Authors

Felix Riefer¹;  ¹ Research Commission on Germans in and from Eastern Europe, Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus (WKDO), Germany

Discussion

The Kremlin’s ideology of a Russian-speaking diaspora is aimed at subversion. However, the case in Germany is more complex than often assumed. Although a pro-Russian mobilisation could be observed in 2016 and 2022 the migration to Germany from Soviet Union’s successor states has its own particular track and therefore its support for Russia is quite fragile. Most of the so-called post-Soviet migrants in Germany are German repatriates. This group was victimised by political-ethnic cleansing during the Stalin era and continued suffering as a deported, dispersed and systematically persecuted minority until the liberalisation under Gorbachev. Due to these circumstances which are also partly to blame on the Nazi-German Volkstumspolitik today’s German state created an administrative status to compensate those people focusing on their “fate of the consequences of the war“ (Kriegsfolgenschicksal) and not merely on their ethnicity. On the other hand, the Russian state not only did not adopt a real rehabilitation policy, but latterly tries to incorporate those otherwise ignored people into its aggressive compatriotism. Meanwhile the discussion of this group is falsely equated with a Russian diaspora even in academia.
However,
1.) The revisionist Russia wants to impose its agenda and claims for all Russian speakers worldwide. It wants to be an anti-liberal, anti-Western, nationalist empire and transmits these values through the former lingua franca of the socialist empire. 
2.) On the other hand, there are the nations of the demised Soviet Union that are liberating themselves from Moscow’s hegemonic claim. Many would like to join the liberal democracies of the West or have already joined the West. They oppose this revisionism. 
3.) In Germany is a separate track that includes the majority of the people marked as post-Soviet or Russian speaking. However, the story of the Germans from the countries of the former Soviet Union is neither told in public nor in schools. 
4.) So far, these German repatriates have been viewed through the Kremlin's lens as a Russian-speaking diaspora. This means that the Kremlin’s agenda setting, framing and narratives are adopted carelessly and incorrectly.
5.) The story of the Germans from the countries of the former Soviet Union is one of liberation and empowerment. It can be interwoven with the canon of the other post-Soviet nations liberating themselves from Moscow as a resilience and empowerment narrative.