My Homeland

By Professor Georg Rath

Volk auf dem Weg: Deutsche in Rußland und in der GUS: 1763 - 1997

Published by the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland e.V., Kulturrat der Deutschen aus Rußland e.V., Stuttgart, Germany, 1997, 41 pages, German language

Translation from German to English by Ingeborg W. Smith, Western Springs, Illinois

A People on the Move: Germans in Russia and in the Former Soviet Union: 1763 - 1997
Bells Are Ringing Again in Omsk, Western Siberia
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 8/28/1941
Manifesto of Catherine, The Great
Maps
Photographs
Settlement Areas for Germans on the Volga Identified
To my Mother Tongue

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There where upon the level strand
The Black Sea waves are wont to beat,
Where over mud and yellow sand
The Dnieper and its waters meet,
Where through the spacious steppes so low
Southward lead the valleys broad,
Where under heaven's blue tableau
Bloom the golden sunflowers all applaud,
There, where thrusting from the earth
The ears of wheat are filling out.
And the herdsman knows the cattle's worth
And on meadows broad shifts them about--
There is the land whose blessed promise
Cradled me as in a mother's arms,
There is the land whose portent of bliss
Tied me forever to its charms.
There my father's heart lies buried
Fate dealt him blows too hard to withstand.
But since my forebears came upon it.
There is my beloved fatherland.

(somewhat shortened)