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CULTURE WARS and CONTESTED IDENTITES: SOCIAL POLICY and GERMAN NATIONALISMS in INTERWAR SLOVENIA, 1918-1941 Nathaniel Kramer Reul, Master of Arts, 2013

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CULTURE WARS and CONTESTED IDENTITES: SOCIAL POLICY and GERMAN NATIONALISMS in INTERWAR SLOVENIA, 1918-1941 Nathaniel Kramer Reul, Master of Arts, 2013 ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CULTURE WARS AND CONTESTED IDENTITES: SOCIAL POLICY AND GERMAN NATIONALISMS IN INTERWAR SLOVENIA, 1918-1941 Nathaniel Kramer Reul, Master of Arts, 2013 Thesis directed by: Professor Jeffrey Herf Department of History This thesis analyzes the nature of ethnic Germans’ self-identities and nationalisms in interwar Slovenia. Slovenia’s German minorities’ reactions to domestic social policies and world events that impacted them are examined primarily through locally-based German-language newspapers. Germans in Slovenia had had multiple identities and nationalisms, and these were shaped by social policies and domestic and foreign events, especially after the National Socialists’ seizure of power in Germany in 1933. Pan-German nationalism was strong and widespread, and viewed Slovene minority policies as being purposeful attempts to eradicate the very existence of Germandom. This type of nationalism competed with other types of German nationalisms and identities which sought to integrate into and contribute to Slovene society without compromising their uniquely Germanic culture. National Socialism’s appeal was so strong because it promised a reunion of Slovenia’s Germandom with the wider Volk and a restoration of the minorities’ societal dominance in the region. CULTURE WARS AND CONTESTED IDENTITIES: SOCIAL POLICY AND GERMAN NATIONALISMS IN INTERWAR SLOVENIA, 1918-1941 by Nathaniel Kramer Reul Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2013 Advisory Committee Professor Jeffrey Herf, Chair Professor John Lampe Professor Marsha Rozenblit © Copyright by Nathaniel Kramer Reul 2013 Acknowledgements I could not have written this thesis without the help and advice of many people and institutions. I would like to thank Jennifer Jenkins, who supervised my senior thesis paper at the University of Toronto and first introduced me to studying the German minorities of Eastern Europe. I want to also thank my M.A. thesis adviser, Jeffrey Herf, as well as the other members of the thesis committee, Marsha Rozenblit and John Lampe, all of whose guidance and advice helped make this thesis a reality. The historians Pieter Judson, Carole Fink, and Mirna Zakic as well gave me research ideas and tips, and for that I am grateful. I could not have conducted this research or written this thesis without the institutional organization of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and the Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, whose digitization of Slovenia’s German-language newspapers formed the backbone of my thesis. As well, the staff of McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland were especially helpful in processing and handling my many requests through the inter-library loan system. Last, but not least, I want to thank all of my colleagues, friends, and family who spent countless hours over the last several months listening, reading, suggesting, and guiding me through the process of completing this thesis. Without this, the road would have been much rockier, indeed. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One – Adjusting to the New Kingdom, 1918-1924……………………………14 Violent Struggles for Control and the Marburger Blutsonntag ………………………..19 The Deutsche Wacht turns into the Cillier Zeitung …………………………………...26 The “Slovenization” of German Cultural Institutions………………………………...28 Slovenia’s Germans and the Yugoslav Constitution………………………………….34 German Desire for Inclusion in Yugoslav and Slovene Society………………………39 German Identity in Transition from Multinational Empire to South Slavic Kingdom..46 The Legacy of the Habsburg Empire in the New Slovenia…………………………...53 German Political and Cultural Developments………………………………………...57 German Views of Slovenia and Yugoslavia…………………………………………..59 1921 – A New Census and a New Constitution……………………………………….61 Formation of the Partei der Deutschen and the Election of 1923…………………….65 Developments in Schools and the Deutsches Haus …………………………………...70 Chapter Two – Of Democracy and Dictatorship, 1925-1932……………………………76 The Election of 1925…………………………………………………………………..78 German Identity and Nationalism between Culture Wars and Cultural Peace………..87 The Regional and National Elections of 1927………………………………………...94 Developments in Education Policy and German Schools……………………………..98 Response to the Rise of Fascism and National Socialism in the 1920s……………...102 Under a Royal Dictatorship………………………………………………………….105 The Cillier Zeitung becomes the Deutsche Zeitung …………………………………109 Reaction to Nazi Electoral Success, 1930-1932……………………………………..112 iii Chapter Three – In the Shadow of the Third Reich, 1933-1941………………………..122 The Reichstag Election of March 1933…………………………………………..…124 In the Wake of the Machtergreifung and the National Socialist Dictatorship………129 The Erneuerbewegung , Conflicted Identities, and Contested Nationalisms………..136 Reaction to the Plebiscite in the Saar………………………………………………..144 German Identity and Nationalism up to the Nuremberg Party Congress………….147 Between Germany and Austria…………………………………………………….150 Manufacturing Anti-Jewish Sentiment……………………………………………152 Anschluss with Austria………………………………………………………..……154 German Understanding of the Munich Crisis……………………………………….158 Reaction to the Kristallnacht ………………………………………………………..160 Legitimizing the Annexation of Czechoslovakia……………………………………163 Germany and Yugoslavia……………………………………………………………164 German Views of Slovenia and Yugoslavia up to the Nazi Invasion…………….…166 German Identity and Nationalism on the Eve of the 1941 Invasion of Yugoslavia...168 After the Invasion…………………………………………………...………………172 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...179 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....194 iv Introduction I wrote this thesis to answer three main questions about the German-speaking minority 1 of interwar Slovenia: What was the nature of their reaction to domestic social policies and world events throughout the period? What can this reaction tell us about the nature of their identity and nationalism? How and why did the Nazis and the Third Reich influence these minorities? The answers to these questions can, I hope, tell us much about the impact of nationalism on ethnic relations, the appeal of National Socialism and fascism, and the ways in which self-identity is shaped and formed. Prior scholarship has documented the social, political, and cultural developments of the German minority in the interwar period,2 noting the ways German cultural 1 I use the terms “German” and “German-speaking” interchangeably to denote that language was not necessarily a signifier of belonging to that ethnicity, as the national activists would have liked it to be. As well, simply using “German” can be, at times, too ambiguous: does “German” mean a citizen of the German Reich or the Federal Republic of Germany? Were Austrians German? In what sense were the “Germans” of Bohemia, Hungary, Latvia, or Slovenia actually German? It would be clearer if the term “Germanophone” was widely-used, as it is in the French Sprachraum . But as it is not, I will stick with the terms “German” and “German-speaking.” The area that is the focus of this study, namely the current Republic of Slovenia, had two main language-groups located in them, and as such, the regions and cities themselves had a Slovene-language and a German-language designation. Though it is somewhat awkward to do so, I will be using both names of these cities, with the German-language version one succeeded by the Slovene-language one, so as to disassociate the “nationalities” of these places from what activists claimed them to be – it is not my intention to endorse or refute national activists’ notions of whether Marburg/Maribor was a “German” or a “Slovene” city, etc. “What people in central or eastern Europe meant when they described themselves as ‘German’ [in the nineteenth century] varied greatly from place to place, and many of them could scarcely understand one another because regional dialects were so strong…’The majority of Austrian peasants do not even know that there is a Germany and that it is their fatherland!’ Waking Germans up to the truth of nationalism was the self-imposed mission of a minority of troublemakers…” Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 17. For more on the methods of German national activists for national “awakening”, see Peter Haslinger, ed., Schutzvereine in Ostmitteleuropa: Vereinswesen, Sprachenkonflikte und Dynamiken nationaler Mobilisierung 1860-1939 (Marburg, Germany: Verlag Herder-Institut, 2009). 2 See Stefan Karner, Die Deutschsprachige Volksgruppe in Slowenien: Aspekte ihrer Entwicklung, 1939- 1997 (Klagenfurt, Austria: Hermagoras/Mohorjeva, 1998); Helmut Rumpler and Arnold Suppan, eds., Geschichte der deutschen im Bereich des heutigen Sloweniens, 1848-1941 (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1988); Dušan Ne ćak, Die “Deutschen” in Slowenien (1918-1955): Kurzer Abriß (Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut Filozofske falkutete, 1998); Harald Heppner, ed., Slowenen und Deutsche im 1 institutions were impacted and how Germans in Slovenia responded through political means to social policies that affected them. Historians, who have almost exclusively been Austrian or Slovene historians, have in recent years also examined the diplomatic and political impact of the shared regions between Slovenia and Austria without confronting enough what the minorities themselves felt, said, or perceived
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