Dimitrie Mierau
Soviet Union / Russia
2007
Dimitri Mierau comes from the small village of Korneyevka in Siberia. The members of the village community lived as a German minority in the Soviet Union. They spoke Low German and lived as self-sufficient farmers and cattle breeding.
Emigration was always present. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the father visited relatives in Germany to find out more. The family council then voted in favour of emigration, which took place in 1992.
„We handed in our Soviet or Russian passports and then got German ones in return. We have made a clear decision, we are going back to our roots. […] We immediately changed our surnames when we entered the country, Germanized them. […] Just like it used to be in our papers.“
The first stop was the Friedland border transit camp. Subsequently, relatives in the Ruhr area temporarily took in the family.
My father said that we were actually already 'to late repatriates', that we should have come two or three years earlier. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was very problematic, much like the ones now, perhaps. […] The living space was very tense, we also lived temporarily in the basement.
Dmitrie Mierau
After his military service, Dimitri Mierau decided to study theology. His work in a community of late repatriates brought him to Saxony. He works as an integration commissioner for the city of Heidenau and in the pastoral ministry of a parish in Pirna.
Russian-Germans
Russian-German resettlers (until 1993) and ethnic German repatriates (immigrants since 1993) are one of the largest migrant groups in Germany. Their German-speaking ancestors had been living in the former Russian Empire since the second half of the 18th century. They are recognised as ethnic nationals in accordance with the Federal Expellees Act (Bundesvertriebenengesetz). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a majority of them came to Germany. Between 1950 and 2019, 2.4 million were registered.