Germans of Serbia

Germans of Serbia
Total population
	4,064 (2011)
Regions with significant populations
	Vojvodina (Banat and Bačka)
Languages
	German, Serbian
Religion
	Predominately Roman Catholicism and Protestant sects
Related ethnic groups
	Danube Swabians, Banat Swabians, Germans of Romania, Germans of Hungary, Germans of Croatia

The Germans of Serbia (Serbian: Nemci u Srbiji/Немци у Србији, German: Serbiendeutsche) are an ethnic minority of Serbia which numbers 4,064 people according to last population census from 2011.^[1] The Germans of Serbia usually refer to themselves as Swabian (Schwaben, Švabe), and they are grouped into the Danube Swabians or Banat Swabians in the Vojvodina region, where the majority of the population resides. Germans settled parts of Serbia in the late 17th century during Habsburg administration. The German population of Vojvodina was more numerous in the past (about 350,000 before World War II). More than 250,000 left during the withdrawal of Nazi forces. As a consequence of the World War II events in Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Communist government took a reprisals on ethnic citizens of German origin in Yugoslavia (including Vojvodina): they had their citizenship revoked and their belongings and houses were nationalized and taken from them. Between 1944 and 1946, a prison camp system was established for Yugoslav citizens of German origin, usually in settlements where they lived. After prison camps were abolished, ethnic Germans of Yugoslavia regained their rights and citizenship and most of them emigrated to Germany or Austria in the following years because of economic reasons.

Demographics

Most of the Germans (3,272) are living in the autonomous Vojvodina region, with sizable number (498) also in Belgrade region.

Year	Germans	%
1900	336,430	23.5%
1910	324,180	21.4%
1921	335,902	21.9%
1931	328,631	20.2%
1948	41,460	0.63%
1953	46,228	0.66%
1961	14,533	0.19%
1971	9,086	0.11%
1981	5,302	0.06%
1991	5,172	0.07%
2002	3,901	0.05%
2011	4,064^[2]	0.06%

Early History

The history of Germans in the territory of present-day Serbia (in Serbian, the population is referred to as Podunavski Nemci/Švabe, in English as Danube Swabians, and in German as Donauschwaben) dates back to the turn of the seventeenth century and is connected with the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from Pannonia. At that time, the Habsburg state began establishing settlements in the areas abandoned by the Turks.^[3]

Germans started to settle in the territory of present-day Serbia in the end of the 17th century, when Habsburg Monarchy took parts of these areas from the Ottoman Empire. During Habsburg rule, Germans were privileged nationality in the Monarchy and German language was a lingua franca of the country, used by members of other ethnicities as well. After the Austro-Hungarian compromise from 1867, present-day northern Serbia was included into the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy and Hungarian language replaced German as a main language of administration and inter-ethnic communication.

In 1918, following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, a short-lived Banat Republic was proclaimed in Banat region, mainly as an initiative of local Germans. Soon, the territory of this republic was divided between the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Romania. In 1929, regions of present-day Serbia that had sizable German population (Banat, Bačka, Syrmia) were included into the newly formed Danube Banovina province.

In the interwar period, Germans were one of the largest national minorities on the territory of present-day Serbia, second only to the Hungarians. According to 1931 census, Germans formed the largest part of population in the districts ("srez") of Bačka Palanka, Odžaci, Kula, Apatin, and Sombor. They also formed the largest part of population in several important cities and towns such are Vršac, Ruma, Bačka Palanka, Inđija, Vrbas, Futog, Apatin, Nova Pazova, Bela Crkva, Crvenka, Odžaci, Bački Jarak, Bač, Banatski Karlovac, Plandište, Žitište, Jaša Tomić, Sečanj, etc., as well as in one number of other settlements.

World War II occupation

During the occupation in the Banat, the Backa, Baranja, and Croatia, after April 1941, the German authorities in control of the region recruited ethnic Germans for Waffen SS by way of conscription.^[4]

During the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, from 1941 to 1944, Banat was an autonomous German-administered region within occupied Serbia, with approximately 120,000 (or one fifth of the Banat's population) of ethnic Germans who were mostly peasants and artisans.^[5] The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen formed in 1941 from Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) volunteers from the Banat was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party. The notorious SS Division committed massive war crimes against the Serbian civilian population. In 1943 Heinrich Himmler introduced compulsory military service for ethnic Germans in Serbia.^[6] The both voluntary involvement and involvement under duress of the Volksdeutsche in the occupied Banat region aided the Nazi regime in their targeted campaign towards the Jewish people.^[5]

Debate between different groups exists as to whether or not the violence that occurred against ethnic Germans in the Yugoslav region during this time was in fact genocide.^[7]

Post-WWII

In the latter half of the war and post war period (between 1945-1948), of the ethnic German civilians left in the Yugoslav region, approximately 51,000 men, women, and children died in camps where the conditions were maintained to cause death.^[8]

After the region was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in late 1944, some ethnic Germans fled the Banat region; approximately three-fifths stayed and subsequently suffered by way of disenfranchisement and incarceration due to their association with the Nazi regime.^[5]

Summary

The German military defeat in World War II resulted in flight or imprisonment of the almost entire German community (which numbered about 350,000^{[citation needed]}) in Serbia's territory. It is estimated that about 200,000 Germans were evacuated during the flight of the German army from Serbian territory, while about 140,000 who remained in the country were sent to prison camps run by the new communist authorities. After prison camps were dissolved (in 1948), most of the remaining German population left Serbia because of economic reasons.^{[citation needed]}

Present Day

In 2007, the minority formed a national council for the first time since the Second World War.^[9] In the 2000s several monuments to the pre-war German population have been erected.^[10] In 2008 the Association of Danube Swabians requested that the government of the city of Sremska Mitrovica exhume the bodies of Germans who died in a post-war camp in the town.^[11]

Provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy in the territory of present-day Serbia, 1718-1739
Banat Republic, proclaimed in 1918
Republic of Banatia, proposed in 1920
South German buffer state, planned in 1941

Notable people

Main article:Category:Serbian people of German descent

Ivan Bek
Lujza Mišić
Ignjat Sopron
Đorđe Vajfert
Helmar Müller, West German olympic track and field athlete
Anna Stein, West German olympic artistic gymnast

References

^ http://media.popis2011.stat.rs/2012/Nacionalna%20pripadnost-Ethnicity.pdf
^ Republički zavod za statistiku, ed. (2012). Nacionalna pripadnost: podaci po opštinama i gradovima = Ethnicity: data by municipalities and cities. Popis stanovništva domaćinstava i stanova 2011. Beograd. ISBN 978-86-6161-023-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Giergiel, Sabina; Taczyńska, Katarzyna (2023). "Heritage Without Heirs: The German Legacy in Serbia. The Case of the Museum of Danube Swabians". Acta Poloniae Historica. 128: 127–150. doi:10.12775/APH.2023.128.06. ISSN 2450-8462.
^ "Axis Invasion of Yugoslavia". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
^ ^a ^b ^c Zakić, Mirna (April 2014). "The Price of Belonging to the Volk: Volksdeutsche, Land Redistribution and Aryanization in the Serbian Banat, 1941–4". Journal of Contemporary History. 49 (2): 320–340. doi:10.1177/0022009413515539. ISSN 0022-0094.
^ Christopher Ailsby, Hitler's renegades: foreign nationals in the service of the Third Reich, Brassey's, 2004. (p. 158)
^ Antolović, Michael; Marković, Saša (2017-03-04). "Executioners and/or victims—German minority in Serbian, Croatian and German historiographies (1945–2010)". Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. 19 (2): 209–224. doi:10.1080/19448953.2015.1096135. ISSN 1944-8953.
^ Frusetta, J. (2014-12-01). "Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Paul Mojzes (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), xiv + 297 pp., hardcover $42.95, electronic version available". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 28 (3): 535–537. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcu047. ISSN 8756-6583.
^ "B92 - News - Society - Serbia's Germans form national council". Archived from the original on 2009-08-12. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
^ Developer unearths memories of banished German minority in Serbia, The Canadian Press^{[dead link]}
^ Association of Danube Swabians proposing to exhume bodies of former camp inmates in Sremska Mitrovica^{[dead link]}

Literature

Zoran Janjetović (2009). Nemci u Vojvodini. INIS. ISBN 978-86-7005-073-0.
Nenad Stefanović, Jedan svet na Dunavu, Beograd, 2003.
Dr Anđelija Ivkov, Demografska slika Vojvodine, Beograd, 2006.
Saša Kicošev; Drago Njerovan (2013) [2010], Razvoj etničke i verske strukture Vojvodine, Novi Sad: Prometej, ISBN 978-86-87513-20-4
Borislav Jankulov (2003) [1961], Pregled kolonizacije Vojvodine u XVIII i XIX veku, Matica Srpska
Dragomir Jankov, Vojvodina - propadanje jednog regiona, Novi Sad, 2004.