Yugoslav Germans

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Yugoslavian German is a collective name for all German-speaking minorities living in the former Yugoslavia , mainly north of the Sava and Danube . While their number was around half a million before the Second World War , today hardly ten thousand people in the successor states of Yugoslavia call themselves Germans .

history

Origins

Before the Second World War, about 500,000 people of German descent lived in Yugoslavia: in the Banat , Batschka and Syrmia , these were Danube Swabians , while the " ethnic Germans " living in Slovenia ( Gottscheer , Zarzer and German-speaking urban populations, especially in Lower Styria ) were referred to as old Austrians .

The German population groups resident in Slovenia , albeit numerically far fewer than the Danube Swabians, have in some cases already lived there much longer than the latter. The oldest group was made up of the inhabitants of the language island of Zarz in Upper Carniola, who came from Hochpustertal around 1200 . The group of Gottscheers in Lower Carniola, which comprised around 12,500 people in 1940, was also very old, and their ancestors from Carinthia and East Tyrol were settled by the Ortenburgers in the 14th century . The Danube Swabians, on the other hand, came into the country between the 17th and the second half of the 19th century.

Different groups with a common culture and dialect developed depending on their origin, time of immigration and residential area . The groups often kept to themselves, although there were also many marriages between Germans and locals, especially with Croatian Catholics , in this area.

In 1931 the number of German speakers in Yugoslavia was around 500,000.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The economic situation of the Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia in the interwar period was only slightly better than that of the Hungarians and Serbs. Although there were also many landless Danube Swabian farmers, no ethnic Germans were taken into account in the Yugoslav land reform. Mother tongue German lessons were largely limited to individual German-speaking primary school classes in the first four school years, but in 1932 78% of Danube Swabian children took part - far more than among ethnic Germans in Slovenia. The lack of German-speaking teachers prevented a better supply of mother-tongue lessons. The German party , founded in 1922, was represented in the Yugoslav parliament with eight members from 1923 and five after 1925 and 1928.

The largest and most important association of Yugoslav Germans was the Schwäbisch-Deutsche Kulturbund , to which around ten percent of ethnic Germans belonged in the early 1930s. Leading national personalities were Stefan Kraft , Johann Keks , Georg Grassl , Matthias Giljum , and Christian Ludwig Brücker . With the rise of National Socialism in the German Empire, the Danube Swabians also had clashes between traditionalists of Catholic character and National Socialist-oriented " innovators " (with representatives such as Branimir Altgayer , Jakob Awender , Johann Wüscht or Gustav Halwax ), which was caused by the increasing dissatisfaction with the The economic and social situation of the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia as well as from the support of National Socialist Germany through the " Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle " benefited and gained influence, especially within the Kulturbund. In 1939 the “renewers” finally prevailed in the Kulturbund under the later “ ethnic group leader ” Sepp Janko . The Bund was expanded into a National Socialist mass organization that was supposed to organize the entire ethnic group. At the end of 1940, Janko claimed that 98 percent of ethnic Germans were members of the Kulturbund.

Second World War

Many of the Yugoslav Danube Swabians of military age served in the Yugoslav army during the attack on Yugoslavia and thus faced German troops. Others chose to flee to Styria, Hungary or Romania instead or hid until the German troops arrived.

After the surrender of the Yugoslav army, the German men of the Batschka switched to the Hungarian army, but were also called to volunteer for the SS. After a lack of success at the beginning, all tangible men born between 1900 and 1924 were forcibly evicted. The youngest age groups were brought to Prague for basic training and then sent to the Eastern Front. Most of the older generation reported to the "Hipo" ( auxiliary police ) in order to avoid military service. In 1942 the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" was set up. Although the term volunteer division was initially introduced and retained, the call for advertisements on March 1, 1942 indicated that ethnic German recruits should also be drafted across the board in Serbia.

All conscripted German men in Vojvodina between the ages of 17 and 50 were soon drafted under threat of “the strictest punishment” if they were not indispensable in agriculture. No reliable information can be given about the numerical ratio between “real” volunteers, regularly called up and ethnic Germans who were forced to serve in the “Prinz Eugen”. Slightly more than half of the “volunteers” are said to come from the Pančevo district . With the establishment of the “Prinz Eugen”, the “ Reichsführer SS ” Heinrich Himmler dropped the “racial selection” and the “voluntary principle” for the Waffen SS for the first time. The Banat provided around 22,000 men in the Waffen SS, the Batschka also around 22,000, and Croatia around 17,500. Less than 2,000 men came to the Wehrmacht. The "Prinz Eugen Division" was best known for a large number of war crimes. One of their most terrible atrocities was the massacre in the vicinity of Otok in late March 1944.

At the 7th Nuremberg trial of the war criminals , the number of their victims was put at 2,014. Men, women and children were literally slaughtered and the villages plundered. The prosecution in Nuremberg also found that the “voluntariness” of the ethnic Germans was mere pretense, deliberate deception and deception.

As early as March 1941, before the start of the Balkan campaign , the Reich was supplying large quantities of weapons to the Danube Swabians. A "self-protection organization" was set up, the German team , which intervened in the rear of the Yugoslav army, and in some places also opened the way for German troops. From September 1942 onwards, all 17-60 year olds who were not in active military service were made compulsory to serve in the German team. After the surrender , many Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia collaborated with the occupying powers Germany and Italy and took part in occupation tasks. The Yugoslav officials in the Banat were expelled and replaced by Germans. The Nedić puppet government set up by the National Socialists for the territory of Serbia recognized the German ethnic group in the Banat and Serbia in July 1941 as a person under public law and enabled them to self-govern. As a result, the Danube Swabian ethnic group leadership exercised territorial rule in close cooperation with the German military administration. A separate police force from Danube Swabia was set up in the Banat , the Banat State Guard , which is run in the Federal Archives as the “border and guard unit of the SS” .

In November 1942, 18,300 Bosnian Germans were resettled from these areas in the assembly camp of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle in Łódź (then Litzmannstadt ) in the Warthegau due to increasing partisan attacks on the remote German scattered settlements in Bosnia and in the Bjelovar district in Slavonia . According to the plans of Himmler, here in the function of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German nationality , they should under the action Zamosc in the Lublin district to be resettled, but also to Galicia and Radom ( Radom ). The stay in resettlement camps remained an extended stopover for many. Small groups were still settled in Alsace . When the Red Army advanced on the new settlement sites in 1944/45, almost all Bosnian Germans fled to the area of ​​the " Old Reich ". Scattered there, they were absorbed by the population in the post-war period.

In view of the advance of the Red Army in Romania and Serbia, the Danube Swabians were evacuated . From September 10, 1944, the evacuations began in Syrmia, Slavonia and Croatia. The German population was first brought from Central Slavonia to Syrmia, from where they went in closed treks through the Branau and southern Hungary and reached Lake Balaton at the end of October . The evacuations from the Batschka and the Banat began too late. Here the leadership of the national minority group and the German occupation authorities had put themselves across the board. Many stayed behind when German troops retreated.

The leadership of the Tito partisans and the subsequent Yugoslav historiography after the Second World War made the entire German minority responsible for the war crimes of the "Prinz Eugen" and the other paramilitary units. The participation of the ethnic Germans in the war against Yugoslavia served Tito's partisans as a reason for the AVNOJ resolutions of November 21, 1944, which expropriated the Danube Swabians. Relatives of the Danube Swabians serving in the Waffen-SS began to be arrested as early as October 1944. Ethnic Germans in leading positions were also arrested, often with their wives. This resulted in abuse and mass executions.

At the end of December 1944, the Tito partisans deported 27,000 to 30,000 Danube Swabians from the Banat, Batschka and Branau to labor camps between Kharkov and Rostov in the Soviet Union. In doing so, they held back craftsmen and skilled workers because they needed their special skills in their own country. An estimated 16% of the deportees died there due to poor nutrition and poor medical care. Sick deportees were deported back to Yugoslavia in 1945 and, from 1946, to the territory of the later GDR. After the labor camps were dissolved, the deportees were also brought to the GDR from October / November 1949.

Resistance to the Nazi regime

On the other hand, there was active resistance and sharp criticism against National Socialism from Germans in Yugoslavia, especially from Yugoslav German associations with a predominance of Catholicism. The newspaper “Die Drau” published in Osijek (German: Esseg ) on April 22, 1933, condemned the “seizure of power” in the Reich in the strongest possible terms. Apatin in the Batschka was a stronghold of the Danube Swabian Catholics of Yugoslavia. The Catholic weekly newspaper “Die Donau”, which was directed against National Socialism, was published here since 1935. The spiritual leader was the Apatin Pastor Adam Berenz , who was a fierce opponent of the National Socialist regime in Germany as early as the 1930s and who resisted the renewal movement in Vojvodina and finally became a major resistance activist during the years of the German occupation. Carl Bethke writes: "Nowhere else in the 'Fortress Europe' outside of Switzerland could you read so much criticism of the Nazi regime in German". The newspaper “Die Donau” was banned by the Hungarian occupation authorities in 1944 at the instigation of the German Reich. According to Slobodan Maričić, up to 2,000 Germans were involved in the partisan movement. Dunica Labović names z. B. 30 German families from Semlin who sided with the partisans, including the Semlin communist Jakob "Jaša" Reiter, who is said to have saved Tito's life on his escape from occupied Belgrade.

Many of the 400 German-speaking people who remained in Gottschee after resettlement in Lower Styria also joined the partisans.

Expropriation and expulsion of the German population

Memorial on the edge of the mass grave of the Knićanin ( Rudolfsgnad ) camp , built by members of the Society for German-Serbian Cooperation .

The part of the German-speaking population that remained in Vojvodina after the invasion of the Red Army and the advancing partisan units was at the mercy of mass shootings, arrests, mistreatment, looting, rape and forced labor in the first few weeks. Part of the civilian population also took part.

Even before the end of the war in Europe, the command of the People's Liberation Army for the Banat decided on October 18, 1944, to intern the majority of Danube Swabians in camps in Yugoslavia . This resolution ordered, among other things:

  • that all Germans are forbidden to leave their villages without permission,
  • that all Germans who leave their homes are to be interned in camps immediately,
  • that the use of the German language in public is prohibited,
  • that all German inscriptions are to be removed within twelve hours; if not complied with, Germans will be shot.

On November 29, 1944, the commandant for the Banat, the Batschka and the Baranja gave the order for all German men between the ages of 16 and 60 to be interned . By spring 1945 around 90 percent of the Yugoslav German population had been interned, for example in central labor camps for men who were fit for work, in local camps for the population of entire towns and in internment camps for women, children and the elderly who were unable to work. The majority of the alleged (German) war criminals had already fled Vojvodina with the Wehrmacht, which was in retreat. Old and sick men, women and children were left behind. A total of 214 people among the Danube Swabians could be classified as war criminals. The report of a control commission set up by the Presidium of the Council of Ministers for the Banat on May 15, 1945 stated that the "internment of the Germans" was not lawful in any of the camps and that there was mistreatment, rape and personal enrichment of military and civilians People came. There were shootings; Medical care in the camps was inadequate; Tens of thousands died of malnutrition and disease.

In January 1946, the Yugoslav government applied to the Western Allies to expel the 110,000 Yugoslav Germans who remained in Yugoslavia, according to Yugoslav information, to Germany. However, this was refused.

The action of the partisans and the communist leadership against the Yugoslav German population was a bitter consequence of the often brutal behavior of some of the Yugoslav Germans - in particular the murder actions that the SS division Prinz Eugen had committed against partisans and civilians, as well as the involvement of many Auxiliary police deployed in German settlements and the “German crew” in the vicinity of “ethnic German” communities and their share of hostage arrests and “expiatory executions” - but also because of their close collaboration with the occupying power and their superior position during the occupation. The involvement in the shooting of hostages or in the burning of fields and villages during the war and civil war had fatal consequences for the Yugoslav Germans and was proof of the partisans' consistently aggressive and disloyal attitude. The partisans wanted to retaliate against all opponents of the “people's liberation struggle”, while the communist leaders wanted total power. The number of “ethnic German” partisans and their supporters was so small and the membership in the German ethnic group was so extensive that only a few “ethnic Germans” were exempt from repression. After four years of German occupation, the pent-up need for retaliation against the Danube Swabian population was released, after which the “ethnic Germans” were collectively considered war criminals.

In 1948 the internment camps were closed, in the same year smaller groups of surviving Germans were able to flee, the remaining groups continued to have no rights. The release from the camps was done with the obligation to a three-year "employment contract on a voluntary basis" and the simultaneous briefing at a certain place and workplace, which could neither be left nor changed without written permission from the employer. As a rule, the jobs were mines, agricultural kolkhozes, or construction sites for the reconstruction of facilities that had been destroyed during the war. In 1951, Germans in Yugoslavia were (re) granted Yugoslav citizenship. It is not clear from the AVNOJ decisions whether the Germans were ever officially withdrawn from their citizenship. For the German population, this meant that all young men between the ages of 18 and around 21 could now be drafted into two-year military service. Only after the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany did Yugoslavia organize the departure of a large part of the surviving Danube Swabians; German emigrants from Yugoslavia were able to leave relatively freely from 1951 onwards. According to estimates from 2011, the value of the expropriated property of German expellees from ex-Yugoslavia is up to 100 billion euros.

In 1940, around 550,000 Danube Swabians lived in Yugoslavia. The war and post-war casualties of the German civilian population in Yugoslavia amounted to 91,464, almost half of which died in camps. As soldiers on the German side, 29,745 Danube Swabians died by the end of the war, 492 of them perished in captivity. According to the 1948 census results, the German population of Yugoslavia was 57,180 people and rose to 61,500 in 1953. By 1968, 367,348 people from Yugoslavia were admitted to western countries, about 73 percent of them in Germany.

Between 1950 and 1985, a further 87,500 Danube Swabians from Yugoslavia arrived in Germany as repatriates and in the course of family reunification . There were critical discussions in the Federal Republic of Germany about the Yugoslav-German resettlement in the 1960s, triggered by the high number of mixed marriages and the lack of German language skills of many resettlers.

In 1980 there were still 50,000 Germans in Yugoslavia, in 2012 their number on the territory of the former Yugoslavia was estimated to be less than 10,000.

Reception in the successor states of Yugoslavia

Only since the end of communist rule in the early 1990s has it been possible to make a differentiated assessment of the role of the Danube Swabians in the successor states of Yugoslavia. Until then, Yugoslav historiography did not speak of the resistance of “ethnic Germans” to National Socialism. There was no other way of legitimizing the AVNOJ resolutions , which also affected German Nazi opponents. The Serbian historian Zoran Žiletić wrote in 1996: "The glorious history of the partisan war was not possible and still is not possible without the demonization of the Danube Swabians built into it."

Geographical breakdown

Serbia

The numerically strongest German minority with around 3,900 people is in Serbia. A large part of the remaining German population lives there in the north, in Vojvodina .

At the end of 2007, representatives of the German associations founded a national council of the German minority (Nacionalni savet nemačke nacionalne manjine) in Novi Sad . Such a “National Council” is the basis for official recognition as a national minority .

Croatia

In Croatia, around 3,000 people still profess to be “Germans” (2,902 in the 2001 census) or “Austrians” (247). Most of them are Danube Swabians (Croatian Podunavski Švabe ), whose settlement area is on the outskirts of Osijek (German: Esseg ). The minority “Germans and Austrians” is officially recognized and therefore has a permanent seat in the Croatian Parliament ( Sabor ) together with ten other minorities . The current representative is Veljko Kajtazi, the founder of the Kali Sara Roma Information Center. The “Volksdeutsche Gemeinschaft - Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben in Croatia” has its seat in Osijek. Since 1995 there has been a class train for the German minority at a primary school in Osijek.

Earlier larger settlements outside the region of Srijem or Srem ( Syrmia , in Croatia Vukovar-Syrmia County ), which were populated by many Germans :

Slovenia

Another German minority is in Slovenia, where in the 2002 census 1,628 people stated that German was the “colloquial language in the household (in the family) and their mother tongue”. However, only 499 people (0.03%) described themselves as “Germans” and 181 (0.01%) as “Austrians” (counts before the expulsions: 1918: 106,000; 1931: 49,000). They do not have their roots in Swabia, but are autochthonous old Austrians of Lower Styria . Its center is still today in Marburg an der Drau ( Maribor ), where the “Cultural Association of German-speaking Women - Bridges” has its seat. This association organizes, among other things, German-language lessons for children and adults of German origin on a private basis, while there are no native-language German lessons in schools. Many students in Maribor are now learning German as their first foreign language.

There are also several hundred descendants of the Gottscheers (1940: around 12,500) who own a cultural center in Občice ( Krapflern , Dolenjske Toplice municipality ). The associations in Maribor and Občice joined forces in 2004 to form an "Association of cultural associations of the German-speaking ethnic group in Slovenia".

In contrast to Croatia, Slovenia does not grant the German ethnic group any minority protection under the Copenhagen CSCE Conference of 1990 , so that the minority does not receive any special financial or other support. A law passed in August 2004, which provides for the strict use of the Slovene language in all business areas, makes things even more difficult.

The use of the German language in Slovenia also meets with rejection in some places in the private sector. For example, when a cultural center was opened in Apače (Abstall), both Slovene and German were used, whereupon local representatives of the community attacked them as "enemies of the state". There were similar reactions in Dolenjske Toplice , in whose municipality the Gottscheer cultural center is located.

Bosnia Herzegovina

The youngest group of settlers among the Germans in Yugoslavia is called Bosnian Germans. They settled in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1879 . Earlier places of significant settlement were:

Well-known Yugoslav Germans

  • Heinrich Knirr (1862–1944), painter
  • Georg Weifert (1850–1937), industrialist and first President of the National Bank of Yugoslavia
  • Robert Zollitsch (* 1938), Archbishop of Freiburg and Chairman of the German Bishops' Conference

literature

  • Walter Fr. Schleser : The citizenship of German nationals according to German law and expatriation laws of the Eastern Bloc countries; here: Yugoslavia In: German citizenship, 4th edition, Verlag für Standesamtwesen, Frankfurt / M. 1980, p. 75 ff. And p. 259; ISBN 3-8019-5603-2 ; http://d-nb.info/810177404
  • Arnold Suppan (Ed.): Between Adria and Karawanken. (Single volume in the series: Werner Conze, Hartmut Boockmann, Norbert Conrads, Günter Schödl: German History in Eastern Europe. 10 volumes, Berlin 1992–1999, ISBN 3-88680-771-1 ).
  • Theresia Moho: Because the night has no eyes. As a German in Croatia (1945–1955). Drava 2007, ISBN 978-3-85435-469-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Baum (1981): Germans and Slovenes in Krain, p. 19.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Baum (1981): Germans and Slovenes in Krain, p. 111.
  3. ^ Adolf Hauffen (1895): Die deutsche Sprachinsel Gottschee, p. 14.
  4. ↑ Hans Gehl (2003): Danube Swabian ways of life on the central Danube: interethnic coexistence and perspectives, p. 15.
  5. ^ Josef Volkmar Senz, The school system of the Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia, Munich 1969, p. 20.
  6. ^ Zoran Janjetović : The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. P. 220 f. In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth (Ed.): The Influence of Fascism and National Socialism on Minorities in East Central and Southeast Europe , IKGS Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-9809851-1-3 , pp. 219-235.
  7. ^ Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. P. 222 ff.
  8. ^ Johann Böhm : The German ethnic group in Yugoslavia 1918–1941 . Peter Lang GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 339 .
  9. ^ A b Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS-Division "Prinz Eugen". The Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-593-37234-7 , pp. 194 ff.
  10. ^ A b c Michael Portmann , Arnold Suppan : Serbia and Montenegro in World War II . In: Austrian Institute for East and Southeast Europe: Serbia and Montenegro: Space and Population - History - Language and Literature - Culture - Politics - Society - Economy - Law . LIT Verlag 2006, p. 277 f .
  11. ^ Charles W. Ingrao, Franz A. J. Szabo, The Germans and the East , Purdue University Press 2008, p. 354.
  12. ↑ Thomas Casagrande, The Volksdeutsche SS-Division "Prinz Eugen" , Campus Verlag 2003, p. 277.
  13. ↑ Klaus Schmider: Der Yugoslavische Kriegsschauplatz (January 1943 to May 1945) In: Karl-Heinz Frieser (Ed.): The Eastern Front 1943/44 - The War in the East and on the Secondary Fronts , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978 -3-421-06235-2 , p. 1030.
  14. ^ Martin Seckendorf; Günter Keber; u. a .; Federal Archives (Ed.): The Occupation Policy of German Fascism in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy and Hungary (1941–1945) Hüthig, Berlin 1992; Decker / Müller, Heidelberg 2000. Series: Europa unterm Hakenkreuz Volume 6, ISBN 3-8226-1892-6 , pp. 59, 320f.
  15. ^ The judgment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial , p. 119 ff.
  16. ^ Martin Seckendorf; Günter Keber; u. a .; Federal Archives (Ed.): The Occupation Policy of German Fascism in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy and Hungary (1941–1945) Hüthig, Berlin 1992; Decker / Müller, Heidelberg 2000. Series: Europa unterm Hakenkreuz Volume 6, ISBN 3-8226-1892-6 , p. 35 f.
  17. ^ Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS-Division "Prinz Eugen". The Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-593-37234-7 , p. 196.
  18. ^ Martin Seckendorf; Günter Keber; u. a .; Federal Archives (Ed.): The Occupation Policy of German Fascism in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy and Hungary (1941–1945) Hüthig, Berlin 1992; Decker / Müller, Heidelberg 2000. Series: Europa unterm Hakenkreuz Volume 6, ISBN 3-8226-1892-6 , p. 35
  19. ^ Martin Seckendorf; Günter Keber; u. a .; Federal Archives (Ed.): The Occupation Policy of German Fascism in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy and Hungary (1941–1945) Hüthig, Berlin 1992; Decker / Müller, Heidelberg 2000. Series: Europa unterm Hakenkreuz Volume 6, ISBN 3-8226-1892-6 , pp. 59, 251
  20. ↑ Bundesarchiv, N 756 Nachlass Wolfgang Vopersal, Volume 3.3.4 Border and Guard Units of the SS , 325a, there under Banat Swabia
  21. ↑ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims : Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from East Central Europe, Volume V: The fate of Germans in Yugoslavia. Bonn 1961. In connection with Werner Conze , Adolf Diestelkamp , Rudolf Laun , Peter Rassow and Hans Rothfels . Edited by Theodor Schieder . P. 84E .
  22. ^ Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. P. 219.
  23. ↑ Carl Bethke: The Image of the German Resistance to Hitler in (Ex-) Yugoslavia, Society for Serbian-German Cooperation, 1991 ( Memento from February 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ Michael Merkl: Vision of a Danube Swabian. Resistance to National Socialist influences among the Danube Swabians of Yugoslavia and Hungary 1935 - 1944 , Dieterskirch 1968 (see also: Life picture of a Danube Swabian fighter against neo-paganism and National Socialism , at www.apatiner-gemeinschaft.com, accessed on April 21, 2019)
  25. ↑ Slobodan Maričić: Folksdojčeri u Jugoslaviji - Susedi, dželati i žrtve (Croatian; The ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia - neighbors, perpetrators, victims ). Beograd, Pančevo 1995.
  26. ↑ Mladina, February 23, 2004: Nemci, ki so bili partizani (Slovenian; Germans who were partisans ) , accessed on April 21, 2019
  27. ↑ Zdravko Troha (2004): Kočevski Nemci-partizani (Slovenian; Die Gottscheer Partisans ), Kočevje, Arhiv Slovenije. Ljubljana: Slovensko kočevarsko društvo Peter Kosler. ISBN 961-91287-0-2
  28. ↑ Zoran Janjetović: "... the conflicts between Serbs and Danube Swabians." In: Mariana Hausleitner and Harald Roth (eds.): The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006, p. 162 (Scientific series History and Contemporary History of the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Volume 107: Edited by Edgar Hösch, Thomas Krefeld and Anton Schwob)
  29. ↑ Branko Petranović, Momčilo Zečević: Jugoslovenski federalizam: ideje i stvarnost: tematska zbirka dokumenata (Bosnian; Yugoslav federalism: ideas and reality: a thematic collection of documents. ) . Belgrade 1987, p. 145 ff .
  30. ^ A b Portmann: Politics of Destruction. In: Danubiana Carpathica. Vol. 1, 2007, p. 342 ff.
  31. ^ Austrian historians working group for Carinthia and Styria: Genocide of the Tito partisans 1944–1948 . Hartmann, Graz 1990, ISBN 3-925921-08-7 , pp. 169 ff .
  32. ↑ Foreign Relations of the United States - Diplomatic Papers 1946 Vol. V, p. 135
  33. ↑ Milovan Đilas : Revolucionarni rat (Serbian; War of Independence ), Književne novine, Belgrade, 1990, p. 410
  34. ^ A b c Marie-Janine Calic : History of Yugoslavia in the 20th Century , CH Beck, Munich, 2010, p. 179.
  35. ↑ a b Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Nationalities Policy in Yugoslavia , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980, ISBN 3-525-01322-1 , p. 164, here p. 59 f.
  36. ^ Zoran Janjetović: The Disappearance of the Germans From Yugoslavia: expulsion or emigration? (English) in: Tokovi istorije 1-2, 2003, p. 74
  37. ^ Michael Portmann, Arnold Suppan: Serbia and Montenegro in World War II. In: Austrian Institute for East and Southeast Europe: Serbia and Montenegro: Space and Population - History - Language and Literature - Culture - Politics - Society - Economy - Law. LIT Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9539-4 , p. 278.
  38. ↑ Thomas Casagrande, The Volksdeutsche SS-Division “Prinz Eugen”, Campus Verlag 2003, p. 299.
  39. ^ A b Theodor Schieder : Documentation of the expulsion of Germans from Eastern and Central Europe. Volume 5, The fate of the Germans in Yugoslavia, Munich 2004
    Kurt W. Böhme : The German prisoners of war in Yugoslavia, Volume 1: 1944–1949. Ernst & Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld 1962
    Valentin Oberkersch : The Germans in Syrmia, Slavonia, Croatia and Bosnia. History of a German ethnic group in Southeast Europe . Munich 1989; in: Svetlana Brajtigam-Gensicke: The importance of memory of history in societies in transition using the example of young people from Serbia . Waxmann Verlag, 2012. ISBN 3-83097-746-8 , p. 89.
  40. ↑ Fate of the Germans in Yugoslavia, publisher: Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, p. 263 E.
  41. ^ Josef Beer : White Book of Germans from Yugoslavia , Universitas, ISBN 3-80041-270-5 , p. 131.
  42. ↑ a b Aussiedler / Spätaussiedler . In: Online encyclopedia on the culture and history of Germans in Eastern Europe of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE) .
  43. ↑ Dinko Gruhonjic, Mirjana Dikic: Serbian Germans should get their rights. In: Deutsche Welle of September 9, 2011, accessed on November 19, 2015
  44. ↑ a b Walter Engel : Strangers at Home: Resettlers from Eastern and Southeastern Europe on their way to Germany . Edition 2, Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus (Düsseldorf) , German-Eastern European Forum. Laumann-Verlag, Dülmen 1993, p. 24.
  45. ↑ Srećko M. Džaja: The political reality of Yugoslavism , op.cit, pp. 238–239. (Džaja, op.cit., P. 238; State and nationality in Yugoslavia. , Op.cit., P. 114), (Petrovich, op.cit., P. 331).
  46. ↑ Germans Abroad ( Memento from October 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Federal Center for Political Education , 2012
  47. ↑ Zoran Žiletić: The history of the Danube Swabians in Vojvodina . In: The Germans in East Central and Southeast Europe. Vol. 2, Munich 1996, p. 224ff.
  48. ^ Deutsche Welle (December 20, 2007): Serbia: National Council of Germans founded , accessed on April 21, 2019
  49. ^ National Council of the German Minority. In: nationalrat.rs
  50. ^ Report of the Croatian Government.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.vsnm-ri.org
  51. ^ Volksdeutsche Gemeinschaft - Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben in Croatia. Archive link ( Memento from April 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  52. ^ Report from Croatia to the Council of Europe .
  53. ↑ Osnovna škola Svete Ane u Osijeku .
  54. ↑ 2002 census: Population in Slovenia by colloquial language in the household (in the family) and mother tongue (Slovenian), accessed on April 21, 2019.
  55. ↑ 2002 Census: Population in Slovenia by Ethnicity (Slovene), accessed April 21, 2019.
  56. ↑ Kulturno društvo nemško govorečih žena - Mostovi (Slovenian; Cultural Society of German-Speaking Women "Bridges" Maribor ): Archived copy ( Memento from July 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
    Mladina 44 / November 2, 2005: Nemški mostovi Društvo nemško govorečih žena izora iz (Slovenian; German bridges. Association of German-speaking women from Maribor ), accessed on April 21, 2019.
  57. ↑ Samo Kristen (INV, Ljubljana), 2006: The Identity Management of German Cultural Associations in Slovenia, Slavonia and Vojvodina. In: Trans. Internet magazine for cultural studies. August 16, 2006, accessed April 21, 2019
  58. ^ Association of Gottscheer Old Settlers in Slovenia (Občice / Krapflern). http://www.gottscheer.net/
  59. ↑ Gregor Heberle: Political-geographical analysis of the former Gottscheer language island (diploma thesis, University of Ljubljana; Slovenian)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / geo.ff.uni-lj.si
  60. ↑ Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein, archive link ( memento of October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 21, 2019
  61. ^ Supplement to the memorandum of the association chairman Gril. Archive link ( memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 21, 2019
  62. ^ Johann Böhm : The German ethnic group in Yugoslavia 1918-1941. Domestic and foreign policy as symptoms of the relationship between the German minority and the Yugoslav government. Peter Lang, 2009, ISBN 3-631-59557-3 , p. 72.


  1. ^ Immo Eberl , Konrad G. Gündisch, Ute Richter, Annemarie Röder, Harald Zimmermann : Die Donauschwaben. German settlement in Southeast Europe , exhibition catalog, published by the Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg, scientific management of the exhibition: Harald Zimmermann, Immo Eberl, co-workers. Paul Ginder, Sigmaringen, 1987, ISBN 3-7995-4104-7
  2. ↑ p. 177
  3. ↑ p. 260 f.
  4. ^ Pp. 152, 154
  5. ↑ p. 270