Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military service in the Russian Empire, large groups of Germans from Russia emigrated to the Americas (mainly Canada, the United States, Brazil and Argentina), where they founded many towns.

German immigration was motivated in part by religious intolerance and warfare in central Europe, as well as by frequently difficult economic conditions, particularly among the southern principalities.

Catherine II's declaration freed German immigrants from requirements for military service (which was imposed on native Russians) and from most taxes.

Their unwillingness to participate in military service, and their long tradition of dissent from mainstream Lutheranism and Calvinism, made life under the Prussians very difficult for them.

The first German settlers arrived in 1787, first from West Prussia, followed by immigrants from Western and Southwestern Germany (including Roman Catholics), and from the Warsaw area.

They settled roughly 30 miles northeast of Odesa (city) in Ukraine, forming several enclaves that quickly expanded, resulting in daughter colonies springing up nearby.

It was not until the period of Perestroika in the late 1980s that the government granted surviving ethnic Germans and their descendants the right to return from Central Asia to the peninsula.

The migration of Germans into Volhynia (as of 2013[update] covering northwestern Ukraine from a short distance west of Kiev to the border with Poland) occurred under significantly different conditions than those described above.

[15] Their migration began was encouraged by local noblemen, often Polish landlords, who wanted to develop their significant land-holdings in the area for agricultural use.

Probably 75% or more of the Germans came from Congress Poland, with the balance coming directly from other regions such as East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Posen, Württemberg, and Galicia, among others.

Numerous people with German heritage who lived on the Great Plains of North America had ancestors who emigrated from the Russian Empire, and not modern-day Germany.

The Canadian Encyclopedia states simply: "Canada's main source of Germans was Russia — especially from the Volga, the Black Sea coast and Volhynia.

From then on, waves of German immigrants settled in the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Río Grande do Sul.

Only after long negotiations, Mennonites, traditionally a pacifist denomination, were allowed to serve alternative service in the form of work in forestry and the medical corps.

The resulting disaffection motivated many Russian Germans, especially members of traditionally dissenting Protestant churches, to migrate to the United States and Canada, while many Catholics chose Brazil and Argentina.

As the chaos faded and the Soviet Union's position became more secure, many Russian Germans simply took advantage of the end of the fighting to emigrate to the Americas.

It is evident that, at this point, the regime considered national minorities with ethnic ties to foreign states, such as Germans, potential fifth columnists.

Thus, shortly after the end of the war, more than one million ethnic Germans from Russia were in special settlements and labor camps in Siberia and Central Asia.

The displaced Germans are unable to return to their ancestral lands in the Volga River Valley or the Black Sea regions, because in many instances, those villages no longer exist after being destroyed during Stalin's regime.

[29] During the late twentieth century, three-quarters of Russian Germans were living in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), South-West Siberia and Southern Urals.

Because of a bad economy, tensions increased between autochthonous groups and recently settled ethnic minorities living in Central Asia.

[28][dubious – discuss] The All-Union Society Wiedergeburt (Renaissance) was founded in 1989 to encourage Russian Germans to move back to, and restore the Volga Republic.

[dubious – discuss][citation needed] A couple of those problems were the two sides could not put aside their differences and agree on certain principles such as the meaning of the word "rehabilitation".

[42] In early 1990, a few ideas offered to the Officer of Exiles (the bureau in charge of emigrants after arriving in Germany) in order to retain Russian Germans, or to promote their return included the suggestion that the necessary important village specialists (mechanics, teachers, doctors, etc.)

[44] The Association for Germans Abroad (VDA) contracted with the business Inkoplan, to move families from Central Asia at vastly inflated costs.

[45] Examples of incompetency and inexperience included: VDA falsely projected the idea all Russian Germans wanted to leave their present homes and lives and move to the Volga region where they would start over.

Russia: Georgia: Ukraine: The German presence on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea dates back to the Middle Ages when traders and missionaries started arriving from central Europe.

The reforms of Alexander III replaced many of the traditional privileges of the German nobility with elected local governments and more uniform tax codes.

In late 1939 (after the start of World War II), the majority of the Baltic German community in Latvia and Estonia answered the call of the Führer Adolf Hitler and "repatriated" to the areas that Nazi Germany had conquered a few weeks before in western Poland (especially in the Warthegau).

Smaller scale "repatriation" of ethnic Germans (and their family members) continued after Stalin's Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Latvia and Estonia in 1940–1941.