Abstract
This study examines the fate and suffering of the German minority in communist Yugoslavia during and after the Second World War, focusing on demographic destruction, forced displacement, internment, and collective punishment between 1944 and 1948. Drawing extensively on the multi-volume documentation Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien, as well as demographic studies, archival materials, eyewitness testimonies, and postwar German scholarship, the paper analyzes the systematic persecution of Yugoslav Germans (Volksdeutsche) following the collapse of the Third Reich. The research highlights the legal and political measures implemented by the communist authorities, particularly the AVNOJ decrees of November 1944, which imposed collective guilt on the German population, resulting in mass confiscations, internment in labor and death camps, executions, deportations to the Soviet Union, and large-scale ethnic cleansing.
The paper further explores the transformation of the ethnic composition of regions such as Banat, Bačka, Slavonia, Srijem, and Baranja following the disappearance of long-established German communities. It also examines the role of Serbian communist structures and partisan forces in carrying out arrests, reprisals, and atrocities against ethnic Germans and other perceived political opponents. Through statistical evidence and survivor testimonies, the study estimates that more than 460,000 Germans were lost through death, emigration, deportation, or demographic collapse, leaving only a small remnant of the prewar German population in postwar Yugoslavia.
In addition, the paper evaluates the historiographical significance of German diaspora organizations, Heimatortsgemeinschaften, and archival initiatives in preserving the memory and documentation of these events. By situating the persecution of Yugoslav Germans within the broader context of postwar communist violence and ethnic restructuring in Southeast Europe, the study contributes to ongoing debates on collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and historical memory in the Balkans.
Suffering of Germans in Communist Yugoslavia (1944-1948)
The history of Germans (German ethnic groups) in the European East and Southeast, and in the former Yugoslavia, is the subject of many works by historians and publicists, especially German ones.
The exodus and fate of Yugoslav Germans at the end of and after World War II, in terms of its scope and far-reaching consequences, surpasses everything that happened in recent history, up until the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. In particular, in terms of the creation of a new ethnic picture of Banat, Bačka, Slavonia, Srijem and Baranja. It is an indisputable fact that the Germans suffered the heaviest demographic losses in the post-war period.
Demographers and historians explain the great loss of Germans by military and civilian casualties in the war, then by post-war suffering in various forms of internment in Yugoslavia, and by mass emigration, some during, and mostly towards the end of and after the end of World War II.
Today, there is almost no German settlement in the former Yugoslavia to which a special monograph is not dedicated, nor any major event, including the fate of Germans after World War II, which is not at least treated in a journalistic manner. In addition to larger and more summary undertakings and interesting editions of original archival material, there are a number of publications of different ideas and values.
The hundreds of thousands of Germans who left Southeast Europe are connected to their homeland in various ways. The largest number of Germans from the former Yugoslavia live today in southern Germany. Early on, in Germany, Austria and other countries of the post-war Volksdeutscher diaspora (USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia…) associations were created that nurtured their specific culture, which, due to its intertwining with Southeast European cultures, was somewhat different from that which developed in their home countries (Germany, Austria).
It is customary to organize folk and church celebrations, which also gathered the German minority in Southeast Europe half a century ago. Many of them regularly visit their native places, their confiscated houses, cemeteries, churches and other monuments of their ancestors. The collection of documents and testimonies began after the first arrival of refugees at the end of and after World War II in the reception camps in Austria (and Germany).
The largest number of works on the recent history of Germans in Southeast Europe has been published in Germany and Austria, where almost two-thirds of Germans from the former Yugoslavia settled there. An important role in collecting
The material was played by the Homeland Local Communities (Heimatortsgemeinschaften) of Germans from the southeast, by publishing the so-called Homeland Books (Heimathücher), which are actually monographs about individual places (villages and towns) and regions as reflected in the memories of former German inhabitants. The first notable works on the fate of Yugoslav Germans were written in the late 1940s.
In the 1950s, with the help of the homeland societies of German emigrants, the Federal Archives in Koblenz (Bundesarchiv Koblenz) began systematically collecting documentation on the fate of Germans in the European East and Southeast. The reports/testimonies, most often personal experiences of refugees and exiles, became the basis for the collections of documents of the Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War-Affected Persons (Bundesministerium für Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge und Kriegschädigte), published under the title Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost – Mitteleuropa, since 1961 in several editions. Book V in that series dealt with the fate of the Yugoslav Germans (Das Schicksalder Deutschen in Jugoslavien).
The same documentation, as well as other material and research, are the basis for a number of later significant works and editions.
As a result of previous historical research and systematic collection, study and systematization of materials and data, it was published by the Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung, Munich from 1991 to 1995, extensive four-volume documentation on the life and historical tragedy of the German people who lived in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, entitled “Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistische Jugoslavien.”
On several thousand (!) pages, a group of authors illuminates and documents the causes, motives and ways in which the communist authorities in post-war Yugoslavia in the period from 1944 to 1948 committed genocide against members of the German minority.
A group of authors, some of the best German (Volksdeutsche) researchers, historians and publicists from the former Yugoslavia (J. Beer, G. Wildmann, V. Oberkersch, I. Senz, H. Sonnleitner, H. Rakusch, L. Barwich, F. Binder, M. Eisele, F. Hoffmann, F. Kühbauch, E. Lung, J. Pertschi, M. Reinsprecht, G. Tscherny, R. Vetter, K. Weber) with the help and cooperation of a large number of other researchers of the history of Germans in the South Slavic areas, have collected and prepared for publication historical material of inestimable value.
Undoubtedly, Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien is an indispensable documentation for further research and historical consideration of the issues of the fate of Germans in the European Southeast. Namely, Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien deals with and presents the fundamental questions and problems of the fate of Germans in the areas of the former Yugoslavia.
As an introduction, an overview of the three-century history of Germans in the former Yugoslavia is presented, as well as a presentation of the history of the German minority in those areas from 1941 to 1944. Based on documents from the partisan movement, the motives for the elimination of the German minority are presented.
Among other things, the history of the emergence of the idea of the “Serbization” of Vojvodina is presented, as well as the program of ethnic cleansing by the Chetnik movement. The proceedings in particular document and clarify the tragic fateful events in post-war communist Yugoslavia until 1948. The troubles of the Germans did not end with the end of the war.
Namely, on November 21, 1944, the Presidency of AVNOJ passed a far-reaching legal act specifying the position of the Germans. The decision did not oblige anyone to prove active support for the occupying regime, but rather it affected every person of German nationality who did not directly oppose Nazism, and there were relatively few of them.
The victims of collective reprisals were not only those Germans who could prove their participation in the partisan movement or at least their support for it. All the others were sent to camps and their property confiscated. The rest were mostly Germans who did not consider themselves responsible for the events during the war, expecting that their neighbors, friends, and relatives would return after the war.
Most could not even imagine that the fate of collective guilt could befall them. Nevertheless, the new authorities linked the fate of the Germans exclusively to the collapse of the Third Reich. In all areas, after the establishment of the new communist government, a wave of arrests and liquidations followed.
Not only Germans were targeted, but also potential opponents from all national groups. It is estimated that of the over half a million Germans who lived in the territory of the former Yugoslavia by the end of World War II, around 240,000 Germans had been evacuated before the onslaught.
Red Army and never returned to their homelands. Not counting the Germans mobilized into various units, about 200,000 German civilians fell under communist rule in Yugoslavia. Of these, a quarter perished in death camps, while the rest disappeared through other ethnic cleansing operations or were deported to Russia for forced labor, or had to flee.
According to conservative estimates, which put the lowest figures at around 65,000 people lost their lives simply because they were members of the German people. Demographers and historians conclude that the demographic loss of Germans in Yugoslavia, i.e. the total number of emigrants, deceased and unborn, is greater than 460,000, which is unprecedented in terms of population and in the wider European context. The first post-war census in 1948 registered only 55,337 members of the German national minority in the new Yugoslav state, which is the most vivid testimony of their fate.
The collections Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien collect numerous, previously unknown statements and testimonies about the fate of the German minority. They describe liquidations (shootings), persecutions and camps.
The statistical part brings detailed documented and graphically very well-processed data on the number of German population in the former Yugoslavia by place as well as the overall losses of Germans. The lists of German victims by individual areas and places are especially noteworthy.
The collections also contain illustrative material (maps, tables, graphs and drawings), which greatly contributes to the understanding and understanding of the issue.
With its documentary and objective approach, the collection of the series Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien is a serious contribution to the study of historical events in the territory of communist Yugoslavia in the war and post-war years. Its value and importance lie in the presentation of many unknown facts about the persecution and destruction of the German minority in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, especially in the Danube region.
All of the above contributes to, and can be the basis for, further study of all victims of partisan and communist terror, as well as a more comprehensive understanding of later historical events, such as the Serbian aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Accounts of Serbian atrocities
Among the Serbs, instead of a lack of a nation-state, a Greater Serbian claim to power dictated from Belgrade emerged throughout the country. There was no willingness to treat the Germans, other “minorities,” or Slavic fellow peoples or ethnic groups as equal partners.
As for the question of who recruited the communists who had emerged from Moscow with acts of terror, a clear answer is possible for the Banat: They were almost exclusively Serbs, among them a large number of colonists from the southern regions, who had received reinforcements through the generous acceptance of Dobrovolz expelled from elsewhere.
It cannot be emphasized enough that the extermination of the German ethnic group came at the expense of the Serbian communists. The Serbs are liable; but if the Germans come back, the Germans are liable, so that nothing happens to anyone.” A delegation of Serbs and Germans even goes to the border after the shooting, but they find no one there.
In October 1944, the Serb Jovo Kaschansky from Miletich and a Serb named Gostili from Sonta threw Anton Lotspeich alive into the burning steam engine of the hemp factory and burned him. At the beginning of November, a fellow countryman from Miletich was hanged by the partisan Jovo Sremac from Miletich and his friend Sosta.
Because of their diligence and efficiency, they were envied by the native Slavs, who gladly allowed themselves to be incorporated under Yugoslav rule in 1928. The purely German Windthorst became a large municipality with over 10,000 souls, of whom about a third were German, but the mayor was a Serb and his deputy a German.
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