great attention to detail and quality. You would find them building cars and their children working in automobile companies. Engineering was a commonly accepted trade. The whole ‘mania’ of ‘building’ things, led to building chemical equipment’s, pesticides, some working in pharmaceutical companies and industries. There was a common saying – if it can build ingeniously and perfectly, and if it wastes money on stupidly stupid things, it is probably a German Russian. Such was the strange diametric relationship between great scientific ability and good engineering capacity and stupid investing, that one could argue, the person was compensating in stupid spending what he/she was achieving in creativity. Sometimes, the creativity also went the other way. I knew one who worked in a big industry, but came home bred tiny poodles and sold them all over the world and paid off his house mortgage of about 300k$. It was one of the moments where i just had to ask him “so you paid off half your house mortgage by selling dog puppies and shipping them all over the world?”. He nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders and told me “yes” like it wasn’t even money i was talking about. It became evident, that obviously what ‘money’ meant to one person was completely different than what ‘money’ meant to somebody else. What was I missing in my life?

Its safe to say, being in your own community means fundamentally acquiring the same set of “ideas”. and the development of unconscious mental maps. The more one goes out into the realm of different and dimetric different communities, one is encountered with very different perceptions and ingenuities. Often we make things hard for ourselves. Regardless, I was offered one of my favorite Russian cuisines for dinner that evening with some coffee.

The Russian ‘Anthill’ Cake – MURAVEINIK

TBC..