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The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate, based on a special digital program containing the lists of telephonic customers from 2005 in Germany, that the family names and ethnonyms Sass/Saß in German, the Romanian Sas, Sas(s)u, Sascu, the Hungarian S(z)asz, whose origin is first of all the name of the old tribe of Northern Saxons (Nieder)sachsen (old German sahso, middle German sachse, northern German sasse), based on this, the German colonists who came in Transylvania in the 12th century were called in Latin Saxones, in German Siebenbüger Sachsen, in Romanian saşi, their geographic spreading in Germany is different due to the fact that, in the case of names such as Sass/Saß, we can speak about indigenous names, formed on the territory of Germany, especially in northern lands Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein (see Map 1), while in the second case, we are dealing with names having a foreign origin (Romanian or Hungarian) that appeared in Transylvania and then reached Germany due to the phenomenon of migration from east to west, specific to the 20th and the 21st centuries for political-economic reasons (spreading in the richly industrialized lands of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Hessen and Nordrhein-Westfalen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Central-Eastern Europe the aftermath of the war was apparent, especially in what concerned the disintegration, respectively, the formation of some new national states (e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia) as well as the extension of some already existing borders (Serbia, Romania). In the case of Romania, the historiography was focused on the presentation of the event through one of its major aftermaths: the Great Union of December 1st of 1918 declared at Alba Iulia, by means of which the Romanians in Transylvania, Banat and Hungary expressed the annexation of the territories they inhabited to the Kingdom of Romania. Confirmed by the peace treaties in Paris, the Union from December 1st was a founding moment for the whole Romanian state, welcoming the attention of researchers, in spite of the political regimes that followed in the country, the utmost importance of this event in Romanian history arising from it being declared the national day of Romania. For the Saxons in Transylvania, the Great War did not get but a little of the researchers' attention, who focused as well on the first political document of the Saxon elite after the disintegration of Austria-Hungary: the adherence of the Saxons to the Union proclamation of Transylvania with Romania, an action that was explained by the need to win the Romanians' affinity and thus obtain a political status as favorable as possible within the new state. Romanian and German historiography did not consider in any way the perspective of common people, soldiers or civilians, peasants or town inhabitants, men or women, adults or children had on the war. This perspective started to change radically in 2012 when two Romanian historians, Nicolae Bocşan and Valeriu Leu, initiated a project to edit the Romanian memoirist of Banat concerning the Great War. The over 1500 pages in the two volumes that were already published give therefore a new image of the event, the mail, the journals, the memoirs were brought to light, turning into sources that renew historiography. In brief, we are discussing a new history that suggests a different approach by: 1) discovering the story of some human destinies, individual and collective, whose biographic path was irrecoverably marked by the development of the world war; 2) exploring the First World War from a different point of view, that of the soldier on the front or the one in prison, the military priest meant to comfort the souls, to offer moral support and to encourage the people sent to the battlefields, the viewpoint of the journalist and the politician who try to exploit the military events for journalistic or political propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the influence of German Saxons on Transylvania, Romania. Saxon settlements in the Sibiu regional municipalities known in German as "Siebenbürgen" ("Seven Fortified Towns") are traced to the 15th century. Names of a number of cities and towns in the region are traced to Saxon dialects and hence German founders and original settlers. Descendants, names, and remnants of that German culture and community still existing in the capital city of Bucharest, Romania, are remarked upon.