Re-migration: Russian-Germans return to Russia

More and more Germans from Russia are turning their backs on their historical homeland of Germany and moving back to the countries of the former USSR.

Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation are particularly popular. Both the Russian and German media are increasingly taking up the topic. Whereas before Russia's invasion of Ukraine there were only a few thousand people willing to leave, [1] today, depending on the source, tens of thousands or more are suspected [2]. Russian media even speak of half a million Russian-Germans wanting to leave the country [3].

Even if these figures are probably greatly exaggerated, more and more compatriots are actually talking openly about their interest in emigrating to Russia. There is a noticeable number of young people and professing Christians among the repatriates: Mennonites, Baptists and Pentecostals.

Just the other day I met a young conservative Baptist woman outside the travel agency in our town. She told me that she, her husband and three children were leaving Germany for good and moving to the North Caucasus in the Russian Federation. She couldn't possibly see her children growing up in this anti-Christian Germany, she said. She spoke flawless German and so I asked her if she happened to be Russian-German. “Yes, I come from a Russian-German family. My parents came to Germany forty years ago. I myself was born in Germany and no, I don't speak Russian yet. My parents and other relatives will also be moving with us”, she said.

Hardly any Russian-German family came through the inferno of the Soviet system without terrible sacrifices. In my own family, only a few relatives from my grandparents’ generation survived. Both my grandfathers and great-grandfathers perished in the Gulag camps. More than once the family was forced to abandon their house and farm and fight for their bare survival [4]. And like my family, that's what happened to most of them. Has all that been forgotten? Where does the sudden enthusiasm for Russia come from?

And what motivates Christians in particular to move to countries where they were persecuted, discriminated against and oppressed because of their faith? Has the former Soviet empire undergone such massive change?

Questions of this kind never cease. Vera Mattlock rightly speaks of an “elusive phenomenon” [5]. Is it due to the difficult integration of Aussiedler into German society, the neo-liberal values that characterize life in the European Community and especially in Germany? Or is it the developments in Putin’s Russia itself that are attracting people?

Failed integration: not finding a home in Germany

There’s no question that for most of us ‘resettlers’, coming to Germany was a “homecoming to a foreign country”, as the theologian and author Dr. Hermann Hartfeld once called it [6].

I myself felt the same way as the heroes of his story - Germany was socially and culturally alien to me from day one. I would have loved to turn around and move back to Estonia in 1976. And most of my compatriots felt the same way.

And we, the emigrants, soon turned out to be no less foreign to the local population. We were different in every respect [7]. And how unwilling we were to adapt to the locals could be seen above all in the formation of the aussiedler’s religious congregations.

Most of the Russian-German Baptists soon left the German Baptist Union, the Pentecostals left the Union of Free Christian Churches and even the Russian-German Lutherans formed their own association [8].

[destacate]Those returning to Russia justify their decision to return with the lack of acceptance from the German population. Their integration into the German reality has largely failed[/destacate]Even outside their churches, the Russian-Germans remained largely independent of the local population. Real enclaves with a large majority of Russian-Germans emerged in the country, for example in East Westphalia-Lippe, Bielefeld, Cologne-Bonn and the Oberberg district, to mention just a few concentrations in North Rhine-Westphalia. They were industrious, accepted every job, forwent expensive vacation trips, soon built their houses and aroused the envy of their native neighbors. Only a few of us managed to integrate into the local society in the years following our immigration.

Those returning to Russia justify their decision to return with the lack of acceptance from the German population. Their integration into the German reality has largely failed.

“In the 26 years I lived in Germany, it didn't become my home”, says Katharina Minich, who moved to Russia in 2016. “I was always the Russian there because I came from the USSR. The local Germans never saw me as their equal. For them, we and even our children born in Germany remained Russian” [9].

In a similar vein, 22-year-old Alisa told the German press about the harassment she and her sister received at school from local pupils and teachers. Her sister was called a “Russian slut” [10]. And Sergei, who moved to Azovo in western Siberia in 2016, reports problems at work with superiors and customers as soon as they found out that he was originally from Russia [11].

I can well understand such reactions. I could also write a book about the low esteem in which I was held in some circles. It was rarely justified. But it was often the fault of my fellow countrymen themselves. They isolated themselves from the locals just as much as the locals then disqualified them as Russians.

The new home is being alienated

In addition to the lack of acceptance of Russian-Germans among the local population, fears of massive alienation of Germany due to the German government’s migration policy are increasingly coming to the fore [12].

In many places, ethnic Germans feel like they are living in a foreign country. The social housing they moved into after immigrating is now being wrested away from them by refugees from Asia and Africa, who bring their own culture with them and are perceived by the Russian-Germans as too loud and disorderly.

[destacate]“We decided to move because of the unreasonable and absurd policy of sexual education. My husband and I are staunch supporters of traditional relationships. A man and a woman enter into marriage and have children”[/destacate]“Here in Duisburg, you don’t hear German on the street anymore. And the shopping street is more like Istanbul”, says Eugen, a Russian German who has witnessed the population change for decades. The historical German homeland has become more of a cultural mix in many places, in some respects similar to what our people experienced in the places of exile in the Soviet Union, for example in Soviet Central Asia.

Politicians’ treatment of refugees also causes anger. As most of them are excluded from the labor market, they quickly give the impression of being freeloaders. And if there’s one thing the hard-working Russian-German hate, it’s lazy people who let the general public put up with them. Of course, instead of countering this politically, the refugees themselves are now being blamed. People don’t want to stay in a Germany in which foreigners are becoming more prevalent in the long term.

Genderism: sexual education in schools

In addition to failed integration and the perceived dangers of foreign infiltration in the country, there is also the neo-liberal philosophy of genderism, especially for Christians, and with it the corresponding sexual education in schools. 

Anna W., who came to Germany as a small child in 1999 and moved back to the Altai region with her family in 2022, says: “It was a very difficult decision. We had a good life, my husband and I worked, we were doing well. However, we decided to move because of the unreasonable and absurd policy of sexual education for the younger generation. My husband and I are staunch supporters of traditional relationships. A man and a woman enter into marriage and have children. That is the basis of the family. Any other approach is unacceptable to us. Many of our acquaintances share this view. Some of them have also returned to Russia” [13].

[destacate] The idea of the Russki Mir (Russian world) is oriented towards the end-time vision of Moscow’s historical vocation as the third Rome[/destacate]Russian-German Christians perceive the massive support of sexual diversity by the state and schools as a direct affront to biblical ideals and a radical rejection of homosexuality and other sexual inclinations and varieties in the Word of God. The targeted and vehemently pursued gender education is classified as anti-Christian and fought against.

Of course, such a battle is often lost before it has even begun. In Germany, it’s not as easy to take children out of sex education as it is to take them out of school altogether. Anyone who tries to do so anyway risks losing the children altogether.

Russki Mir - the traditional values in all honor

The Russian government, on the other hand, strives to uphold traditional Christian marriage and family values. The LGBTQ movement is politically opposed as an extremist movement [14]. Any gender reassignment is banned in the country by Putin’s presidential decree [15]. And in schools, traditional Christian marriage, sexuality, chastity and family values are taught in family studies [16].

These values are of central importance for the Putin system, which is based on the idea of the Russki Mir (Russian world), which is oriented towards the end-time vision of Moscow’s historical vocation as the third Rome [17]. According to this idea, the Russian Church, and with it the whole country, is a safe haven for Christians who want to escape the anti-Christian world.

[destacate]To flee from the Antichrist in Western Europe and then hope that Russia will remain a safe haven for all pious people is, frankly, quite naive[/destacate]With this in mind, President Vladimir Putin signed his decree № 702 of 19.08.2024, which brings fundamental changes to entry and immigration to Russia. The decree allows people who share “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” to travel to Russia more easily. This means that knowledge of the Russian language or history is no longer required [18]. Conservative Christians from all over the world are therefore welcome in Russia. And that of course includes Russian-Germans.

And they are becoming increasingly open to the idea of re-migration. The fact that thousands of Russian citizens are also leaving their country for political reasons doesn’t seem to scare them. "As a rule, they are godless people and liberals”, I hear those who are keen to leave say. “People who want to live according to the Holy Scriptures are better off in Russia”.

And so, they pack their bags and return to a country from which their parents themselves fled just a few decades ago for fear of godlessness and persecution. Will it go well?

The idea of the Russki Mir is first and foremost an Orthodox idea. Both Patriarch Cyril I and President Putin emphasize this fact [19]. It remains to be seen how tolerant the Russian Orthodox Church will prove to be towards those of other faiths in the future.

Historically, it has never been squeamish in its dealings with sectarians, such as those who like to deform Christians in other denominations. The Evangelical Free Churches in the Russian Empire in particular have more than one book to write about this.

And then it is a Russian national idea. Here, all the inhabitants of Russia are united under a Russian mega-ethnic group [20]. Radical Russification lies at the roots of the idea.

The Russian-Germans fought for centuries for their ethnic and religious independence. They wanted to become neither Russian nor Orthodox. Has their attitude changed? Or are all the warning signs being overlooked here because the Russian-Germans feel under so much pressure in Germany?

To flee from the Antichrist in Western Europe and then hope that Russia will remain a safe haven for all pious people is, frankly, quite naive. The New Testament speaks decidedly about the time of the Antichrist and emphasizes quite clearly that all people, the whole world, will be deceived by Satan (Rev. 12:9).

Scripture does not speak of political niches in Russia or anywhere else! Especially Christians who justify their flight from Germany with the Bible in their hands should read the whole Bible.

Johannes Reimer, born in 1955, grew up in the USSR and immigrated to Germany in 1976. The emeritus professor of theology and missiology has written extensively on the fate of the Russian-Germans and regularly travels to the areas where the returnees settle in Russia and Kazakhstan. 

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