Von der Ustaša zur SOG – Die Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und ihr Geschäftsführer Theodor von Uzorinac-Koháry (1958-1967)
From the Ustaša to the SOG – The Southeast Europe Association and its Managing Director Theodor von Uzorinac-Koháry (1958-1967)

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the Munich-based Southeast Europe Association (Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft /SOG) in the 1960s. It discusses the fact that a high number of members of the Association were active supporters of the Nazi regime. This assertion is highlighted by the case of its managing director, namely Theodor von Uzorinac-Koháry. Uzorinac, who had been a student Nazi activist and a journalist for right-wing student journals, discovered his love for his Croatian fatherland in the late 1930s and sided with the Croatian Ustaša-movement. In his activist years he became friends with another student journalist, Hermann Proebst. Both shared their commitment for Croatian separatism and supported the cause of the Ustaša. Moreover, both were aspiring journalists: When Germany occupied the Balkans and the Ustaša founded an independent Croatian state in 1941, they both moved to Zagreb, seizing the opportunity by creating a large publishing house entitled ‘Europe’. With the journals they edited, they supported the Ustaša genocidal project of an ethnically cleansed nation-state. Whilst Proebst could escape in 1945, Uzorinac was arrested by the conquering communists and convicted for his crimes. When Uzorinac moved to Munich in 1955, Proebst was deputy chief editor of the liberal »Süddeutsche Zeitung«. What he and Uzorinac had still in common was their unwillingness to face up to their past. Whilst Uzorinac was still adhering to many of his old ideas, he – after gaining importance within the SOG –restrained from any chauvinist propaganda, thus helping to modernize the Association.

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