Chapter 10 Size of the Ethnic German Population in Yugoslavia as of October 1944 541,000 Germans comprise 508,000 Danube Swabians and 33,000 Germans of Slovenia. For documentary reasons these figures include 13,000 killed soldiers up to that time. Please refer to Table 2, Table 3, Table 4 The Danube Swabians lived mainly in the Banat, Batschka, Baranja, Syrmia, Slavonia and, to a lesser extent, in Croatia, Bosnia and the capital Belgrade. The Slovenia-Germans consisted predominantly of the Gottscheer and of Lower Styria. Larger Communities and Dispersed Settlements Up to 1944 At the census of 1931 in the pre-war Yugoslavia more than 1,000 inhabitants in 115 localities stated to be of German ethnicity which corresponds to about 70 percent. The majority lived in entirely German communities, particularly in the Banat and Batschka where most of the Danube Swabians were domiciled. In Slavonia, Croatia and Bosnia the Danube Swabians lived mainly in dispersed settlements. In October 1944 the remaining 33,000 ethnic Germans in today's independent state Slavonia, whose numbers since World War II were greatly reduced due to political circumstances, lived mainly in dispersed settlements, except in Laibach, Marburg and Gottschee (which were predominantly German). Disappearance of the Ethnic German Minority in the Former Yugoslavia More than 90,000 ethnic Germans of the former Yugoslavia did not survive the war and the genocide. Almost all of the survivors of the camps have left Yugoslavia. Counting these to the previously evacuated and escaped, about 450,000 ethnic Germans of Yugoslavia were rescued. Only Germans in mixed ethnic marriages and the few Communists remained in the former Communist Yugoslavia. The realistic figures of the Germans remaining in their homeland are, at the most, 12,000 to 15,000. Of these 10,000 to 12,000 are Danube Swabians. The New Homelands of the Surviving Ethnic Germans of Yugoslavia Most Slovenian Germans found their new homeland in Austria. According to reliable figures about 300,000 (or 70%) of the Danube Swabians from Yugoslavia settled in the country of their ancestors, Germany; another 60,000 in Austria, 25,000 in the USA, 10,000 in Canada (also similar numbers of Danube Swabians from Hungary and Romania), 10,000 in Hungary, 4,000 in Brazil, 2,000 in Argentina, 1,000 in Australia and about 3,000 in various other countries. Today, in the year 2001, about 170,000 (40%) of the 425,000 Danube Swabians who escaped the genocide are still alive. Counting their descendants, the total of Danube Swabians exceeds one million.   Back to Table of Contents