Victor Dietz: ‘We should change the government in the Federal Autonomy of the Germans of Russia’

Leaders abandoned the slogan of civil identification

At the congress of the FNKA of the Germans of Russia, on November 18, as a delegate to this congress, I must say at least the following. In recent years and decades (if not since the final registration of the German movement in the USSR and Russia, then certainly since the registration of the Heinrich Martens group “Self-Organisation of the Germans of Russia”), all ethnocultural activities of Russian Germans in Russia have been carried out under two slogans: ethnic identification of our fellow tribesmen and associates and civil identification of you and me. And in all the analytical reports on our project work, we carefully described all this and sent it up to our grant-givers through intermediate authorities represented by the International Union of German Culture.

But since February 25 of this year, the situation has changed dramatically. The leaders of our Self-Organisation who spoke out “in the struggle for peace” against the policy of the Russian leadership actually abandoned the slogan of civil identification, leaving only the second slogan — ethnic identification — in the work. Before the outbreak of the third world war, civil identification meant the upbringing and self-education of oneself as citizens of Russia (which suited — although now some doubts are beginning to arise about this) both German and Russian grant-givers.

They pledged to invest on an equal footing, but this was not the case

I cannot but note in this regard that the assessment of the contribution of German grant-givers to our ethno-cultural activities over the past years should be evaluated much higher than the corresponding Russian contribution. Whatever. After all, we understand that the main Russian funds were invested in the wallets and accounts of the Russian comprador bourgeoisie — oligarchs and their ilk, and there was no money left in the budget for Russian culture, including the ethnic culture of national minorities.

Now about our ethnic identification. Both sides — both German and Russian — formally pledged to invest funds here as if “on an equal footing”. But in practice, this was not the case. Above, I have already tried to explain why everything happened this way.

Right today changing the power in the FNKA of the Germans of Russia

So, if the German public has enough moral strength to continue ethno-cultural assistance to their ethnic brethren in distant Russia, despite the war that is breaking out (not Russia with Ukraine, but Russia with the Ukrobander beast, hoping to snatch Ukrainian brothers from the tenacious, cruel Nazi clutches), then the reformatted leadership of Russian Germans in Russia today will be able to continue their ethnic identification, including relying on German funds. And Russia will not have to rely on such a support in the civil identification of Russian Germans for many years to come.

Nevertheless, we must not only continue such work, but also raise it to the proper height. There are no other options there and cannot be. Not to look like vile hypocrites and nonentities in the eyes of the Russian authorities and Russian philistines, we must immediately, right today, change the government in the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of the Germans of Russia. We have no right to pretend that nothing like this has happened, and we can playfully betray our Homeland in the meantime, as it already happened on September 30 at the International Union of German Culture zoom conference.