Ethnic Germans and National Socialism in Yugoslavia in World War II

A study of the German minority in the Serbian Banat during World War II, its self-perception and its collaboration with the Nazis.

Mirna Zaki? (Author)

9781316622957, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 May 2019

310 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.42 kg

'… Zaki? has written a fascinating book … broadens our perspective and makes for illuminating reading, not just for specialists of Southeast Europe but for everybody interested in the many faces of German occupation policies.' Gerhard Wolf, The American Historical Review

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 Zaki? 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.

1. The Banat Germans from settlement to partial Nazification, 1699–1941
2. Ethnic Germans and the invasion of Yugoslavia, 1941
3. Ethnic German administration (1941) and community dynamics
4. Privileges, economy, and relations with other groups
5. Police and anti-partisan activity
6. The Holocaust (1941–2) and Aryanization
7. Ideology and propaganda
8. The Waffen-SS division 'Prinz Eugen' and anti-partisan warfare in Yugoslavia, 1942–4.

Subject Areas: Political oppression & persecution [JPVR], Propaganda [JPVN], Fascism & Nazism [JPFQ], Nationalism [JPFN], Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies [JPFF], Police & security services [JKSW1], Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies [JFSL1], Social interaction [JFFP], Second World War [HBWQ], The Holocaust [HBTZ1]