Ethnic Germans and National Socialism in Yugoslavia in World War II

This is an in-depth study of the ethnic German minority in the Serbian Banat (Southeast Europe) and its experiences under German occupation in World War II. Mirna Zakic argues that the Banat Germans exercised great agency within the constraints imposed on them by Nazi ideology, with its expectations that ethnic Germans would collaborate with the invading Nazis. The book examines the incentives that the Nazis offered to collaboration and social dynamics within the Banat German community - between their Nazified leadership and the rank and file - as well as the various and ever-more damning forms collaboration took. The Banat Germans provided administrative and economic aid to the Nazi war effort, and took part in Nazi military operations in Yugoslav lands, the Holocaust and Aryanization. They ruled the Banat on the Nazis' behalf between 1941 and 1944, yet their wartime choices led ultimately to their disenfranchisement and persecution following the Nazis' defeat.

1. The Banat Germans from settlement to partial Nazification, 1699–1941; 2. Ethnic Germans and the invasion of Yugoslavia, 1941; 3. Ethnic German administration (1941) and community dynamics; 4. Privileges, economy, and relations with other groups; 5. Police and anti-partisan activity; 6. The Holocaust (1941–2) and Aryanization; 7. Ideology and propaganda; 8. The Waffen-SS division 'Prinz Eugen' and anti-partisan warfare in Yugoslavia, 1942–4.

Mirna Zakic received her Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Maryland in 2011, and won the University's Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2012. She has been Assistant Professor of German History at Ohio University since 2011. In 2013–14 she completed a postdoctoral fellowship from the Volkswagen Foundation in residence at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. Her article 'The Price of Belonging to the Volk: Volksdeutsche, Land Redistribution and Aryanization in the Serbian Banat, 1941–1944' was published in the Journal of Contemporary History in 2014.