Russian Germans

The names on the headstones reveal that this is the resting place of many Russian-German repatriates. It was important to the families to bury their deceased in “untouched” soil rather than in a previously occupied grave site. This wish was fulfilled at the lawn cemetery and with the cemetery’s expansion in 1998.

The term "Russian Germans" refers to the descendants of German settlers who had settled in various regions of the Russian Empire beginning in the second half of the 18th century. This term has only been used as a collective designation since the 20th century. Previously, the focus had been on the religious and regional differences among the Protestant, Catholic, and Mennonite colonists along the Volga, in the Black Sea region, in the Caucasus, and in other regions of the Russian Empire.

During World War I, the Russian Germans were persecuted by the tsarist regime as an "internal enemy" because of their German heritage. They were often dispossessed and resettled.

During World War II, starting in late August 1941, Russian Germans were deported to Siberia from the Volga region, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and southern Russia. The Germans in the Black Sea region were initially spared from deportation and came under German occupation. In 1943–44, they were resettled by the Nazi authorities to occupied Poland. From there, toward the end of the war, they fled to Germany to escape the advancing Red Army.

It was not until the 1970s that large numbers of people began emigrating to the Federal Republic of Germany. There, the Russian-Germans were taken in by their relatives, since emigration during the Cold War was only permitted for the purpose of family reunification. It was not until the onset of perestroika, around 1987, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union that the majority of Russian-Germans were able to emigrate to Germany.