On April 9, 1918 (Russian calendar, 27 March), Bessarabia declared the annexation to Rumania for all times, but chose to keep a partial autonomy. The union was officially made in November of 1918 and the Sfatul Tarei, possible under Rumanian pressure, was dissolved then. ¹⁾

The annexation to Rumania brought considerable transpositions and adaptations, totally different laws, another business routine in offices, new institutions. (The Bessarabian Germans also did not speak the language of the land.) In spite of all the difficulties the German farmers welcomed the annexation to Rumania, because they considered it protection against the Bolshevists.

At first they worried about the Russian liquidation laws, which had not been abolished. (See preceding segment) A congress of the Germans (Meeting of the German Community Representatives) in Tarutino from March 7, 1919, asked the Rumanian king in a letter to annul the Russian and the Liquidations and Disownment laws. They pled for the keeping of the German language in administration and school. Kern: ²⁾ The king granted only the rescinding of disownership laws; all other areas were addressed in a Rumanization policy.

Soon after the annexation, the government of Bucharest began to harass the minorities, who were about a third of the population of the national state. The growing consolidation of greater Rumania and the centralization declared a principal of Bucharest, led to an increase in hostilities against minorities. Bessarabia felt this especially, because the Russians never accepted the cessation from Rumania and the Rumanians made every effort to regulate population relevant issues of the province in accordance with their convictions and to abolish the independence of the population groups living there. Agreements the Germans made with Rumanian agencies were always broken.

A few pertinent dates to Krasna events:

• 1920/21 Bishop Kessler resided in Krasna after fleeing from the Soviets
• 1920/1921 Land reform which led to a partial disownment of Krasna farmers
• 1921 Rumania military posted in Krasna
• 1925 The peoples’ bank “Koncordia” of Krasna established a dairy
• 2/3 September 1927 Heavy flooding in Krasna
• 27 November 1928 Big windstorm in Krasna, taking roofs off homes, damage to the church roof
• 21 December 1930 New bell attached to the church tower
• Fall 1930 church renovated
• 1930 Chancery renovated
• January 15, 1937 First train arrives at the Krasna station
• December 26, 1938 Dedication of the new parish

The Rumanian administration rescinded the rest of German self-government. The ruthless Rumanization of the administration in the German communities led to harassment and dismissal of German officials, who were replaced by Rumanians from the former state regions. The German character of the communities was endangered by the new voting laws, which admitted all nationalities equally. From 1925 on the Rumanian government existed with no restrictions. Until that time, there were certain transition phases. From the beginning, the official language was Rumanian. Krasna kept its independence as a community even under Rumanian rule. The former mayor was now called a Primar.
See 4.8, The Administration

After the schools had been opened during the year of 1917 under the Russian government, they were closed again after the annexation to Rumania until the end of 1918. Then they could teach again, but were converted to state schools with the beginning Rumanization efforts. The school buildings became state buildings and the Rumanian language became the official language of teaching. Continuation of German language instruction in the schools continued to be a central theme of all German congresses and caused a prolonged conflict with the Rumanian government. When the church schools were won back in 1938/1939 after a long battle, the time for the Germans in Bessarabia came to an end. During the Rumanian time, Krasna had segregated schools for boys and girls. Krasna people were concerned, because their children could hardly study German any more, there were only a few German teachers left in the village. From the middle of the 1930’s, the subject of religion was the only instruction still in German; all other subjects were taught in Rumanian.
(See 5.2 The School in Krasna)

The changeover from Russia to Rumania was economically still difficult. The war and the ensuing farm crisis were a major setback for the German colonies. Economic connections, before 1918 to the east, to Odessa, were now interrupted. Surplus agricultural products could be transported to the Rumanian interior, but there was no large demand for it. There were few opportunities to process agricultural products in Bessarabia; therefore the farmers only produced what they and their families needed to survive. At first, agriculture, the trades and guilds had a visible upswing thanks to good pay for agricultural products. Then the German farmers found themselves in an awkward situation.

• 1924 and 1925 were failed harvests, bringing people in several parts of Bessarabia to the brink of starvation for a few days. The situation in Krasna was also critical. One had to make a loan for 500.000 lei at the Temesvar Bank to buy seed for the next planting. ³⁾
• 1928 was another year of drought with a large failed harvest; the winter of 1928/1929 was very harsh, many trees and vineyards froze.
  

Farmers in South Bessarabia had a hard time organizing their survival. One had to fetch grain and potatoes from other regions of Rumania. The US newspaper, “Das Nordlicht” (Northern Lights) reports that on October 19, 1928, 2 ½ wagon-loads of grain had arrived, purchased in the Dobrudscha. The “Dakota Rundschau” reports on November 1, 1929 that 300 pud of potatoes arrived. The same issue reports that the royal family donated 500,000 lei to support the suffering families.

The “Eureka Rundschau” writes on March 15, 1929 that many medium and small farmers of Krasna had to sell their livestock cheaply in order to get a little money for groceries.
The high prices for seed grain and fodder brought many Krasna people into debt. The community made a loan of 2.6 million Lei to combat the common need at the Allgemeiner Sparkasse bank in Hermannstadt with 18 community members as co-signers. ⁴⁾ The money was readied at the turn of the year 1928/1929.
The effects of the world economic crisis increasingly were noted in Bessarabia as of 1930. Many farmers were deeply in debt because of the poor harvests of the preceding years. A plunge of prices happened and the material situation was very scary. This also involved Krasna, as we can see from the newspaper reports from that period. In spite of an excellent harvest in 1929, the repayment of the loans did not happen quickly. ⁵⁾
Repayment efforts took so long that the final debtors had to take advantage of debt relief laws. ⁶⁾

The economic need is also reflected in the strong emigrations, which happened especially in 1925 and 1929.
See 7.6, Exodus and Departures from Krasna

In the middle of the 1930’s, the grain export increased, especially to Germany, thanks to new government contracts, from which the German farmers of Bessarabia profited.

The better farming practices and livestock production of the German farmers compared to the often more primitive Rumanian farms allowed the German farmers to soon again contribute significantly to the surpluses of the land.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the Bessarabian Germans were occupied intensively with the problems of land purchases. It was not a new situation and the roots of it went back as far as the Russian past of the Bessarabian Germans.
See 2.3, The Changes from the Second Half of the 19th Century (1860-1918)

Most of the Bessarabian Germans were dependent on the land and their existence became threatened when it became difficult to buy land for the sons to establish their farms. The Rumanian government had listened to the pleas of the Germans in 1919 and declared the Russian liquidation laws as invalid preventing the loss of their land but until the agricultural reforms of 1920, the Germans could not make decisions regarding the land. A father could not will his land to his sons. In 1920, after the agricultural reform was decided, the dispossession of farms exceeding 100 hectares began and Krasna farmers, too, lost land. Several landless Krasna persons were given 6 hectares of land, each out of this action.
See 4.3 Land Owners and Landless People in Krasna.

With the land reform the situation of the German rural population worsened. Conditions for obtaining land were made difficult for the German communities. The land survey of 1927 – 1937 prohibited land sales entirely for the duration. The blossoming agriculture of Krasna came to the end of its possibilities of further development.
See 4.1, Agriculture in Krasna

The increasing hostilities against the Germans escalated especially in World War I. Then the minorities’ politics of Rumania caused a certain increase in political interest in the otherwise politically distant Bessarabian Germans. The All-Russian Association of Russian Citizens of German Descent, founded by the district committee of Tarutino in 1917, a German Peoples’ Council for Bessarabia was founded, to which Krasna dispatched delegates as well.
See 5.4, Associations, Councils and Clubs

At first, the political leaders of Germanism were willing to work loyally with the Rumanian state. The main goal of German national politics, the dismissal of the minority statute, was not met until the end of the 1930’s, but it was possible to ease the harshness. At the beginning of the 1930’s, when authoritarian-fascist movements (the Iron Guard) materialized among the Rumanians, the situation worsened. This and the more and more evident crisis of the parliamentarian system in Rumania increased the acceptability of national socialist thinking in German national circles.

Ute Schmidt: ⁷⁾ The political and social breakdowns after World War I, the measures of the Rumanian government, which were hostile toward minorities, and finally the results of the economic crisis caused a very uncertain climate in Bessarabia at the end of the 1920’s and beginning of the 1930’s. The relationship between the Rumanian administration and the German minority worsened visibly.

This pressure radicalized the functionaries of the German minorities, especially after 1933, which was not necessarily in the interest of the people they represented.
See 7.1, The Krasna Colonists and their Relationship with Others

After Bessarabia separated from Russia, the close-knit relationship with the Germans in Odessa, with whom they had formed a cultural bond, came to an end. By necessity the Bessarabian Germans developed their own history for the final twenty years of their existence there. They looked toward the other German areas of Rumania and focused on places like Siebenbürgen. The Rumanian state did not facilitate the effort. To the contrary, it limited the cultural autonomy of the Bessarabian Germans (as they did with other minorities). In spite of the hardships, several clubs were founded in Krasna in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It shows that there was advancement within the Germans own culture, to a greater extent than ever before.
See 5.4, Associations, Councils and Clubs

Under the inspiring leadership of the last pastor of Krasna, Professor Schumacher, the community built a house for cultural purposes. (See 3.1, The village of Krasna, its Location and Appearance) This building was Krasna’s start into a new time of culture. Unfortunately, it did not last long, because the time of the resettlement drew near.

All this happened in spite of the increased obstacles created by Rumanian officals, because as of 1930 the radical Rumanian internal politics led to excesses against the minorities. Such obstacles became especially evident when Father Schumacher energetically began to develop cultural activities (youths, etc.). Often, the ongoing construction on the house was forbidden. Pastor Schumacher was accused of furthering anti-Rumanian sentiments and documents to that effect still exist. ⁸⁾ Rumanian teachers and the local Rumanian government chief tried very hard to force the Krasna people to toe the line. They earned distrust and refusal.

The last of the generations to live in Krasna considered the final years under Rumanian rule a positive experience, and a lot of this had also to do with the cultural progress as pointed out above.

The annexation to Rumania had consequences for the church congregation of Rumania, as well. The severance of Bessarabia from Russia caused the severance of the Bessarabian region from the Russian diocese of Tiraspol and its integration into the diocese of Jassy. This was the purpose of the visit of the bishop of Jassy to Krasna, where the bishop of the diocese of Tiraspol, Bishop Kessler, was staying. (See 5.1, Church and Religion) He had left Odessa on January 20, 1920, after the German troops left the Ukraine to come to Bessarabia, which belonged to his diocese. He lived in Krasna until the end of 1921.

Aside from the disownership of the land (See above) and the difficulties Father Schumacher experienced, specific measures of the Rumanian government concerning church and religion are not known. The Rumanians, however, strictly demanded that the pastor not do any work not church related work, but was limited to tasks in the church, such as liturgy. Any kind of youth ministry that involved more than the singing of hymns was suspicious to them.

The Soviet Union, created in 1917, never accepted the separation of Bessarabia from Russia in 1918. Stalin still claimed the land. In 1924 he established the Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Republic (MASSR) on the east shore of the Dnjestr as an opposite pole to the now Rumanian Bessarabia. Already at the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, there were signs of an intensified Russian attitude. Therefore, Rumania placed troops at the Eastern border and requisitioned horses, cattle and agricultural products from the German farmers and others. More and more of the men were drafted into service in the Rumanian army. The residents were ordered to purchase war loans. From an estimate of Eduard Ruscheinsky, Krasna signed for the sum of 800,000 lei. Even in Krasna one was aware of the immense pressure the Soviet Union put on Rumania to get Bessarabia back. Eduard Ruscheinsky ⁹⁾ describes the mood of the people like this: People were quite depressed. The people had the foreboding premonition that heavy storm clouds were amassing over our heads and that hard times were sure to follow.

Beginning in May of 1940, Russian aircraft constantly circled the German settlement area of South Bessarabia. A soviet plane even landed in Krasna in the early summer, Kaspar Ternes was an eyewitness. ¹⁰⁾ On a quiet Sunday afternoon, a Russian biplane circled our village. It finally landed in the lower village on Main Street with two men as crew. Like many others, I ran to the site, spurred on by curiosity A man in uniform, devoid of rank insignia, stood up in the machine and explained loudly in broken German and in Russian: “You are free now and the Red Army will soon occupy Bessarabia.” A quarter hour later, the biplane flew away again, direction northward. The people present, quite shocked by the incident, went home, crestfallen. There was only one theme of conversation: Who can save us from Communism?

After France capitulated on June 22, 1940, after the German troops arrived, and Rumania thus lost an ally, the Soviet Union demanded the return of Bessarabia. The Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Rumania to get out of Bessarabia within 48 hours on June 26, 1940. The Rumanian government complied and ceded Bessarabia to the Soviet Union on June 27, 1940. The retreating Rumanian troops, with many Bessarabian German soldiers, added hardships to the German villages as they requisitioned horse feed, horses and wagons.