mr. Vladimir Geiger
lecturer at the Institute of Contemporary History-Zagreb
Institut za suvremenu povijest
10000 Zagreb-CROATIA

The exodus of the South-Slav Germans exceeds in dimension and far-reaching consequences a similar process on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia in recent history. It has resulted in the creation of a completely different demographic structure (not counting the latest Greater Serbian aggression against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina). Half a century passed before research began on the post-war fate and exodus of the German ethnic group. They were the most numerous and influential national minority in Yugoslavia until World War II.

The outbreak of World War I halted the organisation of German ethnic groups on the territory of Southeastern Europe. The outcome of the war brought the unsolved position of this minority in newly originated states back to its beginnings. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated, ethnic Germans on the territory of the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes found themselves in a completely different situation.² The peace conference acted pragmatically but became a degradation for the Germans around the Danube basin (approximately 2 million Germans lived in the southeastern portion of the Monarchy). They were members of a dominating nation and overnight become a national minority in the new states (Hungary, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). The super powers at the time imposed the obligation to honour and preserve minority rights within the new states, but the Germans took little comfort in this.³

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated, the Germans were subjected to oppression, which led to mass emigration, primarily from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia.⁴ These regions had been under the direct Austrian state administration. When the war ended, all state employees and their families returned to their homeland. The rate of growth of the German population decreased between the two wars. Besides, many Germans had emigrated overseas during this period.⁵

The new government soon showed the true nature of its policy towards minorities. Germans and Hungarians were not allowed to participate in the first post-war elections. The peace agreement gave them the option to migrate to Austria or Hungary until the summer of 1922. The government conveniently took away their political rights until then.⁶ The Germans with no land were excluded from land distribution in agrarian reforms. The estates were given primarily to Salonika volunteers and other Serbian soldiers. The ethnic map of Voivodina, Syrmia, and eastern Slavonia changed significantly to the advantage of the primarily Serbian, Slav population. The Germans owned only a small number of large estates, so that their share in the total amount of confiscated land was relatively small.⁷

In the summer of 1922, the government decided to nationalise the school system. German schools were abolished, while minority classes could be organised only where there were more than thirty pupils. The authorities accepted no personal statements on ethnic membership, but investigated the descent of the pupil (three generations were examined). Other minorities shared the same fate. This unsatisfactory situation in the school system did not change until the dictatorship was abolished in 1931. Due to the influence of the School Foundation for Germans in Yugoslavia, but also due to the fact that the government became interested in establishing good economic relations with Germany, the conditions improved for the German minority.⁸

Before World War II, Yugoslav Germans organized the Kulturbund (Schwäbisch-Deutscher Kulturbund), a cultural association which was founded in 1920 in Novi Sad to preserve and propagate German culture.⁹ The Kulturbund developed into a central driving force for ethnic Germans in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) and went through different phases during its existence. It was prohibited on several occasions, and then renewed, depending on the current Yugoslav government and its minority policy.¹⁰ In the spring of 1924, after almost four years of existence, the government prohibited the Kulturbund and confiscated all its property. Their explanation was that the Slovenes in Austria were not being treated in a satisfactory manner. In the autumn of the same year, the prohibition was partly lifted. It was not before 1927 that the government approved the complete renewal of all activities under the condition that the statute of the organization be changed.¹¹

In 1922, when the option to emigrate to their homelands had expired, political rights were given back to both German and Hungarian minorities. That same year the Party of Germans in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Partei der Deutschen im Königreiche SHS) was founded.¹² Its biggest success in its short life (prohibited when dictatorship was introduced on January 6, 1929, and never renewed, since the Octroyed Constitution did not allow national and political organisations ¹³) came when eight German members of parliament entered the Yugoslav assembly (elected in 1923). The most drastic example of how the party was obstructed came in 1925 in Sivac (a village in Backa). Members of the Serbian Nationalist Youth (SRNAO) attacked Dr. Stefan Kraft and Dr. Georg Grasl during their election campaign.¹⁴

The leadership of the German minority came to the conclusion that the only way to have minority rights in a state, in which the national question presented the centre of political conflicts, was to strike bargains with leading political powers. The protection of national identity was a very important political objective, but it did not uniform the political orientation of the Germans. The motto ‘faithful to country, faithful to nation’ (staatstreu und volkstreu) emphasises that the natural problems of a multinational community are not solved by building up the tensions between the nations, but by avoiding them. Taking into account all indicators, including the restraint of most Germans towards politics, the German minority was no different than any other ethnic group in the country.¹⁵

Most Yugoslav Germans lived in Banat, Backa and Baranja, regions that had belonged to the Hungarian part of the Monarchy. German settlements in Banat were situated in the vicinity of Veliki Beckerek (Zrenjanin) along the Romanian-Yugoslavian border and in the northern part of Banat around Velika Kikinda. German settlements in Backa were situated mainly in the southeastern portion of Palanka, Novi Sad, Odzak, Kula, Apatin, and Sombor, and in the relatively small part of Yugoslav Baranja around Popovaca and Beli Manastir. German settlements were rare in Slavonia and Syrmia. The majority of German settlements in the eastern part of Syrmia were situated around Zemun, Nova Pazova, and Indjija; in the western parts around Ruma and Mitrovica, in Slavonia around Osijek, Vinkovci, Vukovar, as well as smaller settlements in the broader vicinity of Djakovo, Pozega, Garesnica, Daruvar and Virovitica. There was also a significant number of Germans in Zagreb. The Germans were first settled in these regions during the 18th and 19th centuries by feudal lords. The majority of German settlers came to these regions in the second half of the 19th century, mostly from the colonised regions of Banat, Backa and Baranja. The Germans in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the youngest colonial group on South-Slav territory. They settled there during the Austro-Hungarian occupation (after 1878). The most significant German settlements in Slovenia were in Kocevje (the oldest German settlement on South-Slav territory, 14th century), as well as Novo Mesto, Crnomelj, Maribor, Ptuj, and Celje. These were the strongest German communities both economically and socially. They were well organised and had a rich cultural and political tradition, as well as the strongest national consciousness of all groups of Yugoslav Germans.¹⁶

The history and fate of Yugoslav ethnic Germans should primarily be examined through population indexes.¹⁷ According to the first census, 505,790 citizens in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes spoke German as their mother-tongue.¹⁸ Ten years later, in 1931, 499,969 inhabitants or approximately 4% of the Yugoslav population declared German to be their mother-tongue.¹⁹ To estimate the number of Germans, we should deduce from both figures approximately 10,000 German Jews. In 1931, the share of the German population was as follows: in Banat 20.6% of the population declared German to be their mother-tongue, i.e. 120,450 people (including 1,874 German Jews), in Backa 22%, i.e. 173,058 people (including 3,282 Jews), and in Syrmia 15.6 %, i.e. 49,345 people (539 Jews).²⁰ Many argue that the results of the 1921 and 1931 censuses are inaccurate pertaining to the real number of ethnic Germans because a significant part of the German population for various reasons (mainly economic and political) denationalised into Slovenes, Croats, Hungarians, Serbs.... In later years, a part of them declared themselves as Germans which contributed to the activities of the Kulturbund. Representatives of the German ethnic minority did not recognise the results of these censuses.²¹ Because there was no census in 1941, it was very difficult to estimate the number of ethnic Germans. Some German authors state explicitly that on the eve of War World II, there were 600,000 or even 700,000 to 750,000 ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia.²²

To avoid unnecessary generalisations, we must state a number of mutually interwoven facts which conditioned the behaviour of ethnic Germans during the occupation of Yugoslavia. The economic crisis in Central and Southeastern Europe, resulting in the poverty of the population and the threat of social uprisings, created conditions for a completely new political order, a fact fully used by the Third Reich. Thus, it was not only a matter of Germany invading the Danube basin, but also a matter of ripe international economic and political conditions to realise the invasion.²³

It is well known as a rule that ethnic Germans at the time had the best farming equipment, the finest houses, and well tended villages. Being industrious, the Germans achieved "agricultural wonders" on the fertile fields of Voivodina.

Nazi ideology invaded the German population (mainly Catholic farmers) very slowly, step by step. An open conflict of ideological concepts and strategies towards the Yugoslav state existed between the official leadership of the Kulturbund and the Nazis. The Nazis won the battle, not due to the attraction of their ideas, but due to extraordinary successes of Germany in world politics. The long national crisis of Yugoslavia ended in the Macek-Cvetkovic Agreement. All these changes were fertile ground for chauvinist passions, which rose high. The Chetnik meetings of Kosta Pecanac in Voivodina were observed with dread, especially by national minority members.

When the announcement came that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had joined the Tripartite Pact, large scale anti-German demonstrations were organised in Belgrade. An atmosphere of suspicion was created towards all ethnic Germans. Various incidents occurred: the office of a German travel agency was demolished, German flags were burned, ethnic Germans were physically assaulted, wounded and even killed. The Germans were in a state of panic. During the night of March 26/27, a group of generals led by Simovic carried out a coup d’état. This triggered a series of events. Volksgruppenführer Dr. Sepp Janko, after finding out about the putsch and the anti-German incidents, ordered all local Kulturbund organisations to refrain from their activities, believing that in the given situation further legal work was not possible. He sent a telegram to King Peter, assuring him of the loyalty of the German minority.²⁴ At the same time, several leaders of the Kulturbund were placed under house arrest. When the war broke out, a number of Germans, whose names were on a list previously prepared, were taken hostage.²⁵

Contrary to statements by official Yugoslav historians, ethnic German historians prove that Yugoslav Germans answered the call to defend their country. The stories of all Germans being traitors and saboteurs are just that, stories.²⁶ They claim that during the Balkan campaign the Yugoslav Germans had no special armed formations. The task of local civil guards (nationally mixed) was to prevent robberies, violence, and preserve order.²⁷

There was a difference between Germans in Yugoslav lands under direct German occupation (Banat, Serbia, Slovenia) and Germans under Hungarian occupation (Backa, Baranja) even Germans who lived on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia. Ethnic Germans who were under direct German occupation and those who lived in the Independent State of Croatia²⁸ formed German national groups (Deutsche Volksgruppe) with legal authority which acted as an entity towards official occupying authorities i.e. the government of the Independent State of Croatia. This was not the case with Germans in Backa. Ethnic Germans in Backa under Hungarian occupation became part of the National Association of Germans in Hungary (Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn). In a short time, a firm organisational, political unity of all German national groups was established with leadership principles as in the Reich itself. By the same analogy, these groups had a military or half-military character. The system was characterised by strict centralism. This meant all orders from the centre were carried out unconditionally. Subordinate organisations and institutions had the task of working out these orders, taking care of their implementation, and reporting back to the centre. They were responsible for the implementation. The groups were nominally subordinate to the highest command in a given region, whereas they were all in fact subordinate to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, the supreme command of all Germans outside the Reich.

To objectively judge the history of ethnic Germans on the territory of Yugoslavia, one should note several facts. In the beginning, almost all Germans felt great pride because Hitler seemed invincible; the propaganda was extremely strong and effective. It is true that the number of ethnic Germans actively engaged in military formations constantly increased until the end of the war. But, there were less and less volunteers and more and more forcible recruits. Many ethnic Germans realised that the Nazi ideology could bring them nothing positive. Still, their passive attitude towards communists, as well as local Nazis, sums up their resistance from the beginning to the end.

The leaderships of German national groups had to face the fact that there was no safety for either lives or property in Yugoslavia. As early as 1941, plans were made to evacuate smaller groups of ethnic Germans.... The developments on European battlefields forced the German military command to plan a mass evacuation of all ethnic Germans from Yugoslavia.²⁹ In the first half of 1944, evacuations were of a sporadic nature. The big exodus occurred by the end of 1944. Many fled in a hurry, and certainly not with a clean conscience. They have never answered for their crimes, but left behind an unforgivable legacy for those who remained and were innocent. Those who remained were women, children, and the elderly who had waited in vain for the war situation to change and for their relatives to return. According to a number of sources, there were, by the end of 1944, approximately 480,000 Germans left in Yugoslavia, so one must presume that the evacuation in Backa and Banat was not as thorough as in Slavonia, part of Baranja and Syrmia. The only reason the number of evacuated ethnic Germans was not greater, was the fact that German military circles believed that the war would end much later and the evacuation orders came too late. There was not enough time to evacuate everyone. There was also the lack of transportation. Railroads and lorries, which could have transported masses of German refugees, were engaged on the fronts. In such conditions, the Germans fled in long lines with horse or ox drawn vehicles. These convoys, often longer than 100 kilometres, moved northwards slowly with various misfortunes. The refugees consisted mostly of women, children, and the elderly, who were mostly on foot as their vehicles were filled with furniture, food, etc.. Individual Germans rarely decided on their own whether they would flee or stay. These decisions were brought by German national groups and the SS. Since many ethnic Germans had declared that they would not leave their homeland, the SS and group leaders used various methods of expulsion. Through newspapers, the radio, in proclamations, and leaflets, the German people were told to prepare for the move. They emphasised that the communists, the partisans and the Red Army would take revenge. Unfortunately, these warnings proved to be justified.

When the new authorities took control, a wave of imprisonment and liquidation shook the country. Some authors have established that in the first post-war days OZNA, the military intelligence service, planned and executed an operation under the code name Intelligence.³⁰ Thereby, not only ethnic Germans were persecuted, but also potential political enemies of all nationalities. There are no available Yugoslav sources to prove this. We cannot be sure of the existence and possible motives of such an operation. On the other hand, we do know from eyewitness reports that executions were performed.

The fate of ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia after World War II represents a new era in the history of Yugoslav Germans and a problem in itself. Until recently, Yugoslav historiography persistently kept quiet about this period of ethnic German history or presented it with the intention of preserving the ideological myth.³¹ It seems rather odd that nobody knows (or wants to know) where the documents relevant to this question are to be found.³² There are living witnesses on both sides who do not want to comment on what happened to ethnic Germans at the time. Today, the public is aware of a series of post-war events and government activities which may simply be classified as crimes. One can see how a particular decision was made and see the policy behind that decision. History will define the responsibility of political and military leaders of the time including Tito. There are no collective crimes only concrete victims and concrete perpetrators, including the ones who gave the orders and the ones who executed them.

The authorities of the new Yugoslavia faced no dilemma. On November 21, 1944, the Presidency of AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) passed a legal act entitled ‘Decision on the transition of enemy property into state ownership, on state administration over the property of absent persons, and on sequestration of property forcibly appropriated by occupation authorities’. Article 1 of the mentioned decision states precisely the status of ethnic Germans: "To be transferred into state ownership on the day this Decision becomes effective: 1. All property of the German Reich and its citizens situated on the territory of Yugoslavia; 2. All property owned by persons of German nationality, with the exception of those Germans who were members of the National Liberation Army and Yugoslav partisan formations, or are citizens of a neutral country who displayed no animosity during enemy occupation; 3. All property of war criminals and their accomplices, with no regard to nationality...." ³³

Thousands of Adolf Hitler followers had not remained in Yugoslavia to meet the Yugoslav army. They were evacuated long before, honouring the motto ‘Heimatnot’ - ‘homeland in danger’. Those who had stayed in Yugoslavia (almost three quarters of the pre-war number) had very little to do with Nazism and the war. It turned out that they were guilty because they had not actively fought the enemy, i.e., their own fellow-countrymen. Following this strange logic, only those ethnic Germans who could prove that they had served or at least actively collaborated with the national liberation forces were able to escape the raving collective revenge. There were not many among the Yugoslav Germans. Everybody else ended in camps, which only the worst of pessimists could have prophesied. In any case, it was not desirable to be German at the time. The sad fact was that most of these people thought themselves innocent, not in the least responsible for the tragedy during the occupation. They stayed hoping that their family members and their neighbours would return after the war. Nobody could have presumed that the ghost of collective guilt would arise to haunt them. Settlers from passive parts of the country and from areas destroyed by the war found their way to the fertile plains. At the same time, the inhabitants of German villages and town districts were transported into camps. There is no official data on the death rates in these camps. The information obtained from ex-camp inmates is sporadic and quite unreliable. Various camp diaries, notes, correspondence, memoirs, discharge certificates and similar documentation have been preserved. Because of the lack of original archival material, documentation of this sort is precious and extremely helpful in the evaluation of the history of ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia. It is likewise precious in the evaluation of Yugoslav history.

The fact that ethnic Germans suffered the highest demographic loss after the war is indisputable. The 'Bonn Documentation' ³⁴ states that there should have been 510,800 Germans in October 1944 in Yugoslavia, in which 28,948 were killed in battle. This leaves 481,852 civilians. According to their data, only 409,500 were alive in 1950. They estimate that Yugoslav authorities shot 5,777 German civilians, that another 2,631 died fleeing, while 5,683 Germans died or disappeared during transportation and another 4,500 to 5,000 of these unrecognised Yugoslav citizens were sent to the Soviet Union³⁵ after the arrival of the Red Army. They never returned. They state 48,027 Germans died in various internment and forced labour camps throughout Yugoslavia. 187 Germans were caught and then disappeared and that 6,273 Germans simply disappeared. The total number of murdered and missing according to the data totals 68,308. The majority of German historians and demographers favour more radical interpretations. Josef Beer maintains that 135,000 ethnic Germans found their deaths in Yugoslav camps.³⁶ One reason why Yugoslav and German (ethnic Germans) authors differ (emphasised especially by Zerjavic) is because the fact that at the time of the first post-war census in 1948, approximately 3,000 ethnic Germans had assimilated and called themselves Croats (plus another 2,000 from Bosnia). 2,000 Germans declared themselves as Slovenes, 3,000 as Serbs, and even 7,000 (according to some authors even 21,000) declared themselves as Hungarians. ³⁷ This is due to the overall climate of aggressive government propaganda. Zerjavic offers his own results on real and total demographic losses for members of the German national minority in every Yugoslav Republic. He estimates that the real demographic losses in Croatia were 92,000 (90,000 emigrated, 2,000 war losses), in Serbia 323,000 (299,000 emigrated, 24,000 war losses), in Bosnia-Herzegovina 13,000 (12,000 emigrated, 1,000 war losses). Thus, the real demographic loss of Germans in Yugoslavia (counting only those who died or emigrated) amounts to 452,000 people. The total demographic losses (including the unborn) total 463,000 people which is without precedent in the Balkans.³⁸ In the other side, Kocovic explains the enormous German losses very simply: "Mass emigration, some of it before, some during, and most of it at the end of WW II (...) justified or not, did this emigration, economically certainly negative, help to make Voivodina ethnically Serbian, reducing a very strong minority to a very insignificant number - we may pose this question, along with many others, but one thing is sure: the partisans did everything in their power to ensure that as many ethnic Germans as possible left Yugoslavia, not hesitating to add these demographic losses to the total number of victims of Nazism and fascism!" ³⁹ Kocovic states that among the ethnic Germans there were 26,000 real victims, i.e. 2.6% of the total number of real victims in Yugoslavia. He further states that 335,000 ethnic Germans emigrated to the West, 51,000 were taken to the Soviet Union or found themselves in East Germany, and another 10,000 were taken to two camps in Voivodina. These numbers are estimates, the question being, how many more were deported to Russia and how many survived that ordeal? He comes to the conclusion that 20,000 to 50,000 were real victims, since many ‘disappeared’ probably after the end of the war. With the assimilation factor of the ethnic Germans after the war and then their disappearance from Voivodina, he estimates that "47,000 Germans assimilated, out of which 40,000 became Hungarians, 5,000 Serbs and another 2,000 Croats, some on the basis of mixed marriages, mingled with fear of partisan revenge or minority complexes towards the Serbs. (All these are arguments are in favour of my thesis.) The Hungarians demographically gained 32,000 people, which cannot be attributed to natural growth, which was quite low (...) If my estimation is wrong, i.e. if there were less Germans who declared themselves to be of another nationality, then there were more victims and vice versa. There may be an error also in regard to the number of Germans who emigrated."⁴⁰

Immediately after the war, the territory of West Germany was flooded with more than 12 million German refugees and Germans who had been expelled from the East.⁴¹ It is estimated that another 2,300,000 people lost their lives during evacuation, flight or expulsion. The United Nations denied their help to the German refugees who were left to the care of domestic humanitarian organisations (The Support Organisation of the Evangelic Church, Caritas and the German Red Cross) and to themselves.

The first post-war census of 1948 in Yugoslavia registered only 55,337 members of the German national minority (Austrians were included in the column ‘rest’), which explains their sudden disappearance from the Yugoslav demographic map.⁴² The following censuses read as follows: in 1953 there were 60,536 Germans and 1,459 Austrians, in 1961 there were 20,015 Germans and 1,081 Austrians, in 1971 there were 12,785 Germans and 852 Austrians, finally, in 1981 there were 8,712 Germans and 1,402 Austrians..⁴³ Only a few thousand Germans and Austrians live today in their old homeland (including crypto-Germans). This is all that is left of a minority that numbered half a million people. When the Austro-Hungarian empire fell apart, the German minority in Yugoslavia was as numerous as the Hungarian or the Albanian minority.

From the beginning of the war until the first post-war census, the number of ethnic Germans decreased at least ten times (93,3 %). Still, there was no mention of the German national minority or its rights at the assembly meetings of the Democratic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia or the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Yugoslav high-ranking officials refrained to mention the Germans during international conferences dealing with human rights’ issues with the various United Nations’ committees. The rights of the German and Austrian minorities were factually denied in Yugoslavia. Tito’s Yugoslavia had no schools in their mother-tongue and no cultural institutions of any kind.

Every national community holds spiritual, social, and human values, as well as a precious gift of collective individuality and speciality. Every national community strives to preserve its existence and realise its cultural, economic and political abilities. Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia had only two options: emigrate or assimilate. The majority chose the first option. Since the fifties, we have registered massive emigration waves of the German (and Austrian) minority from Yugoslavia. The censuses show this very clearly. The data supplied by the ethnic German author, Schumacher indicate that 85,860 Germans emigrated from Yugoslavia between 1950 and 1977. This was far more than any other southeastern country (Hungary, Romania). There are opinions that ethnic Germans continued to emigrate in the eighties, even until the present day. In the beginning, emigration was possible only when the person was listed with the Red Cross as part of the program to reunite families. Since 1952, however, one could emigrate individually. Despite the rather complicated and quite costly procedure (the fee per person amounted to three monthly wages), still, the majority of ethnic Germans chose to leave the country. Today, most live in the southern part of the former Federal Republic of Germany with Stuttgart as their "capital." Hundreds of thousands of Germans who emigrated from Southeastern Europe are bound in many ways to their old homeland. They have founded associations in Germany and Austria (Bund Donauschwäbischer Landsmannschaften, Verein Haus der Donauschwaben, Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben aus Jugoslawien...) which nurture their specific culture, somewhat different from the one developed in their mother countries (Germany and Austria) because of the influence of East European cultures. They have preserved their customs and organise the same public and church celebrations as were held by ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe half a century ago. Many regularly visit their villages, their confiscated homes, churches, their graveyards and other reminders of their ancestors.⁴⁴

There are still many open questions. Yugoslav sources disagree with ethnic German sources, particularly when it comes to the number and purpose of prison camps in which ethnic Germans were detained after the end of the war. What is certain is that people died in them no matter what they were, according to ethnic German specifications, called: Konzentrationslager, Vernichtungslager, Sammellager, Zivillager, Arbeitslager, Ersatzlager, Krankenlager, Zwangsarbeitslager, Endlager, Internierungslager or Todeslager. After all this time has passed (four decades), the camps remain a ‘white spot’ in Yugoslavian historiography. How many were there? What was it like to live in one of them? What were the working conditions? Those who decided to share their painful experiences did so in ethnic German papers (in Germany, Austria, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries which became the homeland to ethnic German Diaspora). The Yugoslav public had no access to their writings. As a rule, those who did not emigrate still keep silent.

Ethnic German literature has enabled us to come to exact indicators that destroy the image of the ‘spontaneous organisation’ of these camps.⁴⁵ German sources are certainly more exact than Yugoslav ones, although, even their lists do not mention all the camps known from eyewitness reports or field work.

The majority of ethnic Germans who had stayed in Yugoslavia after the end of the war and the liberation of the country did not feel responsible for the actions of German occupation forces during the war.⁴⁶ Still, their fate was decided by the fall of the German Reich. They were transported in the middle of the night. They were only allowed to take the most necessary things with them. From existing literature and available archival material, we may estimate that at least seventy camps existed.⁴⁷ In the late summer of 1945, at least 100,000 members of the German minority were detained in various camps throughout Yugoslavia. The government became aware of the fact that the expulsion of ethnic Germans would give them more possibilities to implement their land reform and colonization.⁴⁸

The estimates on how much land owned by ethnic Germans was confiscated differs significantly. The procedure was quite simple. All German property on the territory of Yugoslavia was confiscated without compromises. Domestic Germans, until recently Yugoslav citizens, became equal with Reich Germans, and were declared enemies of the people of Yugoslavia. The confiscation procedure stipulated only the establishment that the property in question belonged to a German citizen or to a person of German nationality and this on the day the decision of the Presidency of AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) became effective.⁴⁹

Due to the great interest of economic historians in researching land reform and colonization, we may come to valuable data (statistics and other material) on the post-war exodus of ethnic Germans. The fate of ethnic Germans was linked to the fate of the colonists, ‘heirs’ of their confiscated estates.

The confiscation of estates which had belonged to members of the German minority in Yugoslavia resulted in the following: one estate (193 hectares) was confiscated in Serbia, 68,035 estates (389,256 hectares) were confiscated in Voivodina; 20,457 estates (120,977 hectares) were confiscated in Croatia; 3,523 estates (12,733 hectares) were confiscated in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and 5,703 estates (114.780 hectares) were confiscated in Slovenia. The total confiscated land amounted to 97,720 estates or 637,939 hectares of land. 59 % of the estates subjected to land reform had previously belonged to ethnic Germans (37% of surface area). Besides, the colonists in Voivodina and Croatia received (for free): 72,158 houses with complete inventory, 58,455 farm-buildings, over 150,000 heads of cattle, approximately 200,000 tools and machines, over 48,000 tons of food, plus financial support.⁵⁰ These statistics are based on incomplete data and do not represent the entire confiscated property of the German minority, but only the part that was allotted to the colonists.

According to the 1948 census, the population structure in Voivodina had changed significantly. 71.91% of all colonists were Serbs, 17.80% were Montenegrins, 5.31% were Macedonians, 3.17% were Croats, 0.93% were Slovenes, and 0.82% were Muslims.⁵¹ Thus, 162,000 Serbian and 40,000 Montenegrin settlers had contributed significantly to justify the integration of Voivodina into Serbia.

The colonists did more than just change the ethnic structure of the region they settled.⁵² They also brought their culture and their customs. Besides, it took many years to restore the results of agricultural production to the level which had characterised ethnic German estates.⁵³ It is important to note the losses (not only in the material sense) which ex-Yugoslavia suffered due to the expulsion of Germans^.54

The attitude of the authorities towards the German ethnic community, as well as towards other ethnic communities, from the very beginning depended on state interests or the aspirations of influential political groups situated in Belgrade. One may recognise the Greater Serbian influence in creating significant changes in the ethnic structure of whole regions (Backa, Banat, Syrmia) which eventually became integral parts of Serbia.

Finally, World War II resolved the question of unwanted minorities, as designed by Greater Serbian ideologists. The problem of ethnic Germans was solved in a radical way. The aspirations of certain Serbian political groups, parties and movements took a more definite shape during the war. The extermination of Germans succeeded in uniting all political fractions, parties and options present in Serbian politics of the time. Greater Serbian ambitions and plans found their fulfillment in the totalitarian system of communist Yugoslavia.

Prof. dr. Joseph Bombelles: Demographic Problems, Resettlements and Economic Development of Croatia