Association of Ethnic German AASSSSOOCCIIAATTIIOONN organisations in Austria (VLOe) OOFF EETTHHNNIICC GGEERRMMAANN OORRGGAANNIISSAATTIIOONNSS IINN AAUUSSTTRRIIAA 1) 3) 2) 6) 8) Steingasse 25, A-1030 Vienna 5) 4) 7) 9) Members: Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Österreich 1) Donauschwäbische Arbeitsgemeinschaft 2) Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen 3) Karpatendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Österreich 4) Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutschen 5) Landsmannschaft der Deutsch-Untersteirer in Österreich 6) Österreichischer Heimatbund Beskidenland 7) Verband der Banater Schwaben Österreichs 8) Gottscheer Landsmannschaft in Klagenfurt 9) VIENNA 2009 Association of Ethnic German organisations in Austria (VLOe) Association of Ethnic German organisations in Austria VLOe (The Publisher) In behalf of the Foundation for Cisleithanian German-speaking Expellees from the Sudeten-, Carpathian and Danube region- Private foundation 1030 Wien, Steingasse 25 Publishing Information Publisher Association of Ethnic German organisations in Austria (VLOe), (Verband der volksdeutschen Landsmannschaften Österreichs-VLÖ) Steingasse 25, 1030 Wien Title page Oskar Sommerfeld “Donauschwäbischer Weltenbrand” Author and Editor Peter Wassertheurer Layout and Design Steingasse 25, 1030 Wien by Pictorial Material Picture archiv “Haus der Heimat” Map: Paul Robert Magocsi Printed by Ertl-Druck, Mollardgasse 85a, 1060 Wien Copyright © 2009 by Verband der volksdeutschen Landsmannschaften Österreichs (VLÖ) All rights reserved. Vienna 2009 wwww.vloe.at [email protected] CRIMES AGAINST FORMER AUSTRIAN ETHNIC GERMANS FROM EASTERN CENTRAL AND SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE AND THEIR CONTINUING INJUSTICE The present expose is first intended to present a short history of the ethnic Ger- man expellees from the viewpoint of international law and then to show in the se- cond section, that the injustices continue to exist today: among them the continued validity of the Beneš Decrees in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, di- scrimination against the German minority in Slovenia (as opposed to the treatment of the Italian and Hungarian ethnic groups) or the Czech Law on Restitution, which excludes Sudeten German expellees from any form of compensation. 1. THE HISTORY OF ETHNIC GERMAN EXPELLEES IN AUSTRIA German Settlements in Central Europe The fate of the ethnic Germans living in Austria varied depending on their country of origin and must be retrospectively interpreted within the framework of National Socialist ethnic policies, the final turn in the war after the German Army’s failed summer offensive in 1943 and interallied policies. Between 1940 and 1947 there were resettlements, evacuations, flight, internments and expulsions. These actions against the former Austrian ethnic German groups in Czechoslovakia (Sudeten and Carpathian Germans) and in Yugoslavia (Danube Swabians, Germans from South Styria and Gottscheer) fulfill the requirements of genocide in the opinion of international law experts Alfred de Zayas, Felix Ermacora, Dieter Blumenwitz, and Gilbert Gornig. The Third Reich concluded bilateral agreements for the resettlement of the ethnic German populations out of the Soviet Baltic, Romania and Italy. Other agreements, such as the Vienna Arbi- tration Decisions of 2 November 1938 and 30 August 1940 lead to not only revisions of the 1919/20 bor- ders, but also caused changes in the political and constitutional situation within the areas of ethnic German settlement. Ethnic German „resett- lers“ were either resettled in areas of Eastern Europe which had been con- quered by the Wehrmacht (The Ge- neralgouverment) on Austrian terri- tory or in the Reich itself. These re- settlements involved, insofar as they effected Austrian territory, Germans from Bukovina, Bessarabia, Russian- ID card for a repatriate Germans and Germans from the Gott- from the Soviet Union schee. ETHNIC GERMAN RESETTLERS IN AUSTRIA DURING WWII BY GROUP Russian Germans 1142 Bessarabia Germans 9873 Bukovina Germans (North Bukovina) 1064 Ethnic Germans from “Ostland” and the “Generalgouvernement” 1336 Gottscheer 13.102 (Ranner Triangle in “Reichsgau Steiermark”) 1.1. The Evacuation of Northern Transylvania The advance of the Red Army in early 1944 led to the evacuation of the ethnic Ger- mans from Transnistria and the Ukraine, which also effected „Gau Oberdonau“ (Upper Austria). After the Red Army occupied the Bukovina and the area north of the Moldau, northern Transylvania became a hinterland to the front. Northern Transylvania had been given to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Arbitra- tion decision. On 5th of September 1944 the evacuation order for the German po- pulation of northern Transylvania was given. Over 50 municipalities were evacuated, inclu- ding border towns in Southern Transyl- vania. The last transport train left Bistritz on October 9, 1944. By mid- October the first treks crossed what was then the border Treks from Transylvania of the Reich west of Ödenburg and entered what is now Austrian territory. A total of 48,000 took part in the evacuation of northern Transylvania, in- cluding Satmar Swabians and persons from the south Transylvanian bor- der municipalities. 1.2. The Germans from Yugoslavia On 26 November 1942, at the initiative of the military leadership of the partisan army, the Antifašističko veće narodnog oslobodjenja Jugoslavije (Anti-faschist council for the peoples’ liberation of Yugoslavia, AVNOJ) was founded as the supreme legislative organ for the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia in the north-west Bosnian town of Bihac. At the head of the AVNOJ, which was intended to better coordinate the military cooperation of partisan units and the People’s Liberation Committee, was the Croat Ivan Ribar. At the end of November 1943, at its second confe- rence in the Bosnian town of Jajce, the Avnoj was declared to be the su- preme legislative and executive organ as well. The 142 delegates decided to found a federative Yugoslavia on the basis of the right of self determi- nation and national equality. Simultaneously, the Nacionalni komitet os- lobodjenje Jugoslavije (National Committee For The Liberation Of Yugoslavia) was formed with Marshall Josip Broz Tito at its head. On 21 November 1944 AVNOJ passed a series of regulations „regarding the transfer of enemy assets into state ownership, regarding the state administration of the assets of absent persons and regarding the seizure of assets, forcefully taken by the occupying powers“ which were then published in the Yugoslav official gazette on 6 February 1945. On the day of the regulations’ entry into force, the following assets became state owned properties: 1. the entire property of the German Reich and its citizens situated in Yugoslavian territory; 2. the entire property of persons belonging to the German people, with the exception ofthose Germans who have fought in the National Libe- ration Army, and the Yugoslavian Partisan units or those who are citi- zens of neutral states, who have not shown any hostility during the occupation. 3. the entire property of war criminals and their accomplices, without any con- sideration to their citizenship and the property of each person, who have been condemned to giveup their property in favor of the state by civil or military law courts. (Art. 1) The evacuation of the ethnic German population from Yugoslavia did not occur uniformly. While the Germans in Slavonia and Syrmia could be evacuated, it was started too late in the west Banat. 90,000 Danube Swabians thus fell into the hands of the partisans. A similar fate was suffered by the Danube Swabians from the Batschka, who had been citizens of Hungary since Yugoslavia’s military defeat in April 1941. There too the evacuations were only begun in the first weeks of October 1944. The delayed evacuation left over 80,000 Danube Swabians in their homeland. In Fall 1944, the front overwhelmed more than 200.000 Danube Swabians. By 6 October 1944, the Red Army had occupied the West Banat and by 23 October Danubeswabian Trek in East Steiermark (Styria), Winter 1945/46 1944 all of the Batschka. Before an organized military administration could be established, local Serbs created „People’s Liberation Commit- tees“, which went after the German population with increasing brutality. Summary execution by firing squad and cleansing actions struck prima- rily well-off German citizens between 16 and 60 years of age (NS- Functionaries and „Class enemies“). The terror took place within the framework of the „Aktion Intelligenzija“ (Intelligencia Action) and cost the lives of around 9,500 persons. In Winter 1944/45 Labor and Concentra- tion Camps for ethnic-German civilians were set up in areas settled by Danube Swabians. In the period between November 1944 and March 1948, at least 51,000 of the 170,000 German civilian internees died in the camps due to torture, hunger or illness, of that number were some 5,600 to 6,000 children under the age of 14. Over 12,000 Danube Swa- bians from the Batschka and Banat were deported to the Soviet Un-ion for forced labor. At least 2,000 of them died due to hunger, exhaustion or illness. The total number of Danube Swabian civilians who died in Yugo- slavia is in the area of 64,000. 1.3 German South Styrians The fate of the German South Styrians, whose northerly area of settle- ment became part of the territory of the German Reich after Yugoslavia's destruction, was similar to that of the Danube Swabians. Those who did not flee across the border to Austria with German military units at the end of the war became victims of partisan repression. Hundreds were shot to death, locked in prisons or were put in internment camps. Every day trucks loaded with prisoners rolled to Koschnitz gorge, where they were mowed down by machine guns on the edge of anti-tank ditches. To- wards the end of June, the first wave of brutality was followed by the transfer of the persecuted Germans to the large transit camps in Cilli, Tü- chern, Herberstein castle near Marburg and Sternthal near Pettau. Most of the German South Styrians who survived were finally expelled from their homeland and deported across the border to Austria. The camp in Sterntal was open from May to October 1945 and filled to bursting with 10,000 persons.