How many German-speaking people within Russia did the Russians force to relocate in WWI?

Question

During WWI the Russians forced people of German ethnicity who lived close to the western borders to relocate to deep within the Russian empire. If they refused, they were hanged. How many were forced to relocate?

Answer 1

From what I have been able to find, the actual number of ethnic Germans forcibly deported from border regions of the Russian Empire in WW1 was between 50,000 and 200,000 ... and probably closer to 200,000.

The start of the Great War brought a sharp escalation in already existing anti-German sentiment in Russia. Amongst a host of new restrictions, it was forbidden to speak German in public, including preaching in German churches; and no more than three ethnic Germans were allowed to meet together. On May 27, 1915, a hate campaign erupted in Moscow in the form of a pogrom against ethnic Germans.

But the greatest menace arose from the so-called "liquidation laws" of February 2, 1915 and December 13, 1915. The laws provided that all Germans living in a strip 150 kilometers deep, east of the western border and on the Black Sea were to be removed from this zone and "all fixed property was to be confiscated." Although it may have been legitimate to regard ethnic German communities as a security risk, I strongly suspect that envy and greed to grab a neighbor’s farm played a big role in the framing of those “liquidation laws”.

“In the midst of Wolves” (see link 1 below) mentions the deportation in mid-1915 of 200,000 ethnic Germans living in the Volhynia region. According to most accounts, Volhynia was the region most affected by the seizure of ethnic German properties and the forcible expulsion of the owners.

This – and the 200,000 number for deportations - is confirmed in my second source, NDSU Library (see link 2). In fact, this source claims that Volhynia-Germans were the only regional group to be deported under the Liquidation Laws.

However, my third source, also within the NDSU Library (see link 3) states that the 1915 deportations resulted in “more than 50,000” Volhynia-Germans being deported to Siberia.

Apart from Volhynia, there were also ethnic German communities in regions such as the Baltics, Finland, Bessarabia, the Black Sea, Ukraine, Volhynian, Crimea, Caucasus and Volga. Most of those areas would have qualified for a property grab and ethnic cleansing under the “liquidation laws”. But, apparently, Volhynia was the only region in which large scale expulsions occurred, before the 1917 Revolution intervened to “save” rest of them (until 1941).

By the way, there is a really fine map showing the locations of the original ethnic German communities in Russia at Roll International (see link 4).

The Russian census of 1897 recorded that precisely 1,790,439 ethnic Germans were settled in Russia in 1897. However “exulanten.com” (see link 5) states that there were 2,416,290 ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire by 1914.