Epilogue - The Perpetual Exodus

Summary

Yet the history of Romanian German identity in modern Europe, charted in this book, is characterised by a remarkable mixture of stories, voices, and developments. Throughout their history, Romanian Germans continually grappled with the question of who they were and where they belonged. Forged out of the shards of empire, they constantly renegotiated their place in Europe. They were early enthusiasts of the enlarged Romanian state after 1918, German nationalists, defenders of the Nazi war effort and Nazis themselves, victims of post-war repercussions, and good or bad citizens of communist Romania and of West Germany, as well as European bridge-builders. Their internecine battles of the interwar period over belonging continued into the Cold War period, when Romanian German disagreement over emigration from Romania stirred up passions for decades to come. They fell out with each other over their Nazi past and their role in communist Romania. And, even after all that, they were still unsure how to understand their position in a new post-1989 world.