Represija nad pripadniki nemške manjšine na Hrvaškem, v Bosni in Hercegovini ter Vojvodini, 1944-1948
Repression against the members of the German minority in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vojvodina 1944–1948

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of archive materials, press and historiographic as well as other literature, the author describes the incidence and extent of repression against the German minority in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Vojvodina at the end of World War II and in the first years after the war. In the end of 1944 and in the beginning of 1945 the partisan movement and the newly established people’s authorities of Yugoslavia started persecuting the so-called Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The act of the Presidency of AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia), adopted on 21 November 1944, also contributed to this, as it declared the members of the German minority as collectively guilty. Subsequently most Volksdeutshe lost their citizen rights, their property was confiscated, while they themselves were interned in the camps and sentenced to years of forced labour. The authorities used the war crimes perpetrated by certain members of the German minority and their disloyalty during the occupation as a reason and excuse for the inhumane treatment of the Volksdeutsche towards the end of the war and immediately after it.

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