Belarus–Germany relations
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Belarus |
Germany |
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History
In the
World War I
Since the
Under German protection, but without the consent of the occupying power, independence was proclaimed for the first time on March 25, 1918.[
In the wake of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the lapse of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the civil war in neighboring Russia, which also spread to Belarus, the eastern part of the country came under the control of the Communists. The western part of the present Belarusian territory formed the eastern part of the then Poland.
World War II
On September 17, 1939, the
The German invasion brought severe destruction. Although people in many areas of Belarus were initially happy about the Soviet defeat, the Germans quickly disappointed the local population. From 1941 to 1944, the Wehrmacht and SS murdered some two and a half million Belarusians-more than a quarter of the population. The German soldiers waged a
During World War II, the term
During the German occupation, the Belarusian Central Council was installed in Belarus, a puppet government that used historic Belarusian state emblems. The chairman of the BCR was Radasłaŭ Astroŭski. This "government" disappeared after the withdrawal of the German Eastern Front in 1944. On March 25, 1948, the Belarusian Central Council was re-established as a government-in-exile in Germany, competing with the Rada BNR.[5] Other institutions such as the Belarusian Home Guard, the Belarusian Self-Defense Corps, the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, the Belarusian Youth Organization, and the Belarusian Self-Help Organization were also founded. The Belarusian Independence Party (BNP) collaborated with the German occupiers with the aim of establishing a Belarusian nation-state.[citation needed]
The armed resistance movement of Belarus was considered one of the strongest in Europe.[citation needed] There were over 1000 partisan groups, which were mostly communist, but also nationalist oriented. At the beginning of 1943, the repatriation of about 10,500 Germans from the territory of the so-called Army Group Central and from Belarus began.[citation needed] These ethnic Germans were resettled in the Warthegau (in occupied Poland) and the then German Reich. In the fall of 1943, the Red Army recaptured the far east of the country, and by the summer of 1944, the entire country had been recaptured.
Postwar period
After the Second World War, thousands of Belarusians came to Germany for various reasons. In 1945, there were an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Belarusians on German or Austrian territory.[
On December 29, 1947, at a meeting in a DP camp in Osterhofen, it was decided to reactivate the Rada of the Belarusian People's Republic under the leadership of Mikola Abramchyk. At that time, the Rada comprised 72 members.[7]
In Mittenwald in Upper Bavaria, east of the Luttensee barracks, there is a memorial to Belarusian prisoners of war.[citation needed] In 1948, the former prisoners of war or displaced persons used it to honor the participants of the Slutsk uprising, an anti-Bolshevik uprising in 1920.[citation needed]
Independent Belarus
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Belarus and Germany initially developed positively. Diplomatic relations were established in 1992. However, a turn for the worse was initiated in 1994, when Alexander Lukashenko was elected president. He immediately took action against a press that was politically and economically oriented toward the West and repeatedly denounced the financial transfers of political organizations - including the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation - to friendly organizations and media in Belarus.[citation needed] As a result of human rights violations and dissonance regarding the opening of the country to a market economy, the administration of the European Union, with the participation of Germany, imposed an entry ban on the Belarusian government in 1997. On May 18, 2006, the European Union (again including Germany) decided to freeze the accounts of President Lukashenko and 35 other government officials.[citation needed]
Security cooperation existed between the Federal Republic of Germany and Belarus from 2008 until at least 2011, with Lukashenko's security forces receiving training in Germany.[
As a result of the
Belarusian support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine has further deteriorated bilateral relations. The European Union imposed further sanctions on Belarus and trade between Belarus and Germany declined.[11]
Economic relations
Belarus was an important transit country between Central Europe and Russia due to its location: 50% of Russian crude oil flows through the
In 2014, only trade with Russia and Ukraine was more important for Belarus than trade with Germany. This amounted to approx. 4 billion US dollars. The representative office of German business in the Republic of Belarus (the Chamber of Commerce Abroad) exists in Minsk.[12] In 2021, Germany was Belarus' fifth most important trading partner.[13]
In 2021 German exports to Belarus were $1.77 billion of goods, led by cars, with Belarus exports valued at $958m with wood as the main product. Between 1995 and 2021 German exports rose at an average of 4.15% p.a. and Belarusian exports by 3.56% p.a..[14]
Trade has fallen, with the month of August 2023 recording just $140m and $21m in favour of Germany.[14]
Cultural relations
Several thousand young Belarusians study in Germany.[citation needed] The International Aid Fund of the EU and Germany has opened partnerships with three Belarusian universities in the West. The often lamented isolation was already painful for Belarus during the times of the Soviet Union. Since the country's independence, the universities' hopes for cooperation grew, but hardly succeeded because of authoritarian state policies.[citation needed]
The only private university, the European Humanities University, founded in 1992, was closed in August 2004 under pressure from the state. It had offered European studies, linguistics and political science, largely financed by Western funds. The Institute for German Studies was also located there. The university was reopened in June 2005 in exile in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Minsk is also home to a Goethe Institute.
Migration
In 2015, there were 21,151 Belarusians living in Germany and about 2,500 Germans in Belarus in 2012.[citation needed] Famous German Belarusians include:
Literature
- ISBN 3-7700-1607-6 , (= Schriften des Bundesarchivs, simultaneously dissertation at the University of Tübingen1997 under the title: Deutsche Besatzungsherrschaft in Weißrussland 1941–1944).
- Wolfgang Curilla: Die deutsche Ordnungspolizei und der Holocaust im Baltikum und in Weißrußland 1941–1944. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1.
- Christian Gerlach: Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrussland 1941 bis 1944. ISBN 3-930908-54-9.
- Dimitri Romanowski: Belarus und Weimar-Deutschland: wirtschaftliche, wissenschaftlich-technische und kulturelle Beziehungen. diserta-Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-95935-040-2
References
- ^ Rainer Lindner: Historiker und Herrschaft: Nationsbildung und Geschichtspolitik in Weißrußland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999. p 393
- ISBN 978-1-936296-04-0, p. 98
- ISBN 83-85660-82-8, p. 136.
- ISBN 978-3-506-76784-4, p. 31.
- ISBN 978-0-7656-1027-0, p. 39f.
- ^ "Belarussische Emigration in Deutschland (1945-1950)" (PDF). 2015-12-30. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-30. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ "Сэсія Рады БНР у Остэргофэне – 29.12.1947 – Рада Беларускай Народнай Рэспублікі" (in Belarusian). 5 November 2016. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ "OWEP 1/2021". OST-WEST Europäische Perspektiven (in German). Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ISSN 1865-2263. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ "El Pais - Lukashenko is like Maduro. We do not recognize him but we must deal with him | EEAS Website". www.eeas.europa.eu. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ Amt, Auswärtiges. "Deutschland und Belarus: bilaterale Beziehungen". Auswärtiges Amt (in German). Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ ""Deutsche Wirtschaft noch zögerlich"". n-tv.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ "Belarus Top Trading Partners 2021". www.worldstopexports.com. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
- ^ a b "Germany/Belarus". January 2022.