The Influence of National Socialism among the Germans in Bukovina and Banat

Abstract

The reasons for the influence of National Socialism were the same for both regions of Greater Romania: the negative consequences of the forced Romanianization, the global economic crisis, and the support given to right-wing forces by the Reich. The most important groups supporting National Socialism were nearly identical, as well: young people, teachers and poorer peasants. Because of Romania’s territorial losses, however, the developments in the two regions took different courses after 1940. Following the occupation of northern Bukovina by the Soviets, the Germans were resettled. They served as ‘human material’ for the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle in the expulsion of the Polish and French populations from the occupied territories. In the Banat, the young men were recruited into the Waffen SS starting in 1943 and took part in the war crimes committed in occupied Yugoslavia. In the Banat, only German men who refused to join the SS or protested against the evacuations were assaulted. Romanian authorities prevented Swabians from appropriating Jewish property to any sizeable degree.

Both areas have in common that after 1945 the Germans’ complicity in National Socialist crimes was disregarded for a long time. In January 1945, many Germans in Romania capable of working were deported to forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. In Romania, court proceedings against Germans for committed war crimes were rare, since many offenders had evaded prosecution by escaping to the Western occupied zones. There, even leading National Socialists were categorized as followers (‘Mitläufer’) in the judicial hearings of Germany.