Deportation of Germans from Romania after World War II The deportation of Germans from Romania after World War II , conducted on Soviet order early in 1945 , uprooted tens of thousands of Romania ' s Germans , many of whom lost their lives . The deportation was part of the Soviet plan for German war reparations in the form of forced labor , according to the 1944 secret Soviet Order 7161 . Official position of the Rădescu government . The last non - communist government of Romania , headed by Prime Minister Nicolae Rădescu , declared itself " completely surprised " by the order that Romania ' s Soviet occupiers issued on January 6 , 1945 . The order provided for the mobilisation of all the German inhabitants of Romania , with a view toward deporting many of them to the Soviet Union . The deportation order applied to all men between the ages of 17 and 45 and women between 18 and 30 . Only pregnant women , women with children less than a year old and persons unable to work were excluded . On January 13 , 1945 , when arrests had already begun in Bucharest and Braşov , the Rădescu government sent a protest note to the ( Soviet ) Vice - President of the Allied Control Commission for Romania , General Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov . This note explained that the armistice treaty ( signed on September 12 , 1944 ) did not envision expulsions and that Romanian industry would suffer following the deportation of so much of its workforce , and especially of a high percentage of its skilled workforce , to be found among its German population . In closing , Rădescu raised humanitarian concerns regarding the fate of women and children left behind . The expulsion has been characterised as being one of the first manifestations of the Cold War , as it showed the impossibility of joint control between East and West , even before the end of World War II . Statistics . Statistics regarding the expulsion of Transylvanian Saxons indicate that around 75 , 000 individuals were deported to the Soviet Union — some 15 % of Transylvania ' s German population ( according to 1941 data ) . 12 % of expellees were outside the age limits provided for in the deportation order ; a 13 - year - old girl was deported , as were people aged 55 . 90 % of expellees ended up in the Ukrainian SSR ( the areas of Dnipropetrovsk , Stalino and Voroshilovgrad ) , the rest in the Urals . ( " see " Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union " for more background . " ) The expellees were received in 85 camps . A third worked in mines , a quarter in construction , the rest in industry , agriculture or camp administration . Very few were given the jobs they had done in Romania . The first expellees unsuited for work were returned to Transylvania at the end of 1945 . Between 1946 and 1947 , about 5 , 100 Saxons were brought , by special transports for the sick , to Frankfurt an der Oder , a city then in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany . 3 , 076 of the deportees died while in the USSR , three quarters of them being male . When they were freed , a quarter of deportees were sent to Germany , of whom just a seventh returned to Transylvania . The highest number of deaths occurred in 1947 . Starting in 1948 , the situation improved , with a dramatic drop in the number of sick and dead expellees . In 1948 , those able to work also began to be freed from the camps ( 49 % of them ) , so that in October 1949 the camps were shut down . The last third of the expellees returned to Transylvania . Of those brought to the Soviet occupation zone , around half received permission to return home . The rest moved elsewhere ( mostly to West Germany ) , but a few remained in East Germany . 202 expellees were allowed to return home only in 1950 - 52 . According to Soviet documents , 7 expellees chose to remain in the USSR . Further turmoil came for Romania ' s ethnic Germans ( this time mainly Banat Swabians ) during the Bărăgan deportations of the 1950s . 1995 revelations . An article in the newspaper " Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien " , published on January 13 , 1995 , revealed that the Romanian government was not in fact " completely surprised " by the deportation order . In fact , even before receiving the order , the government had ordered that lists of men and women capable of performing hard labour be drawn up . Weeks in advance , the state railway , Căile Ferate Române , had begun to prepare cattle wagons to transport the deportees . Documents uncovered after 1989 show that the deportations were planned in detail : as early as December 19 , 1944 , the prime minister ' s office transmitted orders by telephone to police inspectors for the purpose of registering the work - capable German population , to comply with the Soviet Order 7161 issued 3 days earlier . All Red Army groups had orders to bring a certain number of work - capable ethnic Germans to camps , and then to deport them to the Soviet Union . In Romania , this mission was accomplished with the Romanian authorities ' assistance , as well as by Red Army units and GRU agents .