Volga German Research

"The Kherson Catholic Spiritual Consistory" Fond 1166 inventory available online

2011-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Saratov State Archive (GASO) has published another on-line inventory for documents dealing with the Volga Germans.

"The Kherson Catholic Spiritual Consistory" found in Fond (Record Group) 1166 at GASO, deals with records of the construction of Catholic Churches in Russia, birth, death and marriages, as well as general information about Catholicism from 1801 to 1852 or so.

Of course of note is the inclusion of records of the Volga Germans. The inventory, in Russian, can be found here.

Chelyabmetallurgstroy Labour Camp Database - Книга Памяти трудармейцев треста «Челябметаллургстроя»

2011-11-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

To their credit, the State committee on affairs of archives of the Chelyabinsk Oblast has published a "Book of Remembrance" documenting the names of German Russians who worked in the Trudarmii, aka labour camp.

Those names have been put in a online searchable database, available here. I have no idea what comparisons can be made to our previous book mention, or how complete the list is. It would appear there are upwards of 31,000 names, which would include Volga-Germans, and other ethnic groups that were banished to this camp.

I found a listing for my great-uncle, but please note that the archive states that transcriptions from name cards was not always accurate...so there are some errors in the spellings of last names.

Researchers should find the database to be helpful for tracking down dates of death for missing family members. Once a relationship can be proven, the archive is open to allowing further release of information found in the files.

Book presentation "the Book of memory of Germans-trudarmejtsev Bakalstroy-Chelyabmetallurgstroy 1942-1946" - Презентация книги "Книга памяти немцев-трудармейцев Бакалстроя-Челябметаллургстрой 1942-1946"

2011-11-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

Chelyabmetallurgstroy of the NKVD of the USSR -- The Largest Forced Labor Camp for German-Russians.

On March 11, 2011, there was a presentation of a new book that documents this forced labour camp, and the 38,000 inmates that lived and slaved there. There is a news account of the presentation here.

A good article about the camp can be found here.

Only 1000 copies of the book have been, so they are almost impossible to obtain.

3 additional volumes will be published in 2014.

We will add new information when it becomes available.

Bogoslovlaga Labour Camp Database - Советские немцы-узники Богословлага

2011-11-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

One of Russia's notorious labour camps in which thousands of Volga Germans lived, slaved away and died, was the Bogoslovlaga camp located in Sverdlovsk Oblast.

Located near the city of Krasnoturinsk, the camp held over 20,000 people, mostly Volga Germans.

Due to the hard work of many people, the database of inmates has gone online and is available here.

Further information, including documents, some photographs and general historical information is also found here as part of the project.

We will remember them.

New Book: History of German Settlements of the Volga region. Part 1. Lutherans: A-M

2011-09-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

Volga German researcher O. A Litsenberger has a new historical series being published in the next few years.

Designed to provide information on all the Volga German colonies, the "History of German settlements of the Volga region" will cover first the Lutheran colonies from A to M. It will feature historical information and photos of each of the colonies represented. The Catholic colonies will also be covered in future volumes.

You can see a sample of what the book will look like here.

Each entry will also feature what records are available on the specific colony and available in the archives in Saratov or Engels.

I am not sure if the books will be made available in the West, but you can make an inquiry about ordering it from Russia and having it sent to you via kolonie@mail.ru

The annotated inventory of affairs of the Saratov office of foreign settlers: Volume 2

2011-08-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

Volume 2 of this series covers documents that were actually destroyed....they no longer exist!

Researchers, however, can piece together various events in the life of their ancestors or villages, due to the detailed descriptions made available in this inventory.

Once again we are thankful to Alexander Spack for placing this out of print book online, and we hope it will help Volga German researches in their endeavors.

The volume was edited by И.Р. Плеве and З.Е. Гусакова

The annotated inventory of affairs of the Saratov office of foreign settlers: Volume 1

2011-08-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

Annotated inventories of various Russian archives are hard to find. As time progresses, Russian archivists are producing more and more and making them easily accessable to the public.

This is such an inventory. The Saratov Office of Foreign Settlers governed the day to day life of the Volga German settlers.

This first volume of files covers some of the material available in GASO, the State Archive of the Saratov Region. It is found in Fond 180 of the archive.

Once again we are thankful to Alexander Spack for placing this out of print book online, and we hope it will help Volga German researches in their endeavors.

The volume was edited by И.Р. Плеве and З.Е. Гусакова

Indexes to registers of births: Churches of Saratov Province Fond № 637 -Указатели к метрическим книгам церквей Саратовской губернии Фонд № 637

2011-06-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

The geographical index to registers of births of evangelichesko-Lutheran and Catholic churches of the Saratov province, the Nikolaev and New Uzensky districts of the Samara province to inventories № 2-40 funds № 637 «the Collection of registers of births of churches of the Saratov province» is the special index which descriptive article consists of the name of settlement and the search data. Names of settlements are systematised in alphabetic order. Each heading (the settlement name) has a subheading – years for which there are metric records of the given church. Years are systematised in a chronological order. The search data – inventory and business number in which there are data on the given church.

Simply put, these are the original Catholic Parish church records which were kept in the original churches. These are not the Tiraspol Records, so obviously the Saratov archives do not have everything. Plus, the archives in Saratov charges huge amounts to do research, so researchers should be aware.

Volk auf dem Weg - People on the Move

2011-04-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

"Volk auf dem Weg", is the official monthly publication of the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, a group based in Stuttgart, Germany.

Designed for German-speaking Germans from Russians, the publication regularilky features news and information on all German Russian, including Volga Germans. It also features news about events, books, historical articles and information about the Volga Germans.

Volk auf dem Weg is available free of charge online here.

Научно-информационный бюллетень - Wissenschaftliches Informationsbulletin

2011-04-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

The Научно-информационный бюллетень or the Wissenschaftliches Informationsbulletin, published since 1995, is a quarterly publication put out by the International association of researchers of history and culture of the Russian Germans, together with the International union of German culture with support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Germany (through Embassies of Germany in Russia).

Contains current and new information conferences, dissertations, funds of archives, reviews, summaries, the bibliography on history and culture of the Russian Germans and the Volga Germans.

Past issues are available here, from 1995 to 2011. You can also access some of the back issues at the web site for Saratov State University.

Nischni Tagil Labour Camp - Online Database

2011-04-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

From January 1942, to April, 1953, the city of Nischni Tagil housed a labour camp that saw more than 43,000 inmates go through its gates.
Dedicated to slave labour, inmates worked in the metallurgy combine, as well as road construction, hydraulic engineering, forestry and mining.
Banished to Siberia in the fall of 1941, and after trying to survive for a year, the men were “mobilized” into a special “Worker’s Army”, aka slave labour. The labour camp located at Nischni Tagil was located in the Sverdlovsk region of the Ural mountains in Russia.

It is estimated that almost 1/3 of Volga Germans would perish in such labour camps.

There is more and more documentation available on what the camps were like, along with lists of camp inmates, being made available.

Thankfully, a web site, in Russian, with a database of searchable names along with 1200 photographs from prisoner files, is located at: http://www.rusdeutsch.ru/?tagil=1

They are taken from this book: Gedenkbuch: Gordoe terpen'e. Kniga pamiati sovetskikh nemtsev - uznikov Tagillaga.

Welcome!

2011-04-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hopefully those researching the history and genealogy of the Volga Germans will find this a helpful place to look.

There really is a lot of material out there for the researcher, in many languages! If you like what you see, won't you consider a "tip"?

Thanks and hope to get your feedback!