The first German settlers arrived in the area during the 12^th and 13^th centuries. After the wars against the Turks, the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs, plague (1709-1711) and the resulting depopulation, the local feudal lords of the Károly family, solicited catholic German farmers, mostly from Upper Swabia, for settlement on their land. Settlers started arriving in 1712, but the majority arrived in the 1720s and 1730s. The center of settlement was Großkarol (Romanian: Carei Mare; Hungarian: Nagykároly).

An estimated 10,000 ethic Germans (called Sathmar Swabians; Sathmarer Schwaben in German) lived in the Komitat around 1800. The region became part of Romania by the Treaty of Trianon (1919). The Romanian census of 1920 counted 47,000 ethnic Germans in the Satu Mare/Maramureş region. Due to assimilation efforts supported by the Catholic Church, by 1930 their number had been reduced to 31,000 persons, with only 22,000 declaring themselves as German-speaking.

The Sathmar Swabians were not subjected to displacement after World War II, but some 3,000 fled to the West in 1944, and about 6,000 were deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor. Many Sathmar Swabians emigrated to western countries, especially to Germany, in the 1950s to 1990s.

Today, the Sathmar Swabians are considered part of the larger group of Danube Swabians (Donauschwaben in German). In Germany, they are represented by the Landsmannschaft der Sathmarer Schwaben (Homeland Community of Sathmar Swabians). Those remaining in Romania are represented, along with other German-speaking groups, by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (DFDR).

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News & Latest Additions . . .
Last Updated: 19 Nov 2009

The Sathmarer Schwaben Online-Zeitung (Newspaper / German) www.ssoz.de

Landsmannschaft der Sathmarer Schwaben in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
(Society of Sathmar Swabians in Germany) www.sathmarer-schwaben.de

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Last updated:
19 Nov 2009