The Germans who left Germany to settle in the Russian Volga valley did so at the invitation of the Russian Empress, Catherine II, in July of 1763. They left Germany to avoid religious persecution, high taxes and the devastation of their farmland following the Seven Years War, which thrust them into extreme poverty.

Once in Russia, their settlement was restricted to the Volga Region and they were expected to become farmers. Closed German villages were established. The Empress authorized building a church in each colony, paid for by the government and repaid by the colonists. Four years later the Empress issued a set of instructions regulating every detail of their lives. By 1890, the land in the Volga Region became scarce and German colonists were diverted to Siberia.

There were 1,790,439 Germans settled in Russia by 1897. Seventy six percent of these Germans were Protestants of the Lutheran faith. The church was the center of the colonist's intellectual world and sustained their moral standards, language and ethnic character. Religion was deeply ingrained in the Volga German.

From this point on, World events began to dictate the fate of the Germans who had settled in Russia.

• World War I was declared by the Germans in 1914. This sparked a wave of hostility against the German people residing in Russia.
• The Laws of Liquidation were passed in 1915, which if enacted would have meant the destruction of the Germans in Russia. These were not enacted, but served as an effective threat to the German communities.
• In July, 1915 the first relocation of Germans to the East of Russia took place.
• In 1917 Russia came under Bolshevik rule. The Bolsheviks sought to destroy all religion. The Volga-Germans, united by their religious spirit, were severely persecuted.
  
• By 1919, pastors were regarded as counterrevolutionary propagandists and were sent to slave camps.
• In 1921-22 there was widespread famine and the Volga Republic lost one-third of its population.
• Beginning in 1930, collectivization began. No longer were Germans allowed to own individual property, and religion was still considered counterrevoluntionary.
• By 1939 the colonists' churches were beyond repair and nearly all the clergy had been killed.
• With the outbreak of World War II, all Germans became "enemies of the state" in Russia.
  
• On August 28, 1941 a formal Decree of Banishment was issued which abolished the Autonomous Socialistic Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans.
• On September 1, 1941 mass evacuation was announced for the Volga Germans. Ten days later they were evacuated.
• The Volga German young men were drafted into the Russian Army and the young women were used as domestic servants in the big cities. All others were banished.
• In September of 1955, the Soviet Union issued the first decree that revealed publicly the whereabouts of and granted amnesty to more than a million surviving Volga Germans.
  
• Upon release, the Volga Germans were asked to sign paperwork agreeing to never return to their original settlements.
• On August 29, 1964 the U.S.S.R. adopted a second decree which openly admitted the government's guilt in pressing charges against innocent people, and urged the Soviet citizens to give the Russian Germans every assistance possible in support of their "economic and cultural expansion."
• On January 5, 1965 an action was declared that made the entire decree of 1941 null and void.

This page is the property of the International Lutheran Laymen's League with its outreach through Lutheran Hour Ministries - an auxiliary organization of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Lutheran Church-Canada. Direct comments and questions to Rev. Mark Spitz.