Slovenian Germans
People in Slovenia who consider themselves to be ethnic Germans or Austrians and whose mother tongue is generally German are referred to as Slovenian Germans. They made up several percent of the population in the interwar period of the then Drau-Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but have been known since the expulsions at the end of the Second World War. In censuses, only a few hundred people identify themselves as “Germans” or “Austrians”.
History
The Germans in Slovenia or within the closed Slovenian language area were made up of several groups that were socially and economically very different. Apart from the numerically few nobles, these were the Zarz he, Gottscheer and residents of the Abstaller Feld, dating back to medieval peasant settlement, the bourgeois ones, from traders, craftsmen and ever since 19th century German-speaking population of the cities of Krains and Styria as well as industrialists and civil servants as well as a German-speaking industrial proletariat since the 19th century - especially in Marburg an der Drau.
Middle Ages and early modern times
Since the former Karantanien came under the feudal sovereignty of the Bajuwaren and later became part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the German language played an important role as a means of communication for the upper classes. Despite immigration from German-speaking countries, Slovene remained the almost exclusive means of communication in Krain, Lower Styria and Southern Carinthia outside the cities or prevailed over the immigrant languages. Exceptions to this were the German language islands of Zarz and Gottschee, which had existed since the 12th and 13th centuries. The urban population, on the other hand, has preferred German since the late Middle Ages - to varying degrees in different regions - although a high degree of bilingualism in the cities and their surroundings can be assumed. The linguistic contrast between town and country is described, for example, for the town of Cilli by Hartmann Schedel in his Nuremberg Chronicle 1493: “The people in the Stetten are usually Teutsch. Vnd the pawrvuolck herdisshalb Windisch. Inside here is an old stettlet called cili."
A number of literary works appeared in German in Carniola, of which the historically most important was the “ Ehre des Herzogtums Krain” ( Laibach and Nuremberg 1689) by Johann Weichard Valvasor (1641–1693) can be mentioned.
19th century
The development of nationalism led to a polarization between “Germans” and “Slovenes” since the 19th century. In the cities in particular, German and Slovenian libraries, theaters and associations of all kinds coexisted. The Slovenian clergy played an important role in strengthening Slovene, especially under the Marburg bishop Anton Martin Slomšek. The Slovenes achieved political supremacy in all of Carniola's cities with the exception of Gottschee by the end of the 19th century. The cities of Lower Styria - especially Cilli, Pettau and Marburg an der Drau, remained economically and politically in German hands. This political picture was also reflected in the language situation: German was still dominant in the linguistic island of Gottschee and in the cities of Lower Styria and southern Carinthia, while Slovene prevailed in public life elsewhere. In the former German language island of Zarz in Upper Carniola, only the elderly spoke German at the beginning of the 20th century.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
With the establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Germans, who had previously had a prominent position in the cities of Styria and Gottschee, became a minority. A visible sign of this was the violent dissolution of a rally of around 10,000 people in Marburg for the connection of the city to German-Austria on January 27, 1919 by troops of the Slovenian general Rudolf Maister, in which 13 people died and which went down in the memory of the Germans of Slovenia as Marburg Blood Sunday. Shortly afterwards the German House in Cilli, in which German associations and companies were located, was expropriated and given to the Slovenian city of Celje as Celjski dom.
In the years 1919 and 1920 about 2000 Laibacher and about 39,000 Lower Styrians left their homeland for German Austria. The Yugoslav population censuses for the territory of Slovenia (within the then Yugoslav borders) in 1921 showed a figure of 41,514 people (3.9%) with German as their mother tongue, compared to only 28,999 (2.5%) in 1931. In addition to emigration, the fact that bilingual people who declared themselves “Germans” in Austria-Hungary now referred to themselves as “Slovenes” played a role.
The German language of instruction in schools was also very quickly replaced by Slovenian, so that there was no German school in Slovenia or the Drau-Banovina. The previously German-speaking grammar school in Gottschee also switched to the Slovenian language of instruction. Private schools were banned. Parallel classes with German as the language of instruction were allowed in Yugoslavia, but no children with Slavic surnames were allowed to take part. At least 40 approved registrations were required for a German-speaking class train. In Lower Styria there were eleven such German-language parallel classes at six elementary schools in 1935, and in 1938 there were thirty in all of Slovenia.
In 1924 the "Political and Economic Association of Germans in Slovenia" was founded, but banned in 1929 under the royal dictatorship like all ethnically oriented organizations in Yugoslavia. In 1931 the Schwäbisch-Deutsche Kulturbund, which had its focus on the Danube Swabians of Serbia and Croatia, was also approved in Slovenia, but its activity was under the Minister of the Interior Anton Korošec prevented again.
Many Slovenian Germans linked the rise of National Socialism in Germany and the "Anschluss of Austria" with the hope of being annexed to the German Empire. During the clashes in the Swabian-German Cultural Association, many Slovenian Germans took sides with the National Socialists.
Second World War
With the Occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II in 1941, Slovenia was divided between Germany, Italy and Hungary. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini agreed to resettle all Germans from the now Italian Laibach province. This particularly affected the Gottscheers and Germans in the city of Ljubljana.
The National Socialists pursued the goal of forcibly to Germanize the areas they controlled in Slovenia. For this purpose, they deported around 30,000 Slovenes from the CdZ Lower Styria to Serbia, Croatia and Germany. In addition to Austrians and Germans from the "Altreich", Volksdeutsche from Lower Styria were placed in the positions of expelled Slovenes.
In the so-called Rann triangle in the area of Gurkfeld (Krško) and Rann (Brežice) on the Sava, around 11,000 Gottscheers and ethnic Germans from home in the Reich ”were brought out of [ [Bessarabiendeutsche | Bessarabia]] and South Tyrol settled. The extent to which the Gottscheers were forced or voluntarily resettled is still the subject of discussions today.
Many Slovenian Germans took advantage of the privileges now offered to them, joined the NSDAP or the SS or took part in war crimes. On the other hand, Slovenian Germans also took part in the Resistance to National Socialism, including the Cillier writer Alma Karlin. Some of the Germans who remained in the Gottschee joined the Slovenian partisans.[1][2]
End of the war
With the defeat of the German armed forces, many Slovenian Germans fled towards Austria at the beginning of May. On May 5th and 7th, several hundred Gottscheers were brought to Austria by train from the “Rann triangle”, but most of them were detained by the German authorities. The evacuation order came on May 8th, the day of the German surrender, so that only a part of the refugee route could reach Austria. The OZNA set up a central internment camp for the Germans of Slovenia in Sterntal (Strnišče) near Ptuj. There and in the Tüchern camp (Teharje) the majority of the Slovenian Germans who stayed behind were held prisoner, with several thousand people dying in the hopelessly overcrowded camps.
Through the AVNOJ resolutions, all movable and immovable property of the Germans was expropriated. The expulsion took place faster in Slovenia than in Serbia: by 1946 almost all German camp inmates had either died or were deported to Austria.
Socialist Yugoslavia
As in all of Yugoslavia, the Germans in Slovenia had no minority rights. German organizations were banned. Neither were there any native-speaking German lessons in schools, but many students in Maribor and the surrounding area learned German as their first foreign language. Only very few people identified themselves as “Germans” or “Austrians” in censuses (1953: 1906 Germans and Austrians, 1961: 986, 1971: 700, 1981: 560, 1991: 745). These numbers include immigrant Germans who z. B. came to Yugoslavia as spouses of Slovenes. The Germans have been largely evenly distributed in Slovenia since the end of the war.
Current situation
In the 2002 census, 1,628 people gave German as “the colloquial language in the household (in the family) and mother tongue."[3] However, only 499 people (0.03%) described themselves as "Germans" and 181 ( 0.01%) as "Austrians"[4] (counts before the expulsions: 1918: 106,000; 1931: 49,000).
German organizations in Slovenia
After Slovenia's independence, organizations with a connection to the German minority were approved in Slovenia for the first time since 1945.
In 1992, under the chairmanship of the lawyer Ludvik Dušan Kolnik, an “international association” called the “Freedom Bridge” (Most Svobode) was established in Maribor, which aims to transfer property back to the descendants of dispossessed ethnic Germans living in Slovenia and im May 1992 was accepted into the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN).
As early as 1989, the Gottscheers tried to organize themselves in an association in the Moschnitze sub-region. The organizational work was done by Hans Jaklitsch. However, the association was not formally registered until 1992. The first chairman was Hans Jaklitsch (1992 to the end of 1998). A lot of voluntary work was done under the direction of Hans Jaklitsch, such as the renovation of the cemeteries in Tschermoschnitz, Pöllandl and Rußbach. A new board for August Schauer at the church in Pöllandl was bought, meetings of the Gottscheers were organized on the Gatschen, the club newspaper Bakh appeared three times a year, the club organized Christmas concerts of the Gottscheer songs in Pöllandl, a children's choir was founded. In 1998 the association bought a house in Krapflern with the support of the Carinthian provincial government and August Gril took over the association. The association mainly dealt with the renovation of the club house in Krapflern. More and more visitors came. The youth group led by Maridi Tscherne organized the lessons in the Gottscheer language, workshops for children, the radio broadcasts in the Gottscheer language; the choir had many appearances in Slovenia as well as in Carinthia (Maria Luggau, Eisenkappel, Klagenfurt). However, the chairman no longer wanted to support the growing youth work, which is why Ms. Tscherne resigned in November 2001, but continued her work until the end of February 2002. On the grounds that the association only supported the construction work and did not respond to their protest, she resigned from the association in May 2002. The Altsiedlerverein was mainly dedicated to the expansion of the museum in Krapflern and later to the preservation of the traditional types of fruit and endeavors to gain recognition for the German minority in Slovenia.
A second German association in Maribor, founded on December 1, 2000, is the Cultural Association of German-Speaking Women - Bridges . Its chairman Veronika Haring estimates the number of people of German origin in Maribor and the surrounding area at several thousand.[5][6] The association organizes, among other things, German-language lessons for children and adults of German origin on a private basis, while there are still no native-language German lessons in schools.[7]
The Peter Kosler Association (named after Peter Kosler),[8] founded in 1994 in Ljubljana , now based in Kočevje, aims to preserve the German and Gottscheer ische cultural heritage of the Gottschee region.[9][10] For three years, with the support of the BMEIA, he successfully organized classes in German and the Gottscheer language at the primary schools in Štrekljevec, Semitsch, Töplitz, at the kindergartens Semitsch and Töplitz as well as the Gottscheer language in Novo mesto, Gottschee and Bistritz near Tschernembl. Up to 196 people attended classes per week. Since then, the Gottscheer have no more lessons in their language, although the Gottscheer language is one of the most threatened languages according to UNESCO. Disagreements between the Peter Kosler Association and the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein are considered an obstacle to promoting language teaching. [9]
The Facility Mošnice-Moschnitze [11] was founded in March 2012 by younger Gottscheers with the aim of preserving and promoting the Gottscheer cultural heritage, especially the Gottscheer language. The facility was named after a sub-region of the former language island between Semič / Semitsch and Dolenjske Toplice / Töplitz. In 2013 the facility Moschnitze succeeded in building a multi-purpose room, which was named after the cultural journalist and pastor in Nesseltal, August Schauer, who came from Pöllandl. In 2014 the facility Moschnitze published four books, namely two children's books in three languages (Slovenian, Gottscheer and German): ˝The mysterious guardian of the forest˝ and ˝Sehnsucht und Persistent, as well as a Gottscheer cookbook and a book about the furniture and architecture of the Gottscheer buildings in the Moschnitze. The members endeavor to further promote the Gottscheer language at least by founding a children's group on a voluntary basis, but they are of the opinion that this is not sufficient for long-term language retention. The facility Moschnitze is a member of the umbrella association of Gottscheer organizations [12] in Slovenia with its headquarters in Bistritz near Tschernembl / Črnomelj. The umbrella organization of the Gottscheer organizations is continuing its efforts to create the financial basis for teaching German and the Gottscheer language. The member organizations take the position that only the language, in this case the Gottscheer dialect, provides a basis for maintaining identity.
The Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein , which, unlike the Peter Kosler association, explicitly sees itself as an organization of the German minority, operates a cultural center in Občice ( Krapflern , community Dolenjske Toplice). According to his assessment, there are still a few hundred descendants of the Gottscheer (1940: about 12,500) in Slovenia.[13][14] The Cultural Association of German-Speaking Women - Bridges in Maribor and the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein in Občice / Krapflern merged in 2004 to form an “Association of the cultural associations of the German-speaking ethnic group in Slovenia”. In a memorandum, the association demands the recognition of the German minority by the Slovenian government.[15]
In Ljubljana there is an Association for the Promotion of the German Mother Language , which consists of a group of German-speaking parents and organizes mother-tongue German lessons on a private basis. This is also explicitly aimed at families who only live temporarily in Slovenia and whose children can thus “return to the local schools”.[16]
In Apače / Abstall there is a Kulturverein Abstaller Feld which organizes German and Slovenian courses and aims to address ethnic Germans as well as Slovenes.[17]
In 2011 another Slovenian-German organization was founded in Celje, the Kulturverein Cilli an der Sann .[18]
In the meantime, the Association of cultural associations of the German-speaking ethnic group in Slovenia (Zveza kulturnih društev nemškogovoreče etnične skupnosti v Sloveniji) , which was founded in 2004 and calls for the recognition of the German minority, has six associations: the Kulturverein Cilli an der Sann (Kulturno društvo Celje ob Savinji) , the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein in Krapflern ( Društvo Kočevarjev staroselcev , DKS), the Cultural Association of German-Speaking Women Bridges (Kulturno društvo nemško govorečih žena Mostovibor, der Kulturverein Abstaller Feld (Kulturno društvo Apaško polje) , the Verein Freiheitsbrücke Marburg (Društvo Most Svobode Maribor) and the Kulturverein Deutschsprachiger Jugend (KDJ, Društvo nemško govoreče mladine ) in Kočevje. In contrast, there are four Gottscheer associations that came together in 2013 in the Umbrella Association of Gottscheer Organizations (Zveza kočevarskih organizacij) based in Črnomelj: the Peter Kosler (Društvo Peter Kosler) Association , the Facility for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage Moschnitze (Zavod za ohranitev kulturne dediščine) based in Altsag, the Cultural Association under the Gutenberg and the Cultural Association Nesseltal - Facility for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage Nesseltal (Zavod za ohranitev kulturne dediščine Nesseltal Koprivnik) .[19] and does not necessarily call for the Recognition of the German minority. In contrast to the Altsiedlerverein, these associations work to preserve the Gottscheer dialect. In the press release on the occasion of the founding of the association, the umbrella association of Gottscheer organizations describes its financial stability and maintaining good neighborliness as primary goals. Since no unconditional recognition is required, there has been friction between the two associations. [9] This is also a generational conflict and personal differences between the representatives of the member organizations of the umbrella association of Gottscheer organizations and August Gril (old settlers' association) a role.
Recommendations from international organizations
In contrast to Croatia, Slovenia does not grant the German ethnic group Protection of minorities according to the Copenhagen CSCE Conference of 1990, so the minority does not receive any special financial or other support. A law passed in August 2004, which provides for the strict use of the Slovene language in all business areas, makes things even more difficult.
In 2007 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe recommended that the Slovenian authorities “work with the speakers to determine the areas in which German and Croatian are traditionally spoken in Slovenia” and Part II of the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages to apply to German and Croatian. The Cultural Association of German-speaking Women - Bridges and the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein mention native German-speaking people in the communities Abstall / Apače, Cilli / Celje, Hohenmauthen / Muta, Lembach / Limbuš, Mahrenberg / Radlje, Marburg / Maribor, Maria Rast / Ruše, Pettau / Ptuj, Sankt Egidi / Šentilj, Sankt Leonhard / Lenart and Witschein / Svečina and in the Gottschee region in the villages of Pöllandl / Kočevske Poljane, Krapflern / Občice, Altsag / Stare žage, Kleinriegel / Mali Rigelj, Büchel / Hrib (municipality of Töplitz / Dolenjske Toplice), Tschermoschnitz / Črmošnjice and Mitterdorf / Srednja vas (municipality of Semitsch / Semič). The two associations propose the establishment of bilingual kindergartens in Marburg and Abstall as well as in Pöllandl or Krapflern, as well as the introduction of German as the first foreign language or second language at the two primary schools in Dolenjske Toplice and Semič.
An "independent committee of experts" criticized this in 2010 for the fact that Slovenia had not defined any areas with German or Croatian minority languages. The German language is largely absent from public life in Slovenia; Nor is there an educational model for German as a regional or minority language. The German language is not represented on radio and television and receives only limited financial support from the Slovenian authorities.[20]
Rejection of the German language
The use of the German language in Slovenia also meets with rejection in some places in the private sector. For example, when a cultural center was opened in Apače / Abstall, both Slovene and German were used, whereupon local representatives of the community attacked members of the association as "enemies of the state".[21]
There were similar reactions in Dolenjske Toplice, in whose municipality the Gottscheer cultural center is located. In the former Gottscheer village Plösch (Slovene. Pleš ), a chapel was renovated with funds from Gottscheers who had emigrated. A bilingual board, on which the donors were thanked in Slovene and German, was torn down several times, and local politicians protested against the bilingual private labels.[21] After repeated vandalism, the board finally remained in the Gottscheer's museum Cultural center Občice / Krapflern. In the now abandoned Gottscheer village of Tappelwerch (Slovene. "Topli vrh", "Warmberg"), it was the Raiffeisenbank Bozen that paid for the renovation of a church tower. It was only after the South Tyrol bankers threatened to reclaim the money that the municipality Semič, to which Topli Vrh belongs, was ready to put the bilingual commemorative plaque there on the renovated church tower.[22]
The Kulturverein Cilli an der Sann was rejected by the Slovenian association authorities in 2011 because of its German version of its name. [18]
While official bodies also translate the names of cities and sights into Italian, German terms are avoided.[23][24]
Literature
- Stefan Karner: Slovenia and its "Germans". The German-speaking ethnic group as subject and object of politics 1939 to 1998. Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-88557-194-3 Search this book on
.. - Stefan Karner: The German-speaking ethnic group in Slovenia. Aspects of their development 1939-1997. Klagenfurt 1998, ISBN 3-85013-592-6 Search this book on ..
- Dušan Nećak (Urednik): "Nemci" na Slovenskem 1941-1955. Ljubljana 1998, ISBN 86-7207-104-2 Search this book on ..
- Dušan Nećak (editor): The "Germans" in Slovenia 1918-1955. Brief outline, Ljubljana 1998, ISBN 86-7207-105-0 Search this book on ..
- Anton Scherer: The Germans in Lower Styria, Upper Carniola and Gottschee. In: Ernst Hochberger, Anton Scherer, Friedrich Spiegel-Schmitt: The Germans between Carpathians and Carniola. ' 'Study book series of the Ostdeutscher Kulturrat Foundation, Volume 4. Langen Müller, Munich 1994. pp. 111–156 (Part III).
- Nemška manjšina. In: Enciklopedija Slovenije, 7. zvezek (Marin-Nor). Ljubljana 1993, str. 356–357.
- Helmut Rumpler, Arnold Suppan (Hrsg.): History of the Germans in the area of today's Slovenia 1848-1941. Series of publications of the Austrian. Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut, Volume 13, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-486-54691-0 Search this book on ..
References
- ↑ Mladina, February 23, 2004: / clanek / nar - zgodovina-igor_mekina / Nemci, ki so bili partizani (Germans who were partisans)
- ↑ Zdravko Troha (2004), Kočevski Nemci - partizani (The Gottscheer - Partisans (in Slovenian), Kočevje, Arhiv Slovenije). - Ljubljana: Slovensko kočevarsko društvo Peter Kosler. ISBN 961-91287-0-2 Search this book on .
- ↑ Census 2002: Population in Slovenia by colloquial language in the household (in the family) and mother tongue. http://www.stat.si/Popis2002/si/rezultati/rezultati_red.asp?ter=SLO&st=60
- ↑ 2002 census: Population in Slovenia by ethnicity. http://www.stat.si/popis2002/si/rezultati/rezultati_red.asp?ter=SLO&st=7
- ↑ Kulturno društvo nemško govorečih žena - Mostovi. Archived [Date missing] at drustvo-mostovi.si [Error: unknown archive URL]
- ↑ Mladina 44/2005. http://www.mladina.si / tednik / 200544 / clanek / nar - manjsine-tomica_suljic /
- ↑ Samo Kristen ( INV, Ljubljana), 2006: The identity management of the German cultural associations in Slovenia, Slavonia and Vojvodina. http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/14_4/kristen16.htm
- ↑ "Kosler". www.gottscheer.eu. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 kosler / Društvo Peter Kosler
- ↑ Peter Kosler Association in Ljubljana, on gottschee.de
- ↑ ˝Installation Moschnitze˝
- ↑ umbrella association of Gottscheer organizations
- ↑ Association of Gottscheer Old Settlers in Slovenia (Občice / Krapflern). http://www.gottscheer.net/
- ↑ Gregor Heberle: Political-geographical analysis of the former Gottscheer language island (diploma thesis, University of Ljubljana, in Slovenian). Archived [Date missing] at the Slovenian Web Archive
- ↑ Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein, Archived [Date missing] at gottscheer.net [Error: unknown archive URL]
- ↑ Representation / laibach / de / 06 / Muttersprachlicher__Ergaenzungsunterricht / StartSeite__Foerderung__der__deutschen__Mutterssprach__DEU.html Archived [Date missing] at laibach.diplo.de [Error: unknown archive URL]
- ↑ Mentioned in a gov.si/fileadmin/mk.gov.si/pageuploads/Ministrstvo/Razpisi/sofinanciranje/2009/JPR-PSLOA-2010/Odlo%C4%8Dba_-_Nemci_2010-3-delnoL.pdf Decision of the Slovenian Ministry of Culture [.pdf dead link] (among other German-speaking associations)
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Karl Anderwald / Vanessa Pichler: [http:// www. woche.at/klagenfurt/politik/wider-die-intoleranz-d44375.html Against intolerance.] [.html dead link] The week June 8th, 2011.
- ↑ Archived [Date missing] at austrocult.si [Error: unknown archive URL]. </ ref> In contrast to the Association of Cultural Associations of the German-Speaking Ethnic Group in Slovenia , the Umbrella Association of Gottscheer Organizations (Zveza kočevarskih organizacij) sees itself as a representative of the Gottscheer Germans ref> Declaration on the occasion of the founding of the umbrella association of Gottscheer organizations (PDF)
- ↑ European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe recommendations on the German language in Slovenia (PDF).
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Attachment to the memorandum of the association's chairman, Gril. Archived [Date missing] at gottscheer.net [Error: unknown archive URL]
- ↑ Domen Caharijas: Kočevarji staroselci - Kultura po 700 letih na robu propada. Dnevnik Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine from October 17, 2009 [Gottscheer old settlers - culture after 700 years on the verge of decline, Slovenian]
- ↑ https://www.visitljubljana.com/it/visitatori/
- ↑ https://www.postojnska -jama.eu/it/
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