The Fate of Western Hungary 1918-1921 - Corvinus Library ...

goal was to organize, in advance, the public administration of the to-beoccupied
Hungarian territories. Its military head, a Captain Weigert, first
launched an attack of armed volunteers from the direction of the Styrian town
of Fürstenfeld 26 , aiming to take Németújvár. Once there, to proclaim the
Heanzenland (in some sources Hienzenland) Republic, 27 which would have
later declared its union with Austria. The General Staff of the Department
finally decided that a military attack must be aimed toward Sopron as that was
chosen as the center for Heanzenland.
The name chosen for the short-lived state of Heanzenland came from the
word ‘heanc,’ the name of a Germanic group. It meant ‘the province of the
Heanc.’ The number of Heanc (or Hienz) living in western Hungary in the 19 th -
20 th century was around 300,000, of whom about 125,000 lived in Vas County,
in the districts of Felsőőr (now Oberwart), Németújvár (Güssing), Körmend,
Kőszeg and Szentgotthárd, as well as in Sopron County’s Felsőpulya
(Oberpullendorf) district. On the other hand, not everybody called the
inhabitants of the Kismarton and Nagymarton districts as Heanc. In Moson
County’s Nezsider district, lying on the North and East shores of Lake Fertő, its
people were called Heidebauers. 28 According to different sources, after WWI,
the Heanc or Hienz population of Sopron and Vas counties was 226,000, whose
“language was distinctively different than the German-speaking Austrians of
Styria and Lower Austria.” 29 German farmers living in and around Sopron were
referred to as poncichters, who made their living primary from viticulture. 30
The naming of the Western Hungary Bureau, and Department, was not
unintentional. The German-speaking population of Moson, Sopron and Vas
counties have, for decades, used Westungarn, or Western Hungary to refer to it.
26 Fürstenfeld is located immediately next to the millenial Austrian-Hungarian border in
the Graz Basin of Styria, which was, for a period, part of Hungary in the Árpád era
(XIII century).
27 The Frankish and chiefly Bavarian-origin Germans (not Austrians) living in the
western parts of Moson, Sopron and Vas counties have, for centuries, called themselves
as Heidebauer, Poncichter and Hienc / Heanc. For more information, see: Schwartz,
Elemér: A nyugatmagyarországi németek eredete [The origins of the western
Hungarian Germans]. In: Ethnographia, vol. XXXII, 1921, pamph. 1-6, pp. 113–119;
Thirring-Waisbecker, Irén: Néhány szó a heancok eredetéről [A few words on the
origin of the Heanc]. In: Ethnographia, vol. XXXIII, 1922, pamph. 1-6, pp. 99–102; A
magyarországi németek [The Germans of Hungary]. Ed. Manherz, Károly. In: Változó
Világ, vol. 23. Budapest, 1998, p. 7.
28 Brenner, Vilmos: A hiénc néptörzs egykor és ma [The Hienc tribe, once and today].
In: Vasi Szemle, vol. LII, 1998, issue 5, p. 611.
29 Thirring-Waisbecker, Irén: A nyugatmagyarországi németek és a nemzetiségi
kérdések [The Germans of western Hungary and the ethic questions]. Budapest, 1920,
p. 4.
30 In the Hungarian usage of German, pohnzichter came originally from bohnenzüchter,
meaning ‘bean grower.’ (Bohne ’bean’ / züchten ’grower’). Traditionally, the name
stems from the fact that, to make better use of the land, grape growers planted a lot of
beans between the rows.
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