This volume brings together a diverse group of scholars from North
America and Europe to explore the history and memory of Germany's
fateful push for power in the Balkans during the era of the two
...world wars and the long postwar period. Each chapter focuses on one
or more of four interrelated themes: war, empire, (forced)
migration, and memory. The first section, "War and Empire in the
Balkans," explores Germany's quest for empire in Southeast Europe
during the first half of the century, a goal that was pursued by
economic and military means. The book's second section,
"Aftershocks and Memories of War," focuses on entangled
German-Balkan histories that were shaped by, or a direct legacy of,
Germany's exceptionally destructive push for power in Southeast
Europe during World War II. German-Balkan Entangled Histories
in the Twentieth Century expands and enriches the neglected
topic of Germany's continued entanglements with the Balkans in the
era of the world wars, the Cold War, and today.
In this new microhistory of the German community of the Banat, a region located in present-day Serbia, Mirna Zakić shows that Banat's German minority managed to exercise a considerable degree of ...agency within the constraints imposed upon them by the Nazi destruction of Yugoslavia in World War II. ...very few Banat Germans objected to the Nazi-led destruction of the region's small Jewish community or to the recruitment of local men into Waffen-SS detachments that went on perpetrate atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. Excessive violence against Banat Germans was unnecessary to secure their cooperation, Zakić argues, and leaders like Janko knew that the efficacy of local rumors, social pressures, and other informal ways of exercising power made violence a last resort.
This is an in-depth study of the ethnic German minority in the Serbian Banat (Southeast Europe) and its experiences under German occupation in World War II. Mirna Zakić argues that the Banat Germans ...exercised great agency within the constraints imposed on them by Nazi ideology, with its expectations that ethnic Germans would collaborate with the invading Nazis. The book examines the incentives that the Nazis offered to collaboration and social dynamics within the Banat German community - between their Nazified leadership and the rank and file - as well as the various and ever-more damning forms collaboration took. The Banat Germans provided administrative and economic aid to the Nazi war effort, and took part in Nazi military operations in Yugoslav lands, the Holocaust and Aryanization. They ruled the Banat on the Nazis' behalf between 1941 and 1944, yet their wartime choices led ultimately to their disenfranchisement and persecution following the Nazis' defeat.
Between 1941 and 1944, the Serbian Banat was occupied by Reich German forces but administered by its Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority. The Banat Volksdeutsche existed in a precarious balance ...between the Third Reich's racial policy and their new position as masters of their home region, with the power to rule as well as abuse other Banat ethnic groups. The precariousness of their position was especially apparent with relation to the material perks and privileges they received at the Third Reich’s behest, specifically easy access to Aryanized property and to land expropriated from the Banat Serbs. Not only did these privileges help turn other Banat ethnicities against the Volksdeutsche, they also drew the Volksdeutsche ever deeper into complicity with the Third Reich. The Banat Volksdeutsche paid dearly for material privileges and a modicum of power, as they came to owe the Third Reich loyalty, food deliveries, administrative and security service and, finally, armed service in the Waffen-SS.
Between 1941 and 1944, the Serbian Banat was occupied by Reich German forces but administered by its Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority. The Banat Volksdeutsche existed in a precarious balance ...between the Third Reich's racial policy and their new position as masters of their home region, with the power to rule as well as abuse other Banat ethnic groups. The precariousness of their position was especially apparent with relation to the material perks and privileges they received at the Third Reich's behest, specifically easy access to Aryanized property and to land expropriated from the Banat Serbs. Not only did these privileges help turn other Banat ethnicities against the Volksdeutsche, they also drew the Volksdeutsche ever deeper into complicity with the Third Reich. The Banat Volksdeutsche paid dearly for material privileges and a modicum of power, as they came to owe the Third Reich loyalty, food deliveries, administrative and security service and, finally, armed service in the Waffen-SS.
This dissertation examines the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) of the Serbian Banat (northeastern Serbia) during World War II, with a focus on their collaboration with the invading Germans from the ...Third Reich, and their participation in the occupation of their home region. It focuses on the occupation period (April 1941–October 1944) so as to illuminate three major themes: the mutual perceptions held by ethnic and Reich Germans and how these shaped policy; the motivation behind ethnic German collaboration; and the events which drew ethnic Germans ever deeper into complicity with the Third Reich. The Banat ethnic Germans profited from a fortuitous meeting of diplomatic, military, ideological and economic reasons, which prompted the Third Reich to occupy their home region in April 1941. They played a leading role in the administration and policing of the Serbian Banat until October 1944, when the Red Army invaded the Banat. The ethnic Germans collaborated with the Nazi regime in many ways: they accepted its worldview as their own, supplied it with food, administrative services and eventually soldiers. They acted as enforcers and executors of its policies, which benefited them as perceived racial and ideological kin to Reich Germans. These policies did so at the expense of the multiethnic Banat's other residents, especially Jews and Serbs. In this, the Third Reich replicated general policy guidelines already implemented inside Germany and elsewhere in German-occupied Europe. The Banat ethnic German collaboration did not derive from external factors alone. Ideological affinity between the ethnic German sense of self and aspects of National Socialist ideology, social dynamics within the ethnic German community, and the material privileges and perks the Reich extended, combined to ensure that ordinary ethnic Germans as well as their leaders proved willing and, even, eager to collaborate. Their collusion in the Reich's discriminatory and murderous policies escalated over time. It culminated in their participation in anti-partisan warfare in Southeast Europe. The bitterness and bad blood engendered by the ethnic Germans' choice to engage fully in policies proclaimed by the Reich resulted in their eventual expulsion and dispossession by the postwar Yugoslav authorities.
