AH Challenge: German Transylvania

[Rekjavik]

Your challenge, should you accept it, is to have the OTL region of Transylvania ethnically German with a PoD after the initial German settlements in the region in the 12th century.

If I recall correctly, Transylvania had a significant German population. Yet the German population was mostly focused around the Seven Fortresses (Kronstadt, Scäßburg, Mediasch, Hermannstadt, Mühlbach, Bistritz and Klausenburg for those who are curious). How can the region have a majority German population? Another question would be in regards to the non-German inhabitants of Transylvania, they would have to live somewhere. Would it be likely if the OTL Transylvanian's made their homes in Hungary or Ukraine?

Extra credit is awarded for an early PoD. You are allowed to use the Hapsburgs and the Austrian Empire to reach the goal, but the earlier the better. Another item of note is that whilst a majority is required, it can be a slim German majority. Also, such a state is not required to be a part of a Germany, similar to OTL Austria.

 

[Bavarian Raven]

considering i am a direct descendent of them saxons i will chip in and say, have a larger initial migration. easiest way imo. have conditions in germany at the time worse, so that more "saxons" (and other germans as well) are willing to migrate. then sometime in the early years have a warlord or a young noble or the such rise to power and fight for independence. "saxons" were good at fighting off the foreigners who tried to invade. they might just win. and if they do, who knows what will happen?

 

[mdc_1957]

Another would have to be some hindrance to Hungarian settlement in the region. As may already be known, Transylvania also had a considerable Magyar population OTL. Maybe if conditions in Hungary were better enough to dissuade pioneers from moving elsewhere.

 

[Mikestone8]

How about if Austria reconquers Hungary a generation earlier, c 1660?

Considering what Germany was probably like, only a decade after the Thirty Years War, you might have got large numbers ready to try their luck elsewhere

 

[thrashing_mad]

Maybe Pechenegs are stronger/more painful to Hungary than OTL, and Teutonic Knights are not banished from Burzenland. From there they start their crusading campaigns against pagans, creating monastic state similarly to OTL Prussia, attracting German settlers/knights during the process.

 

[Midas]

IIRC the Teutonic Knights were originally based in Hungary to defend them from Kipchaks but the Hungarian king wanted them to serve him and not the Pope. If the Knights decided to fight on and won, or attracted more support either from the Pope or Hungary it would be a decent spring-board for German settlers to pour into the region. iirc as well Germans actively settled the Hungarian regions and it and Transylvania had fairly noticeable German populations up until post-WWI. I assume a heavy amount of Magyarization went about in those lands though so most of them probably integrated after a few generations from migrating there.

Alternatively, you could simply change the history of Pannonia and Hungary itself. Stephen I's crowning as King of Hungary was incredibly controversial. Koppány, a Hungarian nobleman who by Magyar succession rules "should've" been named King fought a Civil War against Stephan. Stephan won IOTL (a large part in because he had the support of some handy Holy Roman knights) but let's imagine he somehow manages to lose. Koppány ends up as King of Hungary, and during his reign the Magyar tribes remain disunited and squabbling over who's Christian, who's pagan, which tradition is more traditional- whatever. If this lasts for more than a generation, there's a good chance I think the Pope would try and establish some organization to help Christianize the Hungarians and remove the pagans. He would also be heavily supported by the Holy Roman Emperor, who would've probably been fighting the Hungarians the whole time anyway since he married off his daughter to Stephan only to have her widowed (and if she's somehow killed I imagine more drama). If the organization founded by the pope is German (and that's really likely I think) and resembles anything like the Teutonic Knights, there's a good possibility some un-Magyarized German settlement that persists in Pannonia becomes very possible. You could even have the order establish its capital at Alba Iulia (in the heart of Transylvania)- a parallel to Königsberg in the Baltic.

 

[Monty Burns]

AFAIK, earliest "German" settlements in OTL Hungary were under the Carolingians after the defeat of the Awars. If the Magyars do not immigrate into the Pannonian lowlands, I'd assume that the Frankish and later German influence remains, resulting in more and earlier colonization of these regions.

A reasonable later POD would be the colonization efforts of the Hapsburgs after the reconquest of Hungary. Let there be a more bloody war, decimating the population of Transylvania, and let the Hapsburg be more open to immigrants from outside their own territories, which were the major source of the German emmigrants IOTL. Given that, therefore, large parts of the German population in Hungary proper and the Banat have ancestors in Vorderösterreich, it is reasonable to assume that much more immigrants could be available in Germany as a whole. If you additionally take in a POD which changes settlement patterns in such a way that assimilation results in a German identity (only founding "mixed" villages, yet with German majority) you could get a larger German minority in all territories "emptied" by the Turks and the Turkish wars.

To decrease the share of Romanians, you could start an orthodox uprising. Let's say the Hapsburgs conquer more of Serbia, and Serbia erupts in revolution. The Austrians crack down on them, but expand their measures against the (orthodox) Romanians as well, resulting in emmigration of Romanians into Walachia and Moldavia (maybe these become independent earlier to promote this emmigration).

 

[Bavarian Raven]

a good book on the subject is "History of the Transylvanian Saxons"
an older book but gives a history of the region and german settlement
hard to find but worth the read =D