History
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 However, on June 4 the communist Yugoslav regime released a decree that rescinded the citizenship of Yugoslavian Germans.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 sneak back into Yugoslavia and returned to their homes.
The historically predominantly German town of Čeminac built the parish Church of Sacred Heart of Christ in 1906-1907. The German population in the town was forced to leave in 1945. After democratic changes in Croatia in 1990, former inhabitants of the town, mostly living in Germany, repaired the church. However, on April 10, 1992 the church was burnt by Serb forces as part of the Croatian War of Independence. In 2001, various levels of the Croatian government contributed to its repairs, which were carried out by 2005.
In 1996, Croatia and Germany signed an agreement to facilitate the marking of German graves from the World Wars in Croatia. There are German military cemeteries in Pula, Split and Zagreb. In 2005, the Croatian government passed a comprehensive law on the return of nationalized Austrian property to its rightful owners.
Read more about this topic: Germans Of Croatia
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