My grandmother Wilma Schneider-Oneske was of Volga German heritage. Her parents Casper Schneider and Marie Elizabeth Oelberg were immigrants from the Evangelical Lutheran colony of Enders (Ust-Karaman) that resettled in Chicago, IL (Cook County), specifically the Jefferson Park area which was home to a large Volga German immigrant population. There they attended St. John's Lutheran Church which at the time offered German language services, and all of the Schneider children born in Chicago were baptized and confirmed at St. John's. Later, many of the children married their spouses at St. John's.
A quick note about German naming traditions. At Baptism, children were given a spiritual name before their given name, usually a name of the family's favorite saint. So you will see a lot of Johann's and Maria's after saints John and Mary. What appears to be a middle name is actually what we consider their first name. Germans also traditionally re-used family members' names including fathers and mothers, paternal and maternal grandparents, and children that died in infancy, so you will see a lot of repeated names.
The Manifestos of Catherine the Great
The Volga Germans (in German "Wolgandeutsche" or "Russlanddeutsche") were a group of ethnic Germans that immigrated to Russia after Catherine the Great's manifestos of 1762 and 1763 inviting non-Jewish Europeans to settle the rural undeveloped southeastern Russian lands along the Volga river and Saratov to introduce their advanced agriculture methods. Her manifestos allowed immigrants to keep their native culture, language, and religion while offering exemption from military service and even some tax breaks. This attracted Germans emigrating from Bavaria, Baden, Hesse, the Palatinate and the Rhineland who settled the Volga region between 1763 and 1767. They brought with them their religions of Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic, and Mennonite and settled into individual colonies, often divided by religions. Each colony became self-sufficient.
Enders (Ust-Karaman) Colony of Samara, Volga, Russia
Enders is on the "wiesenseite" or "meadow side" of the Volga River along the Bolshoi Karaman River, and originally comprised of 186 settlers from 35 families, all Lutheran Christians. The Enders colony was opposite Reinwald and bordered by Fischer, Stahl am Karaman, Schwed, Rosenheim, Nieder-Monjou, and Schuck. Every home had a large garden of vegetables and tobacco, and there were large shared orchards. There were three types of tradesmen in the colony - cobblers, weavers, and blacksmiths. The children were schooled by a single schoolmaster who taught from his home as there was no schoolhouse in Enders. While there was a small prayer house in Enders, the colonists would head to nearby Rosenheim's parish for regular Sunday Lutheran services.
The Schneider family can first be found in Enders during the 1798 Census of the Volga German Colonies. It is noted that prior to settling in Enders, the Schneiders were in the colony of Krasnoyar. No Oelbergs were found in Enders during the 1798 census, however an Ohlberg family was found in the colony of Kukkus. Migration between colonies was common, often for the purposes of marriage.
Emigration
By 1900, the exemption from military service was lifted and the Volga Germans felt pressure to assimilate with the rest of Russia, so many chose to emigrate. A series of droughts also hurt the area which led to famines, encouraging more Volga Germans to emigrate out of necessity.
During World War II the Nazi's invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The Nazi's viewed the Volga Germans as no longer German and therefore a threat, while the Soviet government led by Stalin considered them potential spies and Nazi collaborators. On August 28, 1941 Stalin dissolved the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, established in 1924, and ordered the immediate expulsion of ethnic Germans throughout Russia. Around 400,000 Volga Germans were taken from their land and their homes and transported east to remote areas in as Kazakhstan and Siberia, where they were imprisoned in forced labor camps alongside other ethnic minority groups. About one third did not survive the forced labor camps. After the war, many remaining Volga Germans were forced west, and some returned to their ancestor's German homeland. Volga Germans weren't allowed to return to their colonies for decades, so many resettled throughout the North and South Americas in regions where they could continue dry land farming, a technique they perfected in Russia. Many of the Lutheran Volga Germans resettled in the Jefferson Park area of Chicago, the Mennonite Volga Germans resettled in Canada, while the Catholic Volga Germans chose to resettle in South America. In the late 20th century, Volga Germans and their descendants were given the right to the Law of Return to live in Germany as citizens upon proof of their Volga German heritage or ancestry.
Jefferson Park Settlement in Chicago, IL
A large portion of the Lutheran Volga German immigrants settled in the Jefferson Park area of Chicago, IL. They settled in working-class neighborhoods, established Lutheran churches, and started many businesses in the Lawrence Avenue commercial district. The immigrating generation kept their German language, while their children were educated in Chicago public schools and spoke mainly English. New immigrants often stayed at the "Russian Hotel" - a large apartment building at 5440 W. Higgins Road where many Volga Germans boarded, some with the intent to work a few years in the USA and bring back money to their Volga homeland. Those permanently immigrating bought homes and settled in communities alongside their family and friends from Russia, and assimilated with their new American neighbors.
David Oelberg, Volga German Bee Keeper
Translated from: "The Death of one of the Pioneers of Fruit Growing and Bee Keeping in the Volga Region"
Translated by: Hugh Lichtenwald, Village Coordinator for Wiesenmueller
The fruit growing and especially the Bee Keeping of the Volga colonies has suffered a substantial loss in the person of David Oelberg of Enders colony, one of the most outstanding pioneers in the field of Bee Keeping, who passed from our midst on November 3, 1922.
This simple farmer's son nearly an illiterate, but with an open and clear mind, began with only one Bee Colony and without any notion at all about Bee Keeping, gradually increased up to 40 colonies and acquired for himself such wide ranging knowledge through experience and observation, that a good specialist would be envious of him. He used his observations and experiences most appropriately and gradually developed them, step by step. Taking local conditions into consideration, he adapted widely recognized bee keeping knowledge and developed a true bee keeping rationale.
It is worthwhile that the foreign reader learns of this modest pioneer, if only after his death, and also the Volga-German Bee breeder, and take not of him and utilize the achievements of this man.
David Oelberg was born on July 3, 1871, in the village of Enders on the meadow side of the German Volga region. During the famine year 1889, the 18 year-old had to flee from the famine. Fate found him in the Don region. There he learned the Blacksmith trade from a master who was also an emigrant from his Volga homeland. He found there a life's partner from among his compatriots from the Volga colonies and in 1891, he married. In 1892, he returned to his home village. There, on a rise at the end of the village, he erected a small house made of brushwood and loam and continued on with his blacksmithing work.-- How many budding talents are wasted through ignorance and are lost to their people. Perhaps thus, Oelberg would have been wasted , if the harsh emergency had not given him a piece of the world and even more, not given him his valuable blacksmithing trade on his life's journey. He was not content to be just a skillful and efficient village blacksmith. His searching spirit pushed him to progress further. As his knowledge grew he began reading books from Germany, extracting and applying knowledge, researching untiringly, today this book, the next day another. Gradually this Master Smith became a much sought after Gunsmith, making much in demand hunting weapons.
When the village of Enders began (on the recommendation of the writer of these lines) to grow fruit, Oelberg was one of the first to put in an orchard. This intelligent, ambitious, industrious young man soon was a most learned and successful full-fledged master in this field, particularly in many aspects dealing with local conditions.
In order to better control everything, he began by placing everything in his garden. He maintained the latter most carefully; he improved his trees, which he had bought at market with damaged crowns, by starting his own nursery and even began viticulture. Conscientiously maintained, his garden's harvest from the very first year, was so plentiful in fruit and secondarily in vegetables that the impact was such that he no longer had concerns about his daily bread. In order to guard against drought, he erected an irrigation plant which worked extraordinarily well. He mad observations and experiments of all kinds and made extensive us of the results.
Christian Johannes Oelberg, Writer
Translated from: "They fought for their homeland"
Source: https://ru.mdz-moskau.eu/они-сражались-за-родину
During the war years, more than 64,600 Russian Germans fought in the ranks of the Red Army. Writer Christian Elberg was one of them. The fate of this prose writer was poorly understood, until his great-grandson Andrei Elberg began to collect information about the lost great-grandfather bit by bit. It turned out that Christian Elberg, who was born in the Volga Germans Republic in the colony Enders (Ust-Karaman), was the first chairman of the German writers' organization on the Volga, led the German state publishing house in Engels, and along with Maxim Gorky spoke at the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet writers 1934 His work, mainly essays and journalism in German, Elberg devoted to the problems and everyday life of the Volga Germans.
In 1938, Elberg was repressed and his books were banned, and in 1940 he was rehabilitated and reinstated in the Writers' Union of the USSR (membership card - see photo). Having moved to Orekhovo-Zuyevo, near Moscow, the writer and his spouse taught German at the local school No. 8. The later memoirs of the students in the book “Orekhovozuyevtsy” survived about the writer's wife: “Elena Andreevna managed to convince us, who knew too well what war is, funerals, famine, that the Nazis are not all German people, that Germany is a great country culture. We received a charge of humanity from her, she had the talent to instill love for her subject. ”
When the war broke out, Christian Elberg went to the front at the age of 51 - in the first days of the war he volunteered to join the militia. Because of his age, he would not be called upon soon, but he was eager to fight the fascists.
In October 1941, the rifle division, in which Christian Elberg fought, was one of the first to repel the attack on Moscow. Private Elberg received a shrapnel wound and was captured by the fascists, where he died on October 17 in Roslavl concentration camp for prisoners of war Dulag No. 130.
Suggested Reading/Viewing:
The Volga Germans: In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present by Fred C. Koch
Emigration from Germany to Russia in Years, 1763-1862 by Karl Stumpp
Transport of the Volga Germans from Oranienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga by Brent Alan Mai
1798 Census of the German Colonies Along the Volga by Brent Alan Mai
There Is Always Room For One More: Volga German Stories And Recipes by Rebecca Nab Young
Thunder on the Steppe: Volga German Folklife in a Changing Russia by Timothy J. Kloberdanz
John Biel Returns: A Visit To The Volga German Villages (DVD) by AHSGR
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