14 Facts About Banat Swabians

Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Central-Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians.

Under Romanian rule, Banat Swabians could have German-language schools again for the first time since 1868.

Many Banat Swabians left to work in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, never to return.

Towards the end of the war, some Banat Swabians openly opposed the Nazis, who in retaliation publicly executed a group of them in Jimbolia.

Banat Swabians who served in the Prinz Eugen Division gained notoriety because of the division's war crimes against Jews and Serbs during the Banat period.

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Early in 1945, under Stalin's orders, many Banat Swabians were expelled or deported to forced labor camps in the Soviet Union, where thousands of them died.

In 1951 more than a thousand Banat Swabians were displaced to the Baragan Steppe of southeast Romania, where they founded new villages.

Some Swabian families from both Romanian and Yugoslavian Banat Swabians managed to flee to Germany in the immediate postwar years.

Banat Swabians were extended the full rights of Romanian citizenship.

Nevertheless, many Banat Swabians chose to use the looser conditions to emigrate to Germany, since they no longer trusted Romania's communist government's promises.

Some former Banat Swabians now have a renewed desire to return to their long-time home, but most had to sell their property when they left and have no home to return to.

In December 2007 the remaining Banat Swabians formed their own minority council in Novi Sad, having gained the required 3,000 voter signatures.

Banat Swabians estimated the total number of remaining Danube Swabians in Serbia and their descendants as between 5,000 and 8,000.

Banat Swabians who emigrated to Germany are generally well integrated into the society in which they live.