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From POW to Cold War DP: A Global Microhistory of Former Yugoslav Soldiers in Occupied Germany, 1946–48
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2022
Abstract
There are still many historical blind spots in research on Europe's displaced persons (DPs) after the Second World War. In particular, there are relatively few studies that link microhistorical perspectives on repatriation and resettlement with global contexts. This essay addresses this gap, in empirical as well as methodological terms, by focusing on a group of DPs that hitherto has received little attention from scholars: former members of the Royal Yugoslav Army, whom the Nazis had taken to Germany as prisoners of war (POWs). Classified as DPs after 1945, they lived in camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Under the circumstances, they continued to maintain military-like routines and fiercely refused repatriation. This was partly an expression of loyalty to the exiled Yugoslav king, Peter II. But it also mirrored the fears of DPs about—and resistance to the idea of—being returned to their homeland in the context of the early Cold War. Using the example of a DP camp in Bad Aibling (Upper Bavaria), this article connects Yugoslav DPs, Allied DP politics, and the interests of Tito's government, as well as the interventions of international relief agencies. It shows how some DPs adroitly subverted the international logic of DP self-governance as promoted by UNRRA. A global microhistory approach thus reveals how local actors and sites are shaped by, but also foundationally constitutive of, global regimes of migrational self-governance.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Itinerario , Volume 46 , Special Issue 2: Forced Migration and Refugee Resettlement in the Long 1940s , August 2022 , pp. 251 - 264
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Research Institute for History, Leiden University
Footnotes
This article is a revised, extended and translated version of Christian Höschler, “Von der Selbstverwaltung zum Repatriierungsstillstand: Ehemalige Soldaten der königlich-jugoslawischen Armee als Displaced Persons in Bad Aibling, 1946–1947,” in Lager—Repatriierung—Integration: Beiträge zur Displaced Persons-Forschung, ed. Christian Pletzing and Marcus Velke (Leipzig: Biblion Media, 2016), 19–46. The publishers of the aforementioned volume have agreed for the original article to be re-published in the present form as part of the Itinerario “Forced Migration and Refugee Resettlement in the Long 1940s” special issue.
References
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19 For better distinction, the term “civilians” here and hereafter refers to those DPs who were not former soldiers. The latter technically also had civilian status due to their demobilisation. See Hirschmann, Ira A., The Embers Still Burn: An Eye-Witness View of the Postwar Ferment in Europe and the Middle East and Our Disastrous Get-Soft-With-Germany Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949), 180Google Scholar.
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25 Ibid.
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29 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers: Displaced in German Camp Quieted by Explanation of UNRRA's Segregation,” New York Times, 27 May 1947.
30 Thomas L. McPhail and Steven Phupps, eds., Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 276.
31 Feder, “Displaced Persons Go Home,” 15.
32 Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
33 UNA, Franciszek Harazin to Repatriation Division, UNRRA District 5, 25 March 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
34 UNA, Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947, S-0425-0006-17.
35 Ibid.
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40 Ibid.
41 UNA, Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947, S-0437-0025-01.
42 Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
43 See, in general, Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn.
44 Ibid., 180.
45 Ibid.
46 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
47 Harazin to Repatriation Division, 25 March 1947. The doubts of Ralph Collins, head of UNRRA Field Operations in the American occupation zone of Germany, regarding a takeover of the Bad Aibling DP Camp by UNRRA, would also prove to be justified: “We will inherit a camp [. . .] complete with generals and colonels and military discipline. This point seems to offer possible security and political implications to both [U.S.] military and UNRRA.” UNA, Ralph W. Collins to C. J. Taylor, 17 October 1946, S-0437-0022-33.
48 A former inhabitant of the camp recalled that the barracks were each occupied by “one Lieutenant and one NCO who had to ensure discipline.” Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
49 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
50 Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
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53 UNA, Report by Gertrude Steinova, 15 May 1947, S-0425-0006-17.
54 UNA, [Anon.] to Mack S. Wishik, 4 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
55 A former camp resident stressed that fear of Communist agents was widespread. Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
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61 Ibid., 80–2.
62 Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn, 182–3.
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76 UNA, Ralph W. Collins to Carl H. Martini, 26 November 1946, S-0437-0022-33.
77 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
78 UNA, Monthly Report, UNRRA Area Team 1069, 14 January 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
79 UNA, Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947, S-0437-0025-01.
80 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
81 Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 6 February 1947.
82 Report by Joseph L. Zwischenberger, n.d.
83 UNA, Gertrude Steinova to Joseph L. Zwischenberger, 15 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
84 UNA, Paul B. Edwards to Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, 23 April 1947, S-0437-0024-12.
85 Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947; Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
86 Quoted from Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn, 182–3.
87 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
88 Ibid.
89 Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 10 April 1947.
90 Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947.
91 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers.”
92 UNA, Weekly statistics of the Bad Aibling DP Camp, 31 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
93 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers.”
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 UNA, Ralph W. Collins to Fay Greene, 24 May 1947, S-0435-0014-24.
97 Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
98 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
99 ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, Bad Arolsen, “Population statistics for US Zone DP camps,” 20 September 1947, 3.1.1.0/82383748.
100 Archives Nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Monthly Report, IRO Area 7, 30 December 1948, AJ/43/772.
101 On the IRO Children's Village Bad Aibling, see Christian Höschler, Home(less): The IRO Children's Village Bad Aibling, 1948–1951 (Berlin: epubli, 2017).
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