Germans of Croatia
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 2.965 | |
| Languages | |
| Croatian · German | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germans · Austrians |
In Croatia, there are over 2,900 people who consider themselves German, most of these Danube Swabians. Germans are officially recognized as an autochthonous national minority, and as such, they elect a special representative to the Croatian Parliament, shared with members of eleven other national minorities. They are mainly concentrated in the area around Osijek (German: Esseg) in eastern Slavonia.
With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Germans of Croatia became a minority. In 1920, Germans established the cultural association Kulturbund. Kulturbund was banned on April 11, 1924 by Minister of the Interior Svetozar Pribićević. The following government of Ljuba Davidović and the Democratic Party saw the ban lifted.
In 1922, they formed the German Party (Partei der Deutschen). The party existed until it was banned as part of King Alexander's dictatorship in 1929.
The Croatian German population reached a peak number of 85,781 in the 1900 census, while this number plummeted after the German exodus in the aftermath of World War II. After the war, 100,000 Yugoslav Germans fled to Austria. This population was not dealt with in the Potsdam Agreement which prevented them from being repatriated to Germany. The Allies considered them Yugoslavian citizens and sought their repatriation there. However, on June 4 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia released a decree that rescinded the citizenship of Yugoslavian Germans. Their property was henceforth confiscated, and the majority settled in Germany and Austria. Some managed to return to Yugoslavia and returned to their homes.
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