Siebenbürgisch-sächsische Pfarrer, Lehrer und Journalisten in der Zeit der kommunistischen Diktatur (1944–1971) (review)

Erwin Peter Jikeli's study of ethnic German intellectuals in Romania during the first half of the communist era opens a discussion of questions familiar to historians of modern Germany but newer to scholars of communist Eastern Europe. To what extent was the ruling ideology—in this case, Romanian communism—imported from abroad or imposed from above? Was it only endured by the populace, or did certain elements in society welcome it from below? To what extent were intellectuals—in this case, pastors, teachers, and journalists—committed democrats engaged in resistance against their regime while making superficial public compromises? Or were they willing collaborators out of ideological conviction or for professional gain?

In this published version of his doctoral dissertation from Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Jikeli (who was raised and educated in Romania) explores the vocational history of ethnic German intellectuals from the Siebenbürgen ("Seven Fortresses") region of Romania, where Saxons first settled in the twelfth century as defenders of Transylvania. Jikeli employs a social-scientific approach, applying biographical techniques to understand the pastors, teachers, and journalists he analyzes. Indeed, one of the unique features of Jikeli's study is his attempt to survey 259 former members of the three professions (many had emigrated to Germany before and after 1989). Unfortunately, only ninety-one (just over one-third) responded at all, and only fifty-two (barely one-fifth) filled out his long, probing questionnaires, the others "presumably afflicted by a moral dilemma or fear of the truth" (p. 7). These limitations aside, Jikeli is to be commended for his wide use of primary sources, including diaries, biographies, letters, chronicles, newspapers, and publications, and all manner of official correspondence and personnel records (some of which, he notes, contained communist-era lies meant to discredit intellectuals).

Following a methodological introduction and four chapters of historical and sociopolitical background, Jikeli probes the attitudes and actions of his subjects during the first half of the Romanian communist era—from the installation of the single-party system under Soviet military pressure to the intense Stalinism of the 1950s to the relaxation and adoption of independent foreign, economic, and cultural policies in the early years of Nicolai Ceaus¸ escu's reign—in three main chapters. The year 1971, when the Romanian dictator implemented a harsher domestic policy (and when the thirty-year freeze on archival records began to affect his study), marks the end point of Jikeli's research. Two subsequent chapters assess the issues of party membership and contact with the Securitate (the Romanian secret service).

Jikeli's goal is to understand the extent to which these Saxon pastors, teachers, and journalists maintained some critical distance from the regime and attempted to represent the interests of their minority group. What he discovers is that all three groups of intellectuals suffered under policies that attempted to draw professionals from the "healthy" social categories of workers and farmers and that suppressed minority populations (primarily Hungarians) in favor of Romanianization. German Protestant pastors (mainly Lutheran since the Reformation) in Transylvania found themselves under great suspicion since they were only indirectly under the control of the state and since they stood by definition in opposition to the atheism of the communist party. For that reason, pastors were monitored and recruited intensely by the Securitate. German teachers were pressured to join the Communist Party, not least because of their important role as transmitters of the state's materialist and assimilationist educational program. Journalists were required to be party members and worked under editors-in-chief who were party appointees charged to direct the propaganda program of the press.

Jikeli argues that all three groups of German intellectuals found ways to subvert or evade some of the burden of their association with the communist system (his few...