The Danube Swabians in

BOSNIA

1869-1942

By Rosina T. Schmidt

By the end of the 19^th century the Osmanen Empire (Turkey) started falling apart. The grip, which they held on Bosnia and Herzegovina for 400 years, came to an end by 1878 and those two former Turkish provinces came under Austro-Hungarian administration at the Treaty of Berlin in that year.

1911, Historical Atlas

Prior to the change of the administration from Turkish hands into Austro-Hungarian, back in the year of 1869 the Trapist monks from the Eifel Region in Germany established the Maria-Stern monastery in the Verbas valley under the leadership of Franz Pfanner. Through the ravages of 400 years of Turkish occupation it was almost an empty land with a few Croat, Serb and Muslim localities. After the change of the administration those Monks advertised for German settlers in North-West of Germany, who established the first German settlement along the road between Bosanska Gradischka on the Sava River and Banja Luka, which is in the center of Bosnia. They called the settlement WINDHORST, after a politician of those times. The name changed during the Yugoslavian times to NOVA PALANKA and was changed back again into WINDTHORT after the fall of Yugoslavia in 1992.

The settlement of RUDOLFSTAL was also established a year later, along the same road with the settlers from Silesia, Hanover and Oldenburg areas of Germany.

Both Windhort and Rudolfstal were established on private lands with private initiatives.

In 1885 the first Danube Swabian settlers from Fanzfeld in the Banat established BIJELINA, and a year later 91 Donauschwaben Lutheran families from Franzfeld established the daughter settlement of FRANZ-JOSEFSFELD. All the newcomers so far purchased their own fields and homes.

Having observed the good progress of those fully private settlements, the Austrian administration decided a decade later to follow the same settlement principles as when settling Banat 150 years earlier.

The new settlements were preplanned, with each family receiving 10-12 hectares of newly cleared land. The prospective settlers had to prove that they also had other skills besides farming, had exemplary life styles and needed 1,200 Kronen of cash to start with.

The lease was free for three years. By the forth year the lease started at 1 Kronen for the homestead. After 10 years occupation it would be owned outright by the occupant.

The villages were established in the groups of 30 families all over the Bosnia with hardly any roads connecting them to each other. Branjevo on the Drina and Brezovopolje on the Sava were established by the Lutheran Batschka Schwabians, but both villages were not successful and were abandoned after WWI. Others thrived, like Königsfeld/Dubrava, Troschelje and Karlsdorf/Karadjordjevo, Prorara and Vranovac.

Bosnia was annexed with Austro-Hungary in 1908. The European Powers, Germany, Russia, and Austro-Hungary approved it in a tug-of-war, in order to forestall the expansion hopes of Croatia and Serbia. Croatia and Serbia both wanted to expand their own territory with Serbia hoping to achieve their old dream of a Greater Serbian State.

Western Balkans 1911, by William R. Shephard, Historical Atlas.

After the annexation, German industrialists were quick to move into the area and established many logging camps and saw mills, wood based factories, as well as mining industry. With them the factory workers arrived too and more settlements quickly grew around those employment centers.

By 1941 thirty of these newly established places had German speaking schools, some private, some public.

However, it was pioneer time all over.  Just like their Danube Swabian ancestors pioneered first in the Swabian Turkey, Banat and Batschka in the beginning of the 18^th century, later expanding to Syrmien and Slavonia and 200 years later their descendants became pioneers all over again, now in Bosnia. 

 

Ethnic German Settlements in Bosnia

Place Names	Origin	Establishment Year	Ethnic Germans in 1931 Census
Bosanski Brod, Mixed Population			287
Branjevo/Dugopolje	Batschka, Hungary	1891	112
Bijelina and Brcko			287
Bozinci next to Derventa	Batschka, Syrmien	1904	858
Doboj		1900	221
Franz-Ferdinandshöhe	Galicia, Syrmien	1898	106
Franz-Josefsfeld, (Schönborn-Petrovopolje)	Batschka, Syrmien	1886	1139
Jajce, mixed population		1890	113
Kalenderovci –turski	Galicia, Russia		39
Königsfeld/Dubrava	Galicia, Syrmien, Slavonia	1894	387
Koratsche next to Derventa	Galicia, Russia	1894	47
Kardar/Vrbovac/Svilaj	Galicia, Slavonia	1896	235
Lukavac next to Tuzla		1894	175
Obsiecko/Vrbanja	Galicia, Bukowina		Moved to Sitnes after 1918
Podgarci		1900	150
Polje next to Derventa		1900	92
Prnjavor, County seat		1900	91
Prosara/Hohenberg	Galicia, Bukovina	1894	150
Rudolfstal/Alexndrovac	Hannover, Oldenburg	1880	620
Sarajevo, Capital City, mixed population		1878	2800
Schibowska/Sibovska	Galicia, Bukovina	1899	629
Schutzberg/Glogovac	Galicia, Bukovina	1895	1000
Sitneš-Zusiedlungsort	Galicia, Bukovina	1912	244
Teslitsch/Teslic		1900	324
Travnik and Turbe		1900	180
Troschelje/Troselje	Galicia, Bukovina	1892	184
Tuzla, Conty Seat, mixed population		1900	500
Vranovac next to Dubica	Galicia, Bukovina		150
Vrbaška/Karlsdorf	Galicia, Bukovina	1894	173
Zavidovitschi		1893	346
Zenica and Zepce		1893	432
Windhorst/Nova Topola	Hannover, Westfalen	1879	1435

 

The time of peace was running out. WWI (1914-1918) slowed down the progress of those settlements. Austro-Hungarian administration was busy with other demands and the settlers in Bosnia felt rightfully forgotten.

After the division of Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Austro-Hungary was divided on eight different states. Bosnia and Herzegovina ended up part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Our Bosnia-Donauschwaben felt completely isolated and disadvantaged under the nationalist movements between the Serbs and the Croats and the envious hostilities towards them increased dramatically.

By 1942 it was evident that the ethnic German population in Bosnia had to be evacuated. Even though quite a large percentage of the Bosnian Donauschwaben came originally from Austria directly, Austria did not accept them back.

Instead the German government made an agreement with the newly formed Yugoslavia that each settler will be compensated for the assets, which they would live behind. In turn Germany promised to resettle the Bosnia-Donauschwaben people in German Reich.

Some 17,360 Bosnia-Danube Swabians arrived on 31^st of December 1942 in Litzmannstadt (now Poland), where refugee camps were established. They automatically became German citizens. Of those 57,9% were Roman Catholic, 41.4% were Lutheran and Reformed, and .07% belonged to other religions.

All older boys and men were to report voluntarily to the Waffen-SS immediately. Males who refused to volunteer were put under emotional pressure.

The German administration intended to resettle those Bosnia-Danube Swabians along the newly formed boarder with the Soviet Union as Soldier-Farmers, copying the very same idea, which Austrian Emperor Carl VII used in the Military Zone some 250 year earlier. Quite a few of the Bosnia-Donauschwaben took possession of farms there, but as we know within a year, the winds of war forced them to be on the run again.

This times each family at its own initiative and expense. Since all of them already had German citizenship, most who survived the WWII war atrocities settled in Germany after the war.

Today they live in over 400 places all over Europe and the Americas.

 

Bibliography

Taylor, A.J.P., 1942, The Habsburg Monarchy. Leipzig, S. Hirzel Verlag, 1942

Hoffmann, Fritz. 1982, Das Schicksal der Boniendeutschen in 100 Jahren von 1878 – 1978. Göppingen, O. Harmann-Verlag,