The Germans and Vald Tepes.


Born in Transylvania in in 1431, and as a prince of Wallachia, a neighboring province, he was still a "native" of Transylvania. he went to many different places until...

In 1447, he found himself back in the his princedom of Wallachia, it was not how he imagined it to be. He was ruler of the country but behind his rule, the Ottomans held control. His father and older brother were dead. His father Vlad was killed by the boyars in 1447. His older brother Mircea was buried alive sometime earlier by another rival clan engaged in a struggle for the throne of Wallachia. Vlad gained the throne but lost it, and he fled to Moldavia. Then in 1456, once again, he was ruler in his own right and began leading Wallachia. For the Saxons of Transylvania this proved a time of danger. He disliked their power. More specifically, he disliked the fact that they gave power to his enemies in the boyar class.

According to some reports, during raids into Transylvania in 1459 Vlad impaled 30,000 German Saxon merchants in the city of Kronstadt. This was to show his might but also a show of his cruelty. According to some writings, Vlad also wanted to use his power against his own country this way. At first, he simply eliminated trading rights that the Saxon merchants and the boyars had between them and Wallachia. Then the raids began.

Reality is a bit different, the boyars had their power through the Transylvania's Saxons, and they were not as loyal to Vlad as he wanted. The trade connections with the Saxons provided the boyars a source of money and this was what Vlad eliminated. This way the men who were loyal to Vlad himself could gain more power. Once he had done this, he then he turned to his own country. Since the death of his grandfather, Wallachia had no ruler who could stop the decent into anarchy. Under his rule, the situation slowly repaired itself.


Still reading this shows that teh numbers were a bit high. For one thing 30,000 Germans at that time? Not really, in fact when the Saxons of Northern Transylvania were evacuated in 1944, several hundred years later, There were about 150,000 people who left. Hm, the numbers might be a bit off.. but more on that later.

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