Finis Preßburg. Germans in Bratislava 1918 – 1948
Finis Preßburg. Germans in Bratislava 1918 – 1948

Author(s): Michal Schvarc
Subject(s): Recent History (1900 till today), Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Historický ústav SAV
Keywords: Bratislava; German ethnic group;
Summary/Abstract: Since its promotion to a free royal town in 1291 until the mid-20th century, Bratislava was strongly linked with the German ethnic group. It ware the German guests (hospites theutonici), who were granted extensive privileges from King Andrew III., and so they somehow pre-determined the ethnic picture of the city of Pressburg for several centuries, practically almost until modern times. After 1918, when Germans irretrievably lost their dominance, their representatives liked to use this fact as an argument in order to maintain, or to win, minority rights for their community. The advent of the modern age, industrialisation, migration for employment, different demographic development of various ethnic groups, and, from the late 19th century, increasingly intensive “magyarisation” played a key role in the change of the city’s ethnic composition.

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