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20th Century /
II.,
Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer, Dr. Erich Petschauer, 1980.
The
Last Act of the Tragedy
What
now followed drove the Gottscheers into a thicket of barely concealed
force and unmitigated terror. A "Jahrhundertbuch" cannot
disregard the last years they spent in the old Ortenburgian primeval
forest fief because somewhere someone does not like to be reminded
of the assaults on freedom, on human dignity and on human rights
in Gottschee, or because this period is associated with National
Socialism. These assaults took place on three levels. The conscientious
historian likewise does not ask himself if he wishes to suppress,
to gloss over, or to manipulate what the Slovenes did to the Gottscheers,
what the Slovenes endured from the German Reich, and finally what
the Gottscheers themselves undertook to survive. On the contrary,
he is obliged to depict the decline of the linguistic island of
Gottschee as dispassionately, if not uncritically, as possible.
Even if one twists and turns the developments, events, and decisions of the
personalities and institutions that were involved, Gottschee is incessantly
drawn into the tragic entanglement from which there is no escape. Everything
that the Gottscheers do from now on is wrong.
The state government in Ljubljana
soon tightened the reins. The "Schwäbisch-Deutsche Kulturbund",
the cultural organization of the Germans in Yugoslavia, had also established
several
district groups in Gottschee. This organization was forbidden. Thus, the Gottscheer
youth were also denied the legal foundation for their cultural work. The prohibition
was based on the observations of the security force that young Gottscheers
associated with young Germans from the Reich.
Volker Dick, a priest son from Freiburg in the Breisgau, was one of
these young Germans who was in Gottschee in the summer of 1933 as a philology
student. At first he concentrated on the dialect and traveled throughout the "Ländchen" to
study it. He often talked to the farmers, also to the young people, and collected
material for his work. In so doing, he noticed that not linguistic discussion
but rather new economic ideas were needed here. Without being asked or commissioned
to do so by any office or organization in Germany, he made it
his personal objective to get the youth interested in this.
![](../../../Gottschee/Bilder/Vereine/02t.jpg)
Schwabish-German Kulturbund, Gottschee, 1940
Already on his
next visit he presented a "Aufbauplan" (development plan) for discussion.
It was to halt any farther economic and cultural decline due to emigration,
oppression, and demoralization of the people. Dick found many willing listeners
among the rural youth, and some among the district leaders in the city.
The "Volksgruppenführung" (district
leadership) was not a public institution
that was created through elections or appointments. Instead, there were at
its head two men whose opinions one listened to because of their personalities
and who at times also carried out official duties: attorney Dr. Hans Arko from
the city of Gottschee and the church counselor Josef Eppich, priest in Mitterdorf.
As of 1927, Reverend Eppich was also the elected representative of the Gottscheer
voters to
the "Gebietsausschuß" - more or less the equivalent of
the provincial legislature in Austria. From the outset it was realistically
not possible for
him to do anything for his "electorate". Dr. Arko was a temporary
deputy district leader of the "Staatspartei" (state party) decreed
by King Alexander I. in 1929. Compared to the party system in the Federal Republic
of Germany and in Austria, it is the equivalent of the Christian-Socialists,
the Austrian Peoples' Party, that is, a liberal-democratic
party.
![](../../../Geistlichkeit/Bilder/Sonstige/01t.jpg)
Religious Councilor Josef Eppich, Reverend August Schauer, 1930
In view of the hard line the Slovenes were taking towards the linguistic island,
the two men feared that the young people would outwardly imitate the Hitler
Youth in their cultural work. The first signs were already evident in 1934.
Arko and Eppich, despite their bad experiences after 1918, still adhered to
the basic principle of loyalty to the state and the nation. The expected activity
of the young people came and could apparently not be stopped. To be sure, in
its essence and in its cultural work, it was true to the Gottscheer character.
The club nights, the
topics for conversation and discussion, even the singing were directed towards
preserving the traditions of the homeland. German hiking songs and the snappy
songs of the German youth in the Reich were sung on camping and hiking trips,
but more and more songs in the dialect were also unearthed because they had
the true Gottscheer folksong character and were not a product of the hectic
thirties. They were composed by the young farmer's son Peter Wittine from Rieg.
In
1935 something seemingly insignificant occurred. Willi Lampeter from Mitterdorf
was expelled from the secondary school, in the city of Gottschee. His principal
was of the opinion that, as a student at a Slovenian secondary school, he had
too actively supported German national matters, even though he was a
Gottscheer by birth. This expulsion challenged Lampeter to become even more
nationalistic. Within a few months he was considered the spokesman of the Gottscheer
youth, who gradually made it known that they considered themselves solely responsible
for the future of Gottschee and who strove to relieve the old leadership at
the appropriate time. In fairness it must be pointed out that the call for
a new spiritual and economic direction within the framework of the Gottscheer
traditions did not come first from the young, who reacted to the powerful impulses
from without. The Gottscheer Kalender (almanac) of 1931, which was published
by the Reverend August Schauer in Nesseltal and whose content he controlled,
stated: "The Gottscheer farmer must again cast his glance towards the
homeland. He again has to have confidence in his land and has to be shaken
from his lethargy
by taking the Gottscheer agriculture out of its present isolation and organizing
production and marketing on a co-operative basis". To be sure, the "Aufbauplan" (development
plan) first clearly stated how this was to be done.
The project that Volker Dick
discussed with the young people proceeded logically from the fact that there
were too few workers left (for reasons which are known to us) who could adjust
the sharply lowered standard of living to the increased demands while still using
the old farming methods. Beyond this - and this was always strongly emphasized
- the "Aufbauplan" was
to provide an economic
incentive to stay in the homeland.
Let us take a look once more at the fateful
circle of events which led to the
enormous calamity that was intensified by the world-wide economic crisis. Because
of the shortage of farmhands, the Gottscheer farmer had neglected to clear
the land
continually, particularly the pastures and hills that were higher up. Feed
stock declined and, as a result, the livestock also declined considerably.
Less milk and fertilizer were the result. Less fertilizer meant a lower crop
yield and a decrease in the area that was planted. Conclusion: Emigration continued
to increase.
The "Aufbauplan" simply reversed this decline: renewed clearing
of the pastures and meadows = more livestock = more milk and calves =
more fertilizer
= more planting fields = general increase in farm production. The plan also
included the introduction of high-yield fruit trees and the better care of
them, as well as the use of the fruit harvest in the production of sweet cider.
Experts for this endeavor were brought in from Germany. The tourist trade was
also to be developed systematically. To this end, promising meetings were held
with a German travel
agency. The first noteworthy tourist attraction was a secure path built by
the youth in the idyllic woodland village of Pogorelz. Another accomplishment
of the young people in the voluntary workforce was the securing of the hiking
trail from Morobitz to the Krempe, the most beautiful lookout in Gottschee
into the cavernous Kulpa valley and the mountains of Croatia. They also built
a skihut near Altfriesach and, as a finishing touch, the youth of the Oberland
built a clubhouse in Mitterdorf. They were bitterly disappointed. On the eve
of the dedication of the clubhouse,
they held a torchlight parade through Mitterdorf, for which a permit had been
filed with the authorities. This parade was brutally stopped by Slovenian youths
who had been brought in from outside. Armed with sticks, pickets, clubs, and
other "tools," they jumped out of the dark and struck down women
and children.
The police who were present did not intervene. The Gottscheers, not prepared
for such an attack, could not defend themselves at all. Even before the men
could strike back, the phantoms had again disappeared in the dark.
Two
cooperative arrangements, enclosed pastures and a modern dairy, both new for
the "Ländchen", were to provide the farmers with a steady
and guaranteed income. A model enclosed pasture, again the voluntary joint
effort of the youth,
was set up in the village district of Hohenegg / Katzendorf. A plan for a dairy
suited to the needs of the Gottscheer farmer was drawn up. To give
a steady side-income to the girls and women as well, one went back to old types
of cottage industries. Of course, wood carving, the oldest form of Gottscheer
cottage industry, was revived. An expert from Germany was also on hand for
these undertakings. To create a market for these products, a cooperative was
founded in the city of Gottschee in 1936 which handled their sale in Germany.
The siblings Hilde and Herbert Erker from Mitterdorf, Sophie Kren from Ort,
as well as the siblings Olga and Hans Spreitzer from Pöllandl, were particularly
active in the cottage industries in the linguistic island itself. In addition,
Herbert and Hilde Erker revived the singing of old German and Gottscheer songs
at numerous club meetings.
![](../../../Gottscheertracht/Bilder/Sonstige/09t.jpg) |
![](../../../Gottscheertracht/Bilder/Sonstige/10t.jpg) |
![](../../../Handwerk/Bilder/Sonstige/01t.jpg) |
New costumes |
Costume head covering |
Knittings |
The proper functioning of farming was, however, a prerequisite for the
flourishing of the in part totally new economic base. Discussions and
good advice alone
did not suffice. One needed practical examples, showing how it is to be done
and - money! But where was one to get it? Only one thing was for certain.
One could not expect the Yugoslavian government to provide financial assistance.
Dr. Hans Arko came to the rescue with another tradition-bound idea. He suggested
that one apply to the Reich for a renewal of the peddler permit first granted
by Emperor Frederick III. in the year 1492. This would allow the traditional
peddler trade of the Gottscheers to flourish once more in a form and number
that was
appropriate to the time. Due to Dick's efforts the economic ministry of the
Reich agreed to it and processed it through the internal administration. As
a trial, several dozen selected farmers were sent to Germany during the winter
of 1934- 35 to introduce the peddler trade. In general, the experiment was
a success. The peddling was carried out in the manner in which it was described
in detail in this book in the chapter on the nineteenth century. In the three
winters from 1935-36 to 1937-38, about 300 men were allowed to peddle in each
season. They were sent individually and in groups of various sizes to those
cities which were deemed suitable for this exceptional undertaking. Thus, for
example, fifteen men worked in Munich, two in Dessau/Anhalt, and one in Schwäbisch-Gmünd.
The peddlers wore their traditional dress (see illustration). At first they
were advised and looked after by students, then beginning with the 1935-36
season, by members of the
VDA ("Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland" - national
organization for German culture in foreign countries).
![](../../../Gewerbebetriebe/Bilder/Sonstige/04t.jpg) |
![](../../../VDA/Bilder/01t.jpg) |
Gottscheer
peddler |
Donation badge,
Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA),
comrade sacrifice Gottschee, 1934/1939. |
The men from the linguistic island belonged to the "Gottschee-Hilfswerk" (relief
association) which had an office in the city of Gottschee and in Dessau / Anhalt.
The latter office was moved to Berlin in 1938. In Gottschee, Dr. Arko
set up an office at his attorney's bureau and employed someone to handle the
correspondence and the bookkeeping. It is quite unusual for Gottschee that
a woman, Mrs. Paula Suchadobnik from the city of Gottschee, was the business
manager of this arrangement that was exclusively for men.
The peddlers from Gottschee had to give part of their net profits to the organization
for the peddler trade and to the hardship fund from which losses were to be
reimbursed. While still in Gottschee, the applicant had to pledge that he would
purposefully invest his surplus in his own farm. In addition, he had to sign
a statement that he would return home and not stay in Germany at the end of
the season. In general, the profits ranged from a few hundred to several thousand
marks. Because of the regulation of foreign exchange, the peddlers could not
transfer their earnings directly through the postal service or the bank but
were paid through the Savings and Loan Bank in Gottschee.
The surplus from
the "hardship fund", which hardly ever had to be used, was
allocated for the construction of the dairy. The plans for its construction
and the network
of twenty-two cream-skimming stations were completed in 1938. The plans were
to be put into effect in 1943.
What, however, was the situation as far as the practical models were
concerned? Dick suggested that new farmers, that is, sons of farmers,
be sent to Germany
for agricultural training. Willie Lampeter from Mitterdorf and Martin Sturm
from Loschin made this idea a reality. By 1937 the two young men had become
the undisputed leaders of the farming youth. Whoever took a closer look could
see that Lampeter had acquired a disciplined following. The young men whom
he now sent to Germany for the agricultural training were of this circle. Volker
Dick also prepared the way for them. The training in modern agricultural production
methods took place on the Rauhen Alb, where the climate and the soil were similar
to that found in Gottschee. They spent the summer of 1937 working on farms
selected for this purpose. Afterwards Willi Lampeter gathered the sixty men
at a "Winterschule" (winter
school). Its purpose was to give the future model farmers the theoretical means
for their roles as agricultural leaders.
Because of these activities - related to Gottschee - Dr. Arko and
Reverend Eppich found themselves in a difficult political situation domestically.
On
the one hand, they watched with satisfaction the efforts of the young people
to secure the future of Gottschee. On the other hand, experience had shown
them that the Yugoslavian authorities would not let them be. Thirdly, since
the young people no longer allowed anyone to interfere, the two "old men" attempted
to take counteractive measures on the cultural front at least and thus - perhaps!
- still rescue something. On August 13, 1935, Dr. Arko gave the new Yugoslavian
Prime
Minister, Dr. Milan Stojadinavic, a memorandum with the request that at least
the remaining German school divisions be allowed to remain and that the German
teachers they required be approved. He submitted the same memorandum to the
provincial government in Ljubljana in October 1935. The latter only replied
in the fall of 1936 that it could not do anything for Gottschee as long as
Slovenes are being denationalized in Carinthia. Thereupon Reverend Eppich undertook
steps in Vienna and Klagenfurt to bring about the equal treatment of the Slovenian
minority in Carinthia and in Gottschee. The Slovenes in Carinthia were offered
full cultural autonomy, but the head of the provincial government in Ljubljana
did not even want to listen to a Gottscheer delegation. He explained his negative
stance by stating that the provincial government is not the appropriate authority
for this. Here again the whole Slovenian conception of things related to Gottschee
once more became evident. The governor claimed he was not responsible for the
minority rights of the Gottscheers but was responsible for those of the Slovenes
in Carinthia. In his own country he thus only felt authorized to exterminate
the Gottscheers.
![](../../../Stojadinovic/Bilder/01t.jpg)
Jugoslavian Prime Minister Stojadinovic
Dr. Arko did not receive any answer at all from Prime Minister Stojadinovic.
In world politics he had the reputation of being sympathetic to the German.
Thus, it is possible that he was involved in loosening the reins in the summer
of 1935 that had been placed on the "Schwäbisch-Deutschen Kulturbund" (Swabian-German
cultural organization).
The proclamation of a "Grundverkehrsgesetz" (property disposal law)
in June 1936 proved that the authorities in Ljubljana had also extended their
intention to eliminate the linguistic island of Gottschee to the economic sector.
It stated that every change in property ownership within a 50-kilometer zone
along the national border had to be approved by the war, that is internal affairs,
ministry. This law did not yet threaten the existence of Gottschee even though
it was within the 50-kilometer zone. But the instructions for its execution
which were already
issued in December left no doubt about it. It called for a commission that
was to check every case to see if the change in ownership was in the interest
of the state or not. In other words, a change of property ownership among Gottscheers
was now impossible. Its intention was soon revealed by the reality. Gottscheer
properties that became available could be bought by Slovenes for next to nothing.
The Slovenian youth organizations "Sokol" and "Orjuna" underscored
the measures of the authorities with verbal threats, the most tasteless of
which stated: "We
will pave the main square in Gottschee with your skulls."
The legal uncertainty reached ever newer heights. Dr. Michitsch sketches them
as follows in the Cultural Supplement No. 58 of the Gottscheer Zeitung:
"Legal
uncertainty, the lack of legal protection against the misuse of judgment, the
absence of an internal government authority that could have been called upon
in cases of infractions against minority rights, the discrimination against
the ethnic minority through the arbitrary issuance of laws and decrees which
were totally forbidden according to international and national laws." The
exercise of this "legal status", the resistance against this
system of oppression, grew especially among the young people. They had looked
for
and found a way of halting the further economic decline, because they saw it
as their legitimate
human right not to stand by idly as their homeland was being destroyed by political
powers. They also found a way of bringing about at least a makeshift cultural
balance. An invisible struggle for the dialect and the written German
language had set in. Wherever it was possible, the few priests gave young and
old instruction in the German language. Hundreds of primers appeared and were
passed from hand to hand.
![](../../../AGGLM/Bilder/Vereine/01t.jpg)
Secondary School councilor Hermann Petschauer, Mayor Franz Lusser, Dr. Viktor
Michitsch.
In the years 1936 and 1937 dissatisfaction with the
old leadership grew. It was accused of doing too little to secure the basic
rights and the cultural demands of the Gottscheers. The young people thought
that they themselves could force a change in the national Yugoslavian minority
policies in Gottschee by making their voices heard. In 1938 Lampeter felt that
the time had come for him to take over the leadership of the ethnic group.
To be sure, he proceeded from a decisive
false assumption: Without expressing it, he expected the German Reich officially
to support the decidedly goal-oriented appearance of a young ethnic group leadership
against the Yugoslavian state. To be sure, this seemed to be the case in one
instance. In November 1938, Dr. Hans Arko was notified by the "Arbeitsstelle" Gottschee
(employment office for Gottschee) in the VDA, Berlin, that he was relieved
of his leadership of the ethnic group. It was easy to guess what had prompted
this letter. In Gottschee one accused the deposed leader of nepotism in
the selection of peddlers. Embittered, the attorney resigned. He had not even
been given the opportunity to resign voluntarily in an appropriate manner.
The religious adviser in Mitterdorf, however, did not wait for his turn. On
January 1, 1939 he handed over the editorship of the Gottscheer Zeitung to
a young man, the professional journalist Herbert Erker. He had received his
journalistic training at the Deutschen Volksblatt, the daily newspaper of the
Germans in Yugoslavia, in Neusarz (Novi sad), whose chief editor was the Gottscheer
Dr. Franz Perz from
Mitterdorf.
A three-member panel consisting of the businessman Josef Schober (city of Gottschee),
Willi Lampeter, and Martin Sturm was set up. Schober took over as chairman
and was then known as "Volksgruppenführer" (ethnic group leader).
Until then he had hardly been heard of in public life. In actuality, it was
soon to become apparent that the still youthful Lampeter (born in 1919) simply
used the much older man as a front. Lampeter's followers, however, felt their
views, intentions, and achievements were confirmed by the new development.
One of the first undertakings of the new leadership panel was to deliver a
declaration of allegiance to the German consul in Ljubljana. Among other things,
it stated that the Gottscheers were prepared to accept directives from the
Reich.
Transferred to the political reality, this was not intended to mean that they
wanted to relinquish their native traditions. To be sure, they sympathized
with the "renewers" in the Danube-Swabian region without, however,
unconditionally agreeing with their political views. "The Gottscheer leadership
had very definite political ideas", the then nineteen-year-old youth
leader in Gottschee, Richard Lackner, explained to the author in 1973 in a
conversation
about the thirties. He continued: "We knew that we could not, in any
case, influence the general political and governmental changes, and that our
entire
concept was based on the fact that we were a linguistic island in the Yugoslavian
kingdom, that our actions must be based on this situation in order to prevent
the decline, the destruction of Gottschee."
In spite of the declaration of allegiance and the professed programmatic inclusion
in the straits of world politics, the new leadership internally reserved for
itself a certain degree of freedom to act. It is still evident in the words
of Richard Lackner in 1973: "... because we wanted to do things on our
own based on very independent thinking and an independent view. We wanted to
create that type of Gottscheer who was prepared to participate in the renewal
of his homeland."
Berlin, September 1, 1939. Hitler attacks Poland. Three
weeks later: The Republic of Poland no longer exists.
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/11t.jpg) |
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/12t.jpg) |
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/10t.jpg) |
Battleship "Schleswig-Holstein"
bombards the "Westerplatte"
near
Danzig |
German soldiers on the
Polish
border |
Hitler
announces the invasion of
Poland, 1.09.1939 |
Berlin, October 6, 1939.
In a speech delivered at the Reichstag, Hitler announces that he thinks it
necessary to relocate the ethnic groups in Europe so that the boundaries between
the nations can be more clearly defined. The German nation would withdraw its
outposts. That he was serious about this became clear
the following day. He named the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler, to be the "Reich's
Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Peoples". Himmler's
new assignment was not so new anymore, as was shown by the relocation of the
people
of South Tyrol, which had been planned for some time. The relocation agreement
with Italy went into effect in June of 1939. Thus, the negotiations must have
begun months before. The Italian and German relocation offices were set up
in South Tyrol in August and September 1939.
The German ethnic groups in eastern
and southeastern Europe panicked. The panic in Yugoslavia forced the German
delegate in Belgrade to make the unfortunately worded declaration in the Deutschen
Volksblatt (German newspaper in Yugoslavia)
that the relocation of the Germans in Yugoslavia was "not under immediate
consideration."
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), one of the chiefly responsible for the murder
of
millions of European Jews
By being named "Reich's Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German
Peoples," Heinrich Himmler's power had increased considerably. He set
up a "Stabshauptamt" (staff headquarters) in Berlin to administer
this new assignment and put Ulrich Greifelt, the brigade commander at that
time, in charge of it. The ethnic political organizations in the Reich were
also put under the jurisdiction of the Reich's commissioner, especially the "Volksdeutsche
Mittelstelle" (VOMI) (an intermediary office for ethnic German matters),
which had been part of the
"Staff of Deputies of the Führer," and the "Volksbund für
das
Deutschtum im Ausland" (VDA) (ethnic organization for Germans outside of
Germany). Despite its subordination to the VOMI, the latter had still maintained
a certain degree of autonomy as the cultural caretaker of Germans with foreign
citizenships. Now one no longer sought to consolidate this ethnic group.
Understandably,
the Gottscheers too were very much affected by Hitler's
announcement. Rumors spread from village to village; no one knew anything definite.
The leadership of the linguistic island was silent. Outwardly, it acted as
if there were not going to be any resettlement. The permission for establishing
the "Kulturbund" (cultural organization) was a surprise and was given
without imposing any restrictions. This seemed to support the position of the
leadership. The Yugoslavian government granted its permission by stating that
concessions had been made to the Slovenes in Carinthia. Within a few weeks,
twenty-five village chapters of the "Kulturbund" were founded, including
even villages which previously did not have any.
This permission for the "Kulturbund" allowed Willi Lampeter to initiate
a plan he had been thinking about for some time. In the fall of 1939 he set
up the "Gottscheer Mannschaft" (team). The charter of the "Kulturbund" was
changed for this purpose so that every member between the ages of 18 and 50
was automatically a member of the "Mannschaft." Lampeter assumed
the position of "Mannschaftsführer" (team leader). In the village
chapters, the leaders of the team divisions were called "Sturmführer." Lively
cultural activities were very soon in evidence. Disciplined compulsory exercises
patterned after the organizations in the German Reich were part of them.
This histrionic, almost hectic activity - while at the same time remaining
silent about the resettlement - did not, however, mean that the inner
circle of Gottscheer leaders avoided a discussion of the question: to resettle
or
not to resettle? It was quite aware that the Gottscheers now found themselves
not only facing two fires but three. First, they were still faced with the
extermination efforts of the Slovenes. Second, they believed that they had
found a way that would enable them to fight for their survival and culture
on their own soil until a permanent
favorable solution to the Gottschee problem was found. Third, however, it was
precisely that political power which alone had the ability to bring about such
a solution that wanted to transplant them somewhere else. What could the Gottscheers
do? What were they allowed to do?
The young men who were the leaders and who still could not have had any political
experience were at a loss.
All discussions ended in the same dead-end: There was no way out except to
resettle. The circle around Lampeter thought that if the resettlement could
not be avoided, then they would at least be able to influence its objectives.
They decided to present their wishes and opinions to the nearest available
German official, to the German consul in Ljubljana. This took place on November
6, 1939, four weeks after Hitler's speech. Frensing reports the conversation
and comments on it on page 25 of his book about the resettlement of the Gottscheers
as follows:
"They already made the decisive concession on point one. Also, in the matter
of resettlement, the interests of the ethnic group are to be subordinate to the
interests of the nation as a whole. Based on this, subsequent considerations
of the Gottscheers became very relative and, bluntly expressed, were reduced
to the point
where they were almost insignificant. The Gottscheers were dangerously deluding
themselves when they thought that once their views on the matter had been heard
they could then change Hitler's basic views on foreign and resettlement policies
according to their own ideas in a concrete, historical situation. Viewed from
the national-socialistic
perspective, it must thus have seemed downright heretical that the Gottscheers
found an incontestable decision by the "Führer" to be inadequate
for an eventual resettlement. According to the leadership of the ethnic group,
the fact that Gottschee is part of the Italian sphere of interest is not sufficient
reason for resettlement. The reference of the Gottscheers to the German-Russian
pact as proof that relationships between different powers can change very suddenly
and completely surely gave rise to embarrassing jokes."
Further on Frensing continues: "It was the desire of the Gottscheer leadership
to be "annexed" to the Reich in case the south-Slavic state collapsed. This
was already apparent among the ethnic Germans in Slovenia during the March
1939 unrest when they openly demanded annexation after the occupation of the
"Resttschechoslowakei" (rest of Czechoslovakia).
One member of the Gottscheer
leadership had even sent a telegram to Hitler from Graz on April 13, 1939 in
which he requested Anschluß (annexation).
It expressed concern about the
incorporation of
Gottschee by Italy, which had just attacked Albania."
The Gottscheer farmers
and city dwellers also heard nothing about these discussions in Ljubljana.
The internal political pressure grew steadily in the linguistic island. The
possibly unavoidable resettlement pushed all other topics into the background.
In the meantime, however, the number of opponents to the resettlement also
grew.
The "Stürme" (local groups) were developed. The rural police
and the Slovenian nationalists repeatedly assumed a menacing stance at Gottscheer
functions. A small little volume entitled "Die Wirtschaftsfragen des Gottscheer
Bauern" (The Economic Issues Concerning the Gottscheer Farmer) written by
Willi Lampeter and Martin Sturm appeared in this tension-filled atmosphere
of 1940.
It had the effect of a small, consoling promise for the future because it contained
many a good suggestion for the Gottscheer farm.
The Gottscheers, this time
including the leadership, heard nothing about what transpired behind the scenes
in the Reich's capital. For example, the head
of the ethnic German intermediary bureau, SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz,
made a notation on June 27, 1940 that "in case war broke out between Germany
and Yugoslavia, parts of southern Styria and Upper Carniola were to be annexed
to the 'German Reich,' but not those of Gottschee." Lorenz, too, thought
that Gottschee obviously belonged to the Italian sphere of interest and hence
demanded the resettlement of its inhabitants (Frensing, p. 26). He surely did
not express his own thoughts in this. And still one more thing in the remark
is noteworthy: The Obergruppenführer was already aware in June of 1940 of
a military conflict with Yugoslavia.
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/03t.jpg)
SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz - SS General
In the meantime, the "Heim-ins-Reich-Bewegung" (Back-to-the-Homeland
Movement) had been proclaimed and initiated. The affected ethnic groups were
told as little about the actual reasons as the German people themselves. Hitler
had announced the withdrawal of the German "outposts" on October
6, 1939, not to redraw the European boundaries but out of purely power and
nationalpolitical considerations. He and Himmler wanted much more to adjust
the biological deficit which was facing the German nation. Demographers, above
all Dr. Friedrich Burgdörfer, at that time president of the Bavarian state
office of statistics, had already precisely pre-calculated in the twenties
that the German population would visibly
decline in the 1970's because the nearly two million men who had died in World
War I and their unborn descendants were missing in the German population pyramid.
The two most powerful men of the Third Reich also included in their calculations
that the Second World War would result in additional heavy losses and that
the deficit of 1914-1918 would be considerably increased. On the other hand,
the territories of the former Hapsburg monarchy - including the German
minority in Czechoslovakia - contained the valuable human potential of
about ten million. The Germans from Czechoslovakia had already been incorporated
into the National Federation in 1940; the Germans in the Baltic provinces had
also been included in the Reich. Only the Germans in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and
Rumania - all together again about 2.5 million - still awaited resettlement
into the Reich. Essentially, these Diaspora-Germans were the descendants of
settlers who had become established in their settlement regions in widely spaced
periods of colonization: the Transylvanians (1140-1160) and the Danube-Swabians
in the southern Hungarian lowlands during the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-1780).
From
the behavior of those in power in the Third Reich towards the national political
command situation in Himmler's surroundings one can easily deduce
that they really were serious about also taking in these southern European
ethnic Germans to make up for the biological deficit. On the one hand, it was
stated that one did not want to let these Germans perish as cultural fertilizer
for other nations. What a contradiction to the power consciousness in the "Reichskanzlei" (state
chancery) in Berlin! As if the "Großdeutsche Reich" (the extended
German Reich), which viewed itself as the greatest military power in Europe
for infinity, had to ask any other government for permission if it had wanted
to support the ethnic Germans within its borders. And, on the other hand, all
commands and
directives concerning the "Festigung Deutschen Volkstums" (consolidation
of German peoples) were very confidentially collected in 1939-40 in the staff
headquarters of the main division "Menscheneinsatz" (manpower)
under the direction of SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Fähndrich. Among other things,
the publisher wrote in the introduction:
1. Those Germans living "outside of the sphere of interest of the larger
German Reich" were to be resettled "according to urgency and necessity." They
thus would be liberated "from their role as cultural fertilizer for foreign
countries."
2. This call of the "Führer" indicated a "complete revolution
in former German ethnic policies," because the until now "often romantically
colored rapture that was enthusiastic about the dispersion of the Germans" had
been changed according to the principle: "Taking in the valuable German
blood to strengthen the Reich itself."
3. The "feeling of blood-relatedness to the German people as a whole," which
the ethnic Germans had demonstrated, assured them of "at least a moral
claim to a good reception in the Reich ... and to the availability of a sound
livelihood."
4. Despite the loss of the old homeland, the Reich was, in comparison to the
ethnic German, "to a much greater extent ... the giving part."
This obligated "the returning Germans to organically adapt themselves
to the discipline, the drill and the order of the larger German Reich." To
this end, Dr. Fähndrich made two concrete demands:
"When
an ethnic group becomes part of the Reich, the former ethnic group organization
ceases to exist, because the Reich stands above the ethnic group"
and
The concepts
of Baltic-Germans, Volhynia-Germans, and Bessarabian-Germans, etc., on the
contrary have to be exterminated as quickly as possible.
The Gottscheers, too,
were to become very quickly acquainted with the above concept of the "Reich's
Commissioner for Consolidation of the German Peoples." As we know from
the above quoted comment in the documents of the SS-Obergruppenführer Lorenz,
Hitler thought of conquering and dividing Yugoslavia militarily as early as
the first half of 1940. The coup d'etat in Belgrade on March 27, 1941, which
resulted in general devastation throughout the country, seemed to him to be
a good opportunity to carry out this plan. On April 6, 1941, the German troops
marched into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and put the not very
effective army out of commission in a few days. The German attack had taken
them completely by surprise. Also the Gottscheers! What they feared set in.
On April 20, 1941, the fragments of the south-Slavic state were "newly
arranged." Mussolini had sent his foreign minister son-in-law, Count
Galeazzo Ciano, to the conference. The Italians received Lower Carniola with
the region of Ljubljana,
the Reich kept Upper Carniola as a new part of the district of Carinthia, as
well as Lower Styria which had been incorporated into the district of Styria
and was administered from Marburg an der Drau. The Croatians were granted their
own state, and Old Serbia was allowed to exist as an independent state.
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/06t.jpg)
Dictators - Fascist Mussolini and the National-Socialist Hitler. Incomparable
suffering of the German, Italian and many other Nations of the world were the
consequences of this political alliance.
The breaking apart
of Yugoslavia was the prerequisite for conquering Rumania, which gave him free
access to the Black Sea coast and the land base for an assault on the Soviet
Union. Despite all the talk about the "steel axis Berlin-Rome," Hitler,
by this Yugoslavian campaign, thus also prevented the Italians from conquering
the Dalmatian Adriatic coast. The conquest of Albania and Greece was a clear
signal that Mussolini
intended to make Italy's claim to the "mare nostrum" a reality. In this intermezzo
of so-called world politics, Hitler's willingness to give up all claims to
South Tyrol suddenly takes on a different aspect, even small Gottschee takes
on a new look for the German-Italian relationship. The dictator in Berlin sacrificed
two pawns in his continental game of chess so as not to be disturbed by the
dictator in Rome in his big move with the queen. When the latter, however,
noticed that his friend on the other side of the Alps had outdone him, it was
too late.
The Gottscheers, however, had to endure a war of nerves without comparison
after Yugoslavia had been smashed apart. For days they were convinced that
the German army would occupy the "Ländchen." The villages, through
which the
tanks passed on their way to the city, were bedecked with garlands. Lampeter's "Mannschaft" acted
as if the army would approve of their activities as being reasonable and appropriate.
The young men saw to it that law and order prevailed in the region. The district
captain who was still in office was directed by the "Mannschaftsführer" to
order the rural police to hand over their weapons to the "Stürme" (local
groups). (Personal information from Richard Lackner.) In addition, the Gottscheers
got back the weapons that had previously been taken from them, including hunting
rifles. On April 13, 1941, Willi Lampeter then took over the administration
of the district leader's office in Gottschee on his own authority.
Compared to the administration of the German Federal Republic, this meant that
he had appointed himself provisional district magistrate. His office was in
the Castle of Auersperg in the city of Gottschee.
Hopes and expectations rose
to a feverish restlessness as the advance of the army was delayed further and
further. A delegation of Gottscheers hurried to Rudolfswerth (Novo mesto),
where Hitler's troops supposedly had stopped. The German section commander
received them cordially but declared that he had no orders to go beyond the
line they had reached. Thus, it became clear to the delegation that it was
located on the line of demarcation between the German and Italian areas of
interest.
Instead of an advance division of the German army, the Gottscheers received
the news from the "Reich's Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German
Peoples" that the "ethnic group Gottschee" was to be resettled.
As fate would have it, the news arrived on April 20, 1941, the day of the conference
in Vienna. Three days later, a delegation from the linguistic island received
Adolf Hitler's personal confirmation that he is giving the Gottscheers an "historic
assignment" as "defense and border farmers." For the time being,
however, Lampeter and his
circle kept Himmler's message about the resettlement and the content of the
conversation with Hitler a secret. And while the "Führer" in
Marburg an der Drau received the delegation from Gottschee, an Italian advance
division
moved into the city. Its first act was to remove Willi Lampeter from his office
as district leader. He had held his office for only ten days. The dream of
independence by the small ethnic island in the calciferous region had been
dreamed to an end for the third and last time.
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/05t.jpg)
Adolf Hitler and the "Mannschaftsführer" (militia leader), Marburg
/ Maribor, 23.04.1941.
The Gottscheers were paralyzed with fear. The leadership was bombarded with
questions. It dodged them with evasive explanations. Nothing was heard about
Marburg, nothing about personal views. It did not even confirm that which everyone
could conclude for himself after the Italians marched in, namely, the resettlement.
When? Where to?
The youth and those with political insight accepted the foreseeable fate. Many
of those who had been peddlers in the years 1934-1938 thought of Germany as
a possible destination for resettling, thought of "their" cities—perhaps
they would be allowed to peddle for a few winters after the war so that they
could build themselves a new home?
Now after several decades and not under the pressure of the events in the spring
of 1941, it is easier to judge if the leadership of the Gottscheers acted responsibly
or not. They thought they did, but today one is inclined to say that this question
no longer even arises because the leadership could not have acted otherwise.
One thing, of course, is certain: it used the wrong tone. But that was determined
by the time. Some of the people thought the young people had led them by the
nose. On the other hand, the leaders themselves had not been informed
about the details of the when and where to. Given these circumstances, one
can, to
a certain extent, understand that the leadership became nervous. Although it
did not have to lead great masses, it nevertheless was, above all in human
terms, certainly not an easy task to have to be the liquidator of a family
enterprise that was centuries old and whose existence was being threatened
by a large corporation due to no fault of its own. But the pros and cons of
the resettlement were ever more passionately debated precisely because the
leadership felt it had to remain silent. When the leadership realized that
the "cons" were gaining, it reacted in a harsh tone: In the Gottscheer
Zeitung of May 1, 1941 - note that not even four weeks had passed since
the collapse of Yugoslavia - it attacked "the alarmists" with
extremely dangerous-sounding threats. The leadership felt it had to document
the independence of its decision-making not only to its own people but also
to the Italian occupation forces. On May 2, 1941, the ethnic group leader Josef
Schober appeared before the Italian high commissioner Emilio Grazioli in Ljubljana,
handed him a declaration of allegiance to Mussolini, and presented the wishes
and suggestions of the Gottscheers to the Fascist civilian administration of
the province of Ljubljana. Signor Grazioli agreed to deal with all questions
in consultation with the ethnic group. However, it was to become evident very
soon that the high commissioner had not the slightest intention of asking the
leadership of the ethnic group for its opinion or of perhaps even being guided
by it. This was particularly true of the Italian view of the Slovenes.
In its efforts to appear independent from everyone, the leadership board Schober-Lampeter-Sturm
also acted very self-assured in Berlin. The main office had "invited" it
to a meeting set for the middle of May. One wanted to know in the capital of
the Reich if the leadership of the ethnic group felt personally and organizationally
capable of handling the resettlement. By presenting the Gottscheer Zeitung
of May 8, 1941 - at that time the paper appeared weekly - it proved
that they had already set up a leadership staff on their own. It stated:
The
ethnic group leader has ordered that the following offices be established:
A. |
Ethnic
group leadership, administrative head of the ethnic group leaders
(Josef Schober),
|
B. |
The
staff of the "Mannschaft," administrative head of the "Mannschaftsführer" -
Willi Lampeter, appointed for the economy - staff
leader Martin Sturm, for the nutrition program - Johann Schemitsch.
|
C. |
Youth
leadership, administrative head of the youth leaders - Richard
Lackner,
|
D. |
Office
for Organization and Propaganda, administrative head - staff
leader Alfred Busbach, appointed editor - Herbert Erker. |
To be sure, the resettlement is not yet mentioned in this directive of the
ethnic group leader. According to the three-member board, the trip to Berlin
was a total success, since the staff headquarters had approved of its suggestion
to undertake the resettlement as soon as possible and to again settle the Gottscheers
as a unit. There were also no misgivings about the intentions to categorize
those who were willing to resettle according to the following groupings and
to treat these differently than the rest during the settlement phase: those
who were in mixed marriages with Slovenes, those without property, those not
suited to be farmers,
and small property owners (later also "political unreliables"). Greifelt
also agreed to let the ethnic group leadership carry out the resettlement on
its own. Thus, the ethnic group leadership could assume it was authorized to
prepare and
initiate the departure of the Gottscheers as they saw fit. This it then did.
And only now, when it felt it had total freedom to act, did it fully confirm
the tragedy that was befalling the Gottscheers. The following appeal to all
Gottscheers, signed by Schober and Lampeter, appeared in No. 21 of the Gottscheer
Zeitung on June 22,
1941:
"Gottscheer countrymen and countrywomen: The Führer calls us home into
the Reich! Await his command with iron discipline! Let your work and industriousness
show
still in the last hour that you are worthy to be Adolf Hitler's Germans!
Our efforts in the old homeland in 1941 shall show the world that we, as
we did
for 600 years, were able to inhabit the calciferous region also in the last
year of our ethnic German testing period, and that we were able to extract
from it our meager living. Present to our Italian ally a unique image of
German manliness as an expression of our unyielding loyalty to the brazen
policies
of the Axis!"
If feelings could be intensified even more, then this happened now when the
resettlement could no longer be stopped: dismay and despair, bitterness and
disappointment, seized the older Gottscheers. Understandably, only few dared
to express their true feelings openly. Now the certainty that a departure
without return stood behind the curtain of flaming words lurked at their
doorstep.
Whereas the young generation for the most part accepted the resettlement
as Hitler's order that had to be carried out, some of the older generation
intensified
their resistance during the course of the summer of 1941 to the point of
open rejection. The clergy - only six priests were still officiating - were
also not of one opinion.
The church counselors Josef Eppich in Mitterdorf
and August Schauer in Nesseltal and their colleagues Josef Kraker in Rieg
and Josef
Gliebe in Göttenitz were against the resettlement.
Heinrich Wittine in Morobitz
was for it, and Alois Krisch in Altlag only wanted to decide one way or
the other after his community had made its decision. The Reverend Kraker
made
himself spokesman for the open
opposition in the Hinterland.
Still the population of the "Ländchen" did not know where
they were supposed to be resettling. Even though it thus made way for all
sorts of
speculations, the ethnic group leadership did not specify the new settlement
region. Instead
it vigorously set about to make the preparations for an orderly resettlement.
The "Mannschaft" offered the organizational framework. Lampeter
gathered the twenty-five "Sturmführer" (local leaders) at
a training camp to test their endurance and, if necessary, to strengthen
it. In the
meantime,
after the dice had fallen, the staff
headquarters looked disapprovingly upon the political activities of the Gottscheers.
South Tyrol had shown them how sensitive the Italians were in these matters.
Therefore, it reduced the "training and propaganda" allotment in
the budget that the ethnic group leadership had submitted to a quarter. This,
however, did not prevent the actual ethnic group leader, Willi Lampeter, from
holding the camp. He thereby made it clear to the participants, among others,
that the opponents of
the resettlement had to be silenced, at the latest, at that moment in which
the
individual Gottscheer man or woman was faced with the actual decision to
stay or to go. To reach this goal, every method was permissible, including
psychological
pressure. According to Lampeter, it was absolutely necessary that the intellectual
and spiritual ties which had bound the Gottscheers until now be dissolved.
This was particularly true of the strong ties to the American-Gottscheers,
the dependence on the dollar that arose from this, the shipping of stylish
clothing that did not fit in Gottschee, the bragging with photographs
about the living conditions in the United States - none of them actually
of any consequential influence.
Of much greater consequence was another incursion into the subliminal psychic
realm of the Gottscheers, which was only understood afterwards. Despite all
the talk, by prominent authors as well, about the "negative selection" of
the Gottscheers due to the mass emigration, the rest of this people in the
calciferous region remained attached to their homeland. Viewed thusly, it was
a positive selection. And this psychic bond to the homeland and to traditions
was now to be supplanted by a fanatical acknowledgement of the Reich. To this
end, Lampeter initiated a propaganda wave in No. 25 of the Gottscheer Zeitung
on July 17, 1941. First of all, he asserted that "voices against the resettlement" were
making themselves heard from various sides. This feigns an overly great love
of the homeland. The article goes even further elsewhere: "The decisive
factor that had allowed the Gottscheers to remain German for six hundred years
was not a suddenly blossoming love for the homeland which actually never was
a homeland. Rather it was the awareness of being responsible for something
very great, something unique, for
the living German culture on earth, the Reich."
This was a total inversion of the homeland concept. Accordingly, Gottscheers
never had a love of the homeland and an awareness of their homeland in all
the six hundred years of their history. They were "outposts," not
linguistically in the sense of Professor Kranzmayer, but politically. That
the role one thus dictated to
Gottschee did not harmonize with the historical facts was, as wished, overlooked.
Not "the Reich" but the Carinthian Ducal House of Ortenburg had,
for economic reasons, founded the linguistic island of Gottschee in the fourteenth
century. The part "... the awareness of being outposts" is very
quickly stripped of its propagandistic embellishment if one soberly confronts
it with the incontestible fact that the Gottscheers did not even preserve
the memory of their ancestors'
place of origin. It was only re-awakened in the nineteenth century. The authors
of the article also did not realize the contradiction inherent in the "outpost-awareness." If
such an awareness had actually existed, then there would have been all the
more reason for a love of the homeland, for ties to the soil, and for the
belief in God in order to persevere for so long under such difficult living
conditions.
After all, 600 years are almost a third of the time that has passed since
the birth of Christ.
Up to this point, one can still get the impression that the
propagandists attacked the love of the homeland on their own initiative and
one almost would like to grant that they did this to make the departure easier
for their fellow countrymen. But they hardly thought this far. Rather, let
us recall the documentation "Der Menscheneinsatz" of SS-Obersturmbannführer
Dr. Fähndrich in the staff headquarters in Berlin and the visit of the
ethnic group leadership Schober-Lampeter-Sturm to this office of the "Reichskommissar
für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums"
(Reich's Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Peoples) in mid-May
1941. Without a doubt, they received at that time secret instructions to
clear away
the sentimentality of the homeland concept and the ties to the soil at the
appropriate moment. The three men found themselves, if one is to comprehend
their total abandonment of the "Aufbauplan" (development plan)
of Volker Dick, in a kind of "Befehlsnotstand" (state of command
emergency). The destruction of feelings for the homeland was to lead as well
to a collapse
of the sense of community among the Gottscheers. This would automatically
negate the promise of the staff headquarters to resettle the Gottscheers
as a unit.
At meetings and in their newspaper, the tormented inhabitants of the "Ländchen" only
heard and read variations of the theme, "One people, one Reich, one
Führer!"
Sometime
during the summer of 1941 Willi Lampeter was named SS-Sturmbannführer (battalion
commander).
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/04t.jpg)
Wilhelm Lampeter - Gottscheer Ethnic Group leader and SS-Sturmbannführer,
(SS Major) 21.12.1941
In the end, the Gottscheer women, even though they had busily participated
in the cultural work, were again condemned to carry out what the men had
decided about their own and their children's fates. The uncertainty about
the resettlement
weighed on them still more than on the men. At the beginning of July 1941,
the situation was still unclear. But even if the ethnic group leadership
had decided to make the settlement region known, it could not have prevented
the
clarification from coming from another source. In the first half of July,
a leaflet from the Communist party of Yugoslavia, written
in German, appeared in the linguistic island. Essentially it stated:
"The
National-Socialist leaders and their little Gottscheer leaders want to ...
settle you on the soil and the farms that the National-Socialist leaders
have stolen from the Slovenian farmers and workers whom they have chased
away without anything. The entire resettlement is a crime against the Gottscheer
people! Rightfully, the natives will view you as unwelcome outsiders, as
the
allies of the Fascist robbers, as thieves of another's soil and of the fruits
of another's labor. The houses in which you will settle will be set on fire,
and you will be struck down at every step and pursued constantly .. ."
|
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/23at.jpg) |
![](../../../Absiedlung/Bilder/Dokumente/35t.jpg) |
06.04.1941,
Personnel for
the Removal / Deportation
Text
|
12.04.1941,
Re-settlement Staff, Untersteiermark (Lower Styria)
|
23.06.1941,
confiscation of
Slovene properties.
Text
|
![](../../../Absiedlung/Bilder/Dokumente/01t.jpg) |
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/24t.gif) |
1.07.-27.09.1941,
transport trains,
numbers 1 – 33 |
03.10.1943,
Final report of the EWG (Settlement Authority) regarding the
expulsion/deportation
of the Slovene |
A new peak of panic was the result of this unasked for "information." The
ethnic group leadership could not effectively refute the propagandistic frontal
attack of the Slovenian underground. They were forced to restrict themselves
to strong words that did not help the confused population come to terms with
the fact that the Reich intended to settle them in a region from which Slovenes
had been driven.
Two Gottscheer personalities came to the foreground during this confusing period
in which the resettlement date was still not known. They were the retired secondary
school teacher Josef Perz in Lienfeld near Gottschee and the secondary school
teacher Peter Jonke in Klagenfurt. Siding with the religious opponents of the
resettlement, Perz advised his community to stay. He himself also could not
decide to leave because he believed he had to draw the final conclusions from
the life he had dedicated to the Gottscheer people. He was a man to whom the
people
listened. His involvement in the linguistic island had begun in 1885 at the
newly founded elementary school in Lichtenbach. He became a co-worker of Professor
Hauffen; Wilhelm Tschinkel was his friend. He dedicated decades of his life
to the folksongs,
the legends and tales, and the customs. In 1920, he, like Tschinkel, had to
decide whether to opt for Austria or to retire early. At that time he stayed.
Wilhelm Tschinkel, however, was still too young to give up his profession.
Peter Jonke was the last native-born Gottscheer teacher at the high school
in the city. He was immediately dismissed, opted for Austria, and moved to
Klagenfurt. There he found a new teaching position at a high school so that
he could build a new home for himself and his family. Gottschee, however, remained
his main focus in his private thoughts and feelings. In numerous lectures and
essays, he spoke up and fought for his homeland. He illuminated difficult historical
questions, unearthed old customs, and decisively participated in bringing the
Gottscheers in Carinthia together after World War II. Peter Jonke, too, felt
that his fellow countrymen should stay in the old homeland, but for him Gottschee
was more of a cultural than a political factor.
In July 1941, the resettlement agreement between the German Reich and
Italy was worked out. It bore the heading: "Vereinbarung zwischen der deutschen
Reichsregierung und der italienischen Regierung vom 31. August 1941 über
die Umsiedlung der deutschen Staatsangehörigen und Volksdeutschen aus der
Provinz
Laibach" (Agreement between the German Reichsgovernment and the Italian
Government of August 31, 1941 concerning the resettlement of the German citizens
and ethnic Germans from the province of Ljubljana). The Gottscheers
only found out about this after the Second World War in a London archive.
The head of the German negotiating team was not a diplomat but the chief
of the
staff headquarters, Ulrich Greifelt, who had been promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer.
Among other things, the agreement called for compensating the resettlers
for the property they left behind.
Himmler named a German "Umsiedlungsbevollmächtigten" (DUB) (a German
empowered to deal with the resettlement) as administrative head of the resettlement
from the province of Ljubljana. His name was Dr. Heinrich Wollert. The Italian
office was held by the same "High Commissioner" Emilio Grazioli
who was already mentioned earlier.
Despite the strict secrecy, rumors about the
location of the new settlement region finally filtered through. That it was
going to be a region that had been settled by Slovenes was evident from the
communist flyer. The rumors concentrated around the "Ranner Dreieck" (triangle
of Rann; in Slovenian, Brezice), with which one or another Gottscheer was
personally familiar. It was located 35 to 40 km northeast of Gottschee, in
the southeastern
corner of Lower Styria. An energetic marcher could reach it in a day.
It stretched from the Orlica mountains to the Croatian Uskoken region. Its
climate is so favorable that vineyards are cultivated
here. Dr. Wollert gives the following description of the region in the No.
47 issue
of the Gottscheer Zeitung of November 17, 1941:
![](../../../Landkarten/Bilder/Sonstige/28t.jpg) |
![](../../../Absiedlung/Bilder/Familien/01t.jpg) |
![](../../../Absiedlung/Bilder/Familien/02t.jpg) |
"Ranner
Dreieck" (Rann-triangle) |
Expulsion/ Deportation of the Slovene from their
homeland, 1941 |
"What does the new settlement region of the Gottscheer
ethnic group look like?"
Upon order of the Reichsführer SS ... upon the recommendation of the district
leader ... of Styria the so-called Rann-triangle, a strip on the lower
Sava, the Gurk and the Sattelbach (brook), has been selected for the settlement. It
is a unified, self-enclosed settlement region, which is formed by a fertile
river valley. Mountains and hills, on which grapes are grown, surround this
region and protect it from cold air currents."
"The center of this region is
the city of Rann (Brezice) ..."
As a warning, the opponents of the resettlement spread the anxiety-provoking
news that the Gottscheers would receive a settlement region from which the
Slovenes had been driven by force. But also those Gottscheers who had in their
hearts already resigned themselves to leaving their old homeland had nightmares
when they thought of themselves moving to farms that had been taken from others.
The inhabitants of the "Ländchen" realized that matters were
getting serious when they saw the preparations for installing the resettlement
offices
in the city.
Now they could also figure out that it would not be long before they had
to start on the trek into the uncertain future. The DUB set about constructing
a branch office, as did the DUT (Deutsche Umsiedlungs-Treuhand-Gesellschaft
- German Resettlement Trust Company), whose task it was to appraise and take
over
the
resettlement property. An office of the district leader of Styria in his
capacity as district representative of the Reich's commissioner was set up
in Marburg
an der Drau. It was given the task of transferring the Slovenes from the
Rann-triangle and installing the Gottscheers - also other ethnic Germans!
-
on their properties. In particular, this was accomplished by employees of
the
DAG (Deutsche
Ansiedlungs-Gesellschaft - German Settlement Company), which was incorporated
in the Marburg office of the district leader. One day, the "Sonderzug
Heinrich" (special train
called "Heinrich") of the EWZ (Einwanderungs-Zentrale - Central
Immigration Office) rode into Gottschee, a shrewdly devised mobile office
for the "Durchschleusung" (processing) of the resettlers and
for the categorization according to the most diverse characteristics. The
special train
with the ingenious name "Heinrich" appeared wherever ethnic Germans
vacated their homeland.
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/02t.jpg) |
![](../../../Nazi/Bilder/Sonstige/01t.jpg) |
Gauleiter (Province Administrator) Siegfried
Uiberreither |
In the meantime, significant difficulties developed in relocating the Slovenes
from the Rann-triangle. The relevant discussions had already begun in May
1941. The relocation was to take place in three waves. The first two had
nothing
to do with the settling of the Gottscheers. - The just founded Croatian
state had declared itself willing to accept the transferred Slovenes on the
condition that it would extradite those Serbs who had settled in Croatia
after World War I to the remaining area of Serbia. Hitler gave his consent
to this
plan on May 18, 1941. However, it could not be set into motion because the
partisans in the Italian occupied province of Ljubljana had begun their resistance
movement in Lower Styria and in Croatia. The Germans were not prepared for
this. Himmler immediately
stopped the transfer of the Slovenes. The Croatians, however, retracted
their offer to accept them. On another side, the Styrian district leader
Uiberreither
let it be known that he was not only against relocating the Slovenes but
also against the settling of the Gottscheers on their territory. But he was
not
able to offer another more just solution. The staff headquarters outdid him
with the suggestion that the Slovenes be transferred into the old Reich.
Thus, the foreign policy dilemma was solved and they remained in charge of
things.
On October 10, 1941 - the plebiscite in Carinthia had taken place twenty-one
years earlier - Heinrich Himmler put an end to the interminable back
and forth between the staff headquarters and the district leadership in Graz
with
the categorical command that the Gottscheers were to be resettled without
delay.
The inhabitants of Gottschee were spared nothing. District leader Uiberreither
had deliberately delayed the transfer of the Slovenes during the wrangling
with the staff headquarters. Where were the Gottscheers to be settled now?
Himmler's command could not simply be wiped out. This was the situation on
October 10: There was not nearly enough space available to resettle the Gottscheers
from farm to farm. Winter was on the way. The time pressure seemed to make
any sort of
orderly resettling impossible. Despite the difficulties that could be expected
with regard to the people and the organization, the staff headquarters started
to vacate the "Ländchen" and at the same time expedited the
transfer of the Slovenes. Staff headquarters chief Ulrich Greifelt put SS-Oberführer
Hintze in charge of coordinating both relocation movements. To be sure, as
of November 8, 1941, Hintze's commission was called "Gleichschaltung" (political
coordination by eliminating opposition).
The last ray of hope was extinguished.
The Gottscheers had from October 20 to November 20, 1941 to decide whether
or not they would opt for the German Reich. Everyone was forced to make the
decision to go or to stay. No one could escape the decision. The Gottscheers
disagreed just as obstinately now as they had in 1907. This time, however,
it was not simply a matter of electing a delegate and then everything remaining
as it was. The decision that had to be made now was also not comparable to
the one about emigrating to Austria or to the United States. The emigrant of
earlier times decided freely and only for himself. He could also stay if he
accepted the living conditions as they were. When Gottscheers had left their
homeland prior to this point in time, it had continued to exist.
Now make your decision, Gottscheer!
However you decide, you will always be against your "Lantle"!
To
pressure even the last countryman in this conflict of conscience, the ethnic
group leadership seized upon the most effective method of modern political
propaganda, the mass demonstration. Under the motto "Der Letzte Appell!" (the
last call), about 900 "Mannschaft" members and more than 1,000
youths and girls paraded past the ethnic group leadership and the German
resettlement
delegate, Dr. Heinrich Wollert, on October 19, 1941. The likes of this had
never before been seen in the linguistic island - a different, macabre
six-hundredth anniversary closing celebration.
The opting of the Gottscheers
for Germany began on October 20, 1941 with fateful punctuality.
Even before
the "Durchschleusung" (processing) began, the staff headquarters
received messages about disagreements in the ethnic group. It demanded a
factual report from the DUB in Ljubljana. They were especially concerned
about Dr.
Arko. Apparently the ethnic group leadership had reported to Berlin that
he was an active opponent of the resettlement and did not intend to resettle.
The opposite was heard from other sources: Dr. Arko was reminding not only
a few of his fellow
countrymen of their duties towards Germany. To be sure, in a memorandum to
the chief of the EWZ-special train in November 1941, he did accuse the young
ethnic group leadership of not having adequately carried out the propaganda
for the resettlement on an "emotional" basis. He probably meant
thereby the all too harsh
language with which they wanted to turn their fellow countrymen from their
old homeland. With the expression "zu wenig seelisch" (too little
emotion), the embittered ethnic politician apparently wanted to denounce
the lack of emotional
discretion. By the way, Dr. Hans Arko did resettle. He first settled in Rann/Sawe,
and after the expulsion he was an attorney in Völkermarkt and died in 1953
in Klagenfurt.
The opting seemed to proceed without any complaints. Patiently, but not without
some curiosity, those who opted for resettlement endured the bureaucratic processing
procedure. Except for the former peddlers during the winters from 1934 to 1938,
hardly any of the rural inhabitants had ever faced a German authority before.
They found the very precise, but friendly questioning by the officials not
unpleasant. They seemed to think that this was the proper German way.
The option-application
was the prerequisite for everything else. The "Sturmführer" had
brought the blank application to the house, picked up the completed form
again, had it notarized by the Italian mayor, and then submitted it to the
district
representative of the DUP. The lists of voluntary resettlers that were set
up jointly with the DUT were then passed on to the EWZ-special train. By
the way, the personnel of the special train made two trips into the isolated
regions
so that those who opted to resettle were spared the walk to the city in the
bad weather.
The applicants were questioned about their personal data, their domicile,
the community, the district leadership office, even, indeed, about their
personal
attitude towards the ethnic group. Afterwards they were photographed, examined
by a doctor. X-rayed, classified according to "race," admitted and
made citizens of the German Reich. Of course, the citizenship papers could
only be handed out, so it was said, in the "new settlement region." This
was to prevent individuals who had just been naturalized from simply settling
in the Reich with this document in their hands.
Afterwards, a detailed worksheet
was issued for the settlement staff in Marburg an der Drau. It informed the
settlement planners in Lower Styria of the profession and property of the
resettler, who was given a transit number so that the local groups, villages,
and hearths
could be distinguished from one another. In addition,
the resettler had to make a "declaration of property." Commissions
checked the claim on the site and fixed the value of the individual property.
Among the numerous papers that accompanied the Gottscheer from his "Ländchen" were
two that were provocatively similar: The resettlement identification papers
and a declaration that he was relinquishing all his properties - house,
farm, land and soil and forest - to the "Deutsche Umsiedlungs-Treuhand-Gesellschaft" (German
Resettlement Trust Company).
Of course, the resettlement identity card was an administrative necessity because
its possessor was in no man's land as far as his citizenship was concerned.
He had lost or never received Austro-Hungarian citizenship, Italian citizenship
was denied to him, he no longer had Yugoslavian citizenship, and German citizenship
was only promised to him. He could not yet prove he had the latter if he had
to do so. Until he finally received it, he suffered endless unmitigated psychic
distress over
the loss of that plot of land on which man is placed without an identity
card - the homeland.
|
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/12t.jpg) |
|
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/20t.jpg) |
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/16t.jpg) |
Transport ticket
|
EWZ ticket
|
|
Third Reich - Re-settlers Passport
|
Certainly the German-Italian resettlement agreement
assured the Gottscheers that they would be compensated for the property they
had left behind, and they believed it when they made their property declarations.
Just as surely, however, one cannot blame them for not seeing any historical
parallels in this. There was, for instance, the handshake with which their
ancestors had received the primeval forest land from the lord and the handshake
with which the official from the German Reich received the written statement
relinquishing their claim to the homeland.
We in the twentieth century
hardly ever still think in symbols and emblems. This, however, does not absolve
the historian from not showing them when the end of nations or tribes and
established human communities is evident.
Here we have an example of such an end. A tiny part of Gottschee disappeared
forever from history, a door, which had neither key nor latch, was shut with
every Gottscheer farmer's signature.
Thus, the "processing" proceeded
without complaints in the special train "Heinrich" but not, however,
in the villages. Dr. Günther Stier, the authorized
section leader in the staff headquarters surmised that the opting did not
proceed as planned, although an intermediary report by Lampeter could have
set his
mind at peace. Only a few days prior to the expiration date for the option,
he heard from the EWZ about the until-then catastrophic result: the opposition
propaganda had been particularly effective in the eastern and western border
regions. It came above all from the Gottscheer women and men who were married
to Slovenes and was aimed at instilling fear for their lives, as well as
their possessions, in those who were willing to resettle. Up to twenty-five
percent
of those who were entitled to opt for resettlement had not appeared at the
EWZ. Similarly disappointing percentages were also reported, however, in
the more centrally located "Stürme" (local groups). In Rieg and
surroundings (Reverend Josef Kraker), and in Mitterdorf
(Reverend Josef Eppich), a fourth of the population had likewise not come
to register. Even the local group of Nesseltal still was short twelve percent,
even though the Reverend August Schauer had already died on July 1, 1941.
That
Lienfeld, too, had a shortage of twenty percent was without a doubt due to
the attitude of the retired secondary schoolteacher Josef Perz towards the
resettling. However, since the "locals" of Gottschee/City, Mitterdorf,
Rieg, and Nesseltal were the most populous in the entire settlement region,
the undecided comprised
more than a fourth of the population of the settlement region.
In Berlin,
one calculated what the consequences would be if one could not bring the
figure
close to 100 percent in the days that still remained to the expiration
date. Otherwise, the Reichs-government would be guilty of failing to live
up to its agreement with Italy. The opponents, however, could claim that
the Reich
had forfeited its attractiveness for the ethnic Germans despite all the military
victories, an argument that could not easily be refuted.
The first transport with settlers left the train station in Gottschee/City
on November 14, 1941, about the same time that the staff headquarters, the
DUB, and the ethnic group leadership realized the seriousness of the situation.
![](../../../Weltkrieg/Bilder/Sonstige/104t.jpg) |
![](../../../Weltkrieg/Bilder/Sonstige/105t.jpg) |
![](../../../Weltkrieg/Bilder/Sonstige/106t.jpg) |
Re-settlement of Suchen, with swastika banners |
Italian Forces "Carabinieri reali" |
The DUB received the order from Berlin to solve the problem of those unwilling
to resettle as quickly as possible. Thereupon Dr. Wollert published a special
edition of the Gottscheer Zeitung on November 17, that is, three whole days
before
the expiration of the option period. It contained an "explanation" and
was quickly
distributed throughout the "Ländchen." The main article made
promises which could never be kept and made assertions that were simply not
true.
It stated among other things:
What awaits you in the new homeland? This is the
question that is asked by all of those who see their friends and relatives
departing without themselves
being able to go along now, too.
This is the basic principle of every resettlement:
In the resettlement region, the resettler receives property equal in value
to the property he left behind. This means that a Gottscheer farmer who leaves
a farm here that supported him well will receive a farm in the resettlement
region on which he will be able to live well. It, however, also means that
a farmer who had been forced by unfavorable circumstances to live on a farm
that was inadequate for himself and his family will find the same in the
new settlement region.
It is the aim of the resettlement to create a healthy peasant class on an
adequate acreage base. Thus, whoever is capable of working a farm will have
the opportunity
to create a farm for himself which will allow him to improve his
and his family's living conditions.
The author or authors of this "explanation" had
then apparently had second
thoughts about the excessive promises while still in the process of writing
them down. They immediately limited them again as follows:
"The selection
of new farms demands the most careful preparation. The resettling staffs
are most
eager to take the special wishes of the resettlers into consideration. Given
the significance of this task whose effects will be felt for decades and
centuries, it is not possible to present the resettler with a completed
solution upon his arrival. Thus, it will not always be possible to immediately
settle the resettler on a property which corresponds to his capabilities
and to the value of the property he left behind. On the other hand, there
is no
plan
to set up the resettlers in camps as this could not be in the interest of
the resettlers and it also would be a waste of the labor force and of time.
Thus,
some of the resettlers will be given property which only somewhat corresponds
to that which they had up to now. The resettler can begin to work here immediately.
If in the course of the winter it becomes clear that this temporarily assigned
farm does not correspond to the capabilities nor to the value of the property
left behind, the farmer will be relocated so that he can plow and plant his
fields and finally take over and work his farm in the spring. Thus, the intermediary
farms and housing may be assigned solely in the interest of the resettler
in order to avoid absolutely a wrong decision which would have lasting negative
effects. The author was also very aware of the concerns of the Gottscheers
about the Slovenes who had been ousted from their homes because he attempted
to dissipate these concerns with words that contained not a shred of truth.
He wrote:
"The
former inhabitants of this region have resettled in a very orderly manner
and are also being taken care of by the German Reich. Besides being assured
full
compensation for the property they left behind, letters and reports from
these inhabitants prove that they are well-provided for in their new settlement
region
and look to the future filled with hope."
This was pure mockery of the gullibility of the Gottscheers. The resettlement
of these "inhabitants" had not been completed when the "clarification" appeared,
nor could one speak of a "settlement region" of the Slovenes in
the German Reich. Rather, they were in camps of the "Volksdeutschen
Mittelstelle" (ethnic
German intermediary office); some were employed as "Fremdarbeiter" (foreign
workers) in munitions factories and then also received housing. There was
no mention of about 37,000 Slovenes from the "Sawe-Sotla-Streifen," as
the Rann-triangle was also
officially called, who were supposed to be and were relocated.
During these
decisive three days, the ethnic group leadership and the "Stürme" desperately
fought for the last percentages of those who were undecided. They
had to overcome a new, unexpected obstacle: The resettlement transport had
barely arrived in Lower Styria when uncontrollable rumors and reports surfaced
in the "Ländchen." The assigning of the resettlers to their
new properties was said to be poorly organized, furniture was said to be
standing
unprotected
along the streets in the snow, the relocated Slovenes supposedly had partly
demolished their houses and apartments, and the farms assigned to the Gottscheers
were said not to come close to the ones they left behind.
The deadline for opting expired on November 20, 1941 without an extension.
The EWZ had accepted the option applications of 11,747 persons living in
the linguistic island of Gottschee. According to Dr. Wollert, there were
12,104. In plain
figures, the EWZ registered:
8,624 over fourteen and 3,123 persons under fourteen years of age. Among
them were 93 persons who had already acquired German citizenship before the
resettlement.
One statistic outside of the EWZ counted 11,756 people: 5,850 males and 5,906
females who together belonged to 2,951 hearths-households.
The EWZ in its
final report confirmed that the Gottscheers were in good health and said
they were
the best resettlers that it had processed up to then (Frensing, pages 166
and 168).
![](../../../Dokumente/Bilder/Sonstige/22t.jpg)
Final
report: "Re-settlement of the Gottscheer", National-Sozialist EWC-Ingathering
Center.
Everything, but everything, seemed to have conspired against the
12,000
Gottscheers. Even nature struck once more and let them feel the full harshness
of the continental climate. Towards the end of November - the majority
of resettlers still had to be transported - there were continuous severe
snowstorms and bitter cold. Here and there, they made it impossible to transport
people and properties, as well as livestock, to the trains. The seventy trucks
that were provided by the DUB could still only get through a few streets
because it was impossible to keep the paths that were higher up clear of
snow. In addition,
the assigned Dutch truck drivers refused to drive the trucks because they
feared being shot down by the
partisans on their trips through the woods. Finally, the remaining trucks
also stopped because the gasoline supply that had been appropriated never
arrived.
But thanks to their acquired improvisarional skills, the Gottscheers were
able to deal
with the transportation problem in their region: the ethnic group leadership
changed over to sleds.
That was still tolerable. One could still use one's hands. The resettler, however,
felt defenseless against the bad state of affairs depicted in the news reports
from Lower Styria. They confirmed that the resettlement was poorly organized.
The promised resettling from farm-to-farm and from village-to-village did not
happen because it could not happen! The farms and villages of the relocated
Slovenes were structured completely differently than those in Gottschee. No
farm and no village from there could compare to one over here. Probably as
a result of the negative
attitude of the district leader Uiberreither toward the settling of the Gottscheers
in the Rann-triangle, the resettlement staff in Marburg worked sullenly and
carelessly. Furniture actually stood in the snow, although not in all streets.
And a transport of resettlers could actually not be processed several days
before Christmas Eve because the responsible official had forgotten to assign
a deputy before he went on his Christmas vacation.
The Italians did not treat the Gottscheers as members of that nation to which
it was joined by a "brazen axis", but as a bothersome element
that was to disappear, the sooner the better. Confiscation was the order
of the
day.
In face of these difficulties which it had not caused, the ethnic group leadership
found itself in an understandably complicated situation. Despite all the criticism
of its conduct in the summer of 1941, it cannot be said that it had wanted
nothing to do with the problems of the resettlement, or that it had not at
all recognized what they were. It continued to act as if no one could relieve
it of the responsibility for the future fate of the Gottscheers. In human terms,
this surely was a plus for the leadership. If this was politically wise, given
the circumstances, remains to be seen.
On December 29, 1941 Willi Lampeter took a daring step. He sent a representative,
the youth leader Richard Lackner to Berlin with a personal gift for Heinrich
Himmler. Lackner wanted to describe the untenable conditions in Lower Styria
to him, the "Reichskommissar für die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums" (the
Reich's Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Peoples), and to ask
him to give the necessary orders to remove them. Lampeter, who was not familiar
with the rules of the power game in the Third Reich, hoped that this trip
to
Berlin would be a spectacular personal success for him. He wanted to play
off this success against the "Miesmachern" (alarmists) at a meeting
set for January 3, 1942 in the city of Gottschee. Lackner did not get to
meet the
Reichsführer-SS; he
supposedly was at the Führer headquarters. He was also only able to get
an appointment for January 5 with the chief of the staff headquarters. Greifelt
intimated to the youth leader from Gottschee that he was informed about everything
that he wanted to tell him and that on the morning of January 5, he had already
ordered SS-Oberführer Hintze to clear up "die Dinge unten" (things
down there).
At the January 3 meeting, Willi Lampeter felt himself cornered
by Lackner´s involuntary silence. One could rightfully call this gathering
of about one hundred
city dwellers a protest action. They demanded a binding clarification about
what was
truthful in his description of the conditions in the resettlement region
and threatened to withdraw the option. A representative of the resettlement
staff
in Marburg who was also present vehemently accused the team leader of Gottschee
of spreading falsehoods that he could not defend. During the heated debate
that developed, the young SS-Sturmbannführer maintained that his facts
were correct.
Richard Lackner returned from Berlin on January 6, 1942. Lampeter saw
no other recourse than to write to Heinrich Himmler himself. On January
9 he sent the
Reichsführer-SS a report about the awful conditions in the resettlement
region and the failure of the resettlement staff. In the interest of
the resettlers,
he urgently asked for help. However, Lampeter only sent a carbon copy of
the letter addressed to Himmler to the staff headquarters on January
10. This delay
of only a day put Ulrich Greifelt into an awkward position with regard to
his uppermost superior, Heinrich Himmler: The personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS
demanded an immediate response to the alarming letter from Lower Styria from
the staff headquarters. However, since Greifelt knew nothing about Lampeter´s
report, he thought he had been outdone by him and furthermore charged him
with
the intention of bypassing his office in Gottschee. Hintze immediately received
the order to call Lampeter to account. The "Mannschaftsführer" of
Gottschee had written the following, among other things, to Himmler:
Firstly:
For weeks he had attempted to counteract the lack of care that was given in
the resettlement region and criticized the unhygienic housing of expectant
and breast-feeding mothers in mass quarters.
Secondly: The transportation of resettlers from the train stations to their
winter quarters was poorly organized. Thus, for example, property of the resettlers
had lain along the streets in the snow for weeks.
Thirdly: The employing of
Slovenian farmhands by the DAG on the farms in the interim has encouraged livestock
theft.
Fourthly: The auxiliary Slovenian police that is being employed in the
resettlement region has not yet been replaced by German officials. (Hintze
confirmed Lampeter's assertion and criticized the delay by the responsible
Styrian authorities.)
Fifthly: The prophecies of the worst instigators of the
opposition propaganda have been surpassed by the realities. (Compare Frensing,
page 133.)
Sixthly: There is a great housing shortage.
SS-Oberführer Hintze
called a meeting of all involved offices, including the ethnic group leadership
of Gottschee, for January 16, 1942 in Marburg an der Drau. On the whole,
he rejected Lampeter s accusations against the resettlement staff although
he
made minor admissions. But that was really no longer the issue. The Gottscheers,
namely Lampeter, were to be shown that the National Socialist, regardless
of the situation, was to obey. Moreover, it was obvious that Greifelt
and Hintze wanted to use the opportunity to unseat the obstinate "Sturmbannführer" from
Gottschee. Hintze particularly reproached Lampeter for his conduct
at the meeting of January 3, 1942 and accused him of deliberately adding
fuel to the fire instead of encouraging his fellow countrymen to resettle.
He supposedly
had totally misrepresented the conditions in Lower Styria. The accused defended
himself by stating that he had wanted to reveal the incontestible facts
in order to accurately show the reasons for the resettlers´ complaints.
Hintze thought this was merely a poor excuse.
But Willi Lampeter was taught a bitter lesson not only by those above
him but also by those below him, by his own people. At an "inspection" in
Rann on January 11, 1942 he had urged his subordinate leaders to once more
rally around the former ethnic group leadership; probably what he meant was
around him. He also had explained to them what he planned to do next. He
left no doubt that he intended to proceed independently. Now he heard
from Hintze
at this meeting, which resembled an interrogation more than a discussion,
that the latter was precisely informed about the Rann "inspection." Thus,
the "Mannschaftsführer" was forced to accept that he could
no longer depend upon the former loyal followers from home. And in his disappointment,
he thoughtlessly fell for the trap that
the better-versed Hintze set for him with these words:
Among other things,
you said to the "Sturmführern" (local leaders):
... that you
wanted to go over the heads of the regional leader and the superior offices
to present
your concerns in Berlin.
Lampeter responded: "At the time the situation
was thus that I do [sic] not have any office above me."
On January 19, 1942 SS-Oberführer Hintze gave the following report
to Greifelt about the conclusions he came to given Lampeter´s attitude: "After
my lengthy discussion with Lampeter, I have come to the conclusion that
he is
too young and too inexperienced for the responsibilities he was given, as
well as for the position of SS-Sturmbannführer. He also lacks the necessary
insight
and self-discipline that such an office demands. I therefore informed him
that I would hence assume the command of the Gottscheer militia group
myself and
have to ask him to refrain from all activity in the resettlement region and
that I have to extend this measure also to his staff leader Lackner." In
conclusion, Hintze suggested to the staff headquarters that Lampeter be immediately
recalled to the Old Reich. He did not rule out further measures against him.
The reprimanded Willi Lampeter of Mitterdorf near Gottschee now was a simple
resettler with identity card and transport number pushed off into the Old
Reich. In the eyes of his prestige-seeking SS-superiors he had shown himself
incapable
and not national-socialistic enough. A hero? A tragic figure? More likely
the latter. His fault: He was so naive and presumptuous to assume that, backed
by the 600-year history of the Gottscheers, he could go directly to the
leaders
of the Third
Reich on behalf of his fellow countrymen´s fate. He had not only offended
their super-sensitivity with this undertaking but had also violated the existential
imperative of the Gottscheers: the confines of the space and the powerlessness
of the small number.
SS-Standartenführer Otto Lurkner - SS-Officer
As far as the factual accuracy of the complaints that
Willi Lampeter had
presented is concerned, they were subsequently not only confirmed by trustworthy
observers but also supplemented.
Thus, Hintze, who in the meantime had been promoted to SS Brigadeführer,
received a report from the chief of the SD-Sector of Lower Styria, SS-Standartenführer
Lurkner, that contained in part hair-raising
details. In June 1942 the director of the cultural commission at the DUB
in Ljubljana, Professor Hans Schwalm, summarized his impressions of the
resettlement region of the Gottscheers as follows: "It is shocking to
observe the depression that has
spread among the Gottscheers. The causes for this catastrophic condition
are: the poor organization when the Gottscheers arrived in the resettlement
region
of Rann, the truly hopeless condition of the houses in the resettlement region,
the lack of self-initiated activity ... having to witness the already
partly criminal mismanagement by individual functionaries of the DAG ...
the
lack of a political leadership and group direction of their own, a lack,
which
could not be filled by setting up a corresponding organization of the 'Steirischen
Heimatbundes' (Styrian Homeland Organization)." (According to Frensing,
pages 149-50). There also are reports from Gottscheers. Let us first listen
to the former priest of Altlag, Alois Krisch. He does not explicitly complain
that he can no longer carry out his role as spiritual caretaker in the midst
of the people who had become so dear to him. But one can read between the
lines of his report of how much he regrets that the families of his parish
which
had merged together over the centuries were now split apart. He writes as
follows on page 20 of the "Dokumentation des Bundesministers für Vertriebene
und Flüchtlinge" (Documentation of the Federal Minister
for Displaced Persons and Refugees), Volume V:
"When they arrived in the villages,
the individual families were assigned to houses, good and bad, also to very
miserable cottages (small houses of day laborers), all so-called temporary
housing for the winter. There was too much disappointment, much suffering
and tears, much anger and grumbling and often justly and for a good reason,
but
also not seldom without cause. The following should help to understand all
of this (at least partially):
"When we arrived in Rann, before we even got
off the train, one of our
countrymen who had arrived two days earlier with the people from Langenton,
came to us and wept as he told us how bad things were here, how badly off
he is, what kind of a cottage he had been given, etc. I controlled myself
so as
not to scold him, because I was very annoyed with him since I knew that this
man had had nothing, really nothing! He had lived in a cottage that did not
belong to him. Thus, it was not possible that he was worse off here than
at home where he had had nothing. He truly had no reason to talk like this
- better than nothing is everything -; a young man needn't cry about
that! I reminded the people of this when he had left and they were assuaged;
they
were familiar
with his circumstances at home .. .
![](../../../Umsiedlung/Bilder/EWZ/20t.jpg)
The Gottscheer abandon their "Homeland", 15.11.1941
The unreasonably exaggerated propaganda
during the previous summer about great farms and barns was much to blame
for the discontent. In reality,
the houses and barns were generally far inferior to those we had left.
In general, the housing in Gottschee had been much better and more spacious.
The resettlement from farm to farm had also been exaggerated. It was stated:
Here you leave your farm and there you will ride by car from the train to
your new, fully-equipped farm, etc. - and now we find so many miserable
huts! Many a good farmer from home had to be satisfied with a poor hut and
he and
his entire family, of four, five, up to six children, had to live in one
room, which was also often damp! It is incomprehensible how the propaganda
could spread such falsehoods about the reality.
This effect was intensified
still further since the people saw that there were very few good houses and
farms available. They therefore knew that only a
small fraction of the people could be adequately housed—not at all
what the propaganda had promised. Thus, the consolation that things would
be set
right in the spring was of little use; so was the promise of new buildings.
Still more unreasonable than this propaganda were the unbelievable expectations
of some people. I don't want to go into details about this, but I just want
to state what I once said to those who had such fantasies several months
before the resettlement. If you think that a well-furnished house,
everything spic-and-span, dining room, spare room and living room all nicely
heated, a barn full of cattle await you there where you are going and perhaps
also servants festively dressed will greet you joyously because you have
finally come and then lead you into the dining room, seat you, and right
away serve
you roasts and "Pobolitzen" (a yeast dough cake roll), then you
will be terribly disappointed and no one can help you.
A number of those who were dissatisfied moved several times; they moved here
and there but were not satisfied anywhere. And there were also those who complained
only because they heard others complain; it seemed like an
infectious disease - that was the only plausible explanation for the
complaining of some. I explained all of this once to the provincial council
during a conversation
on this topic by making the following comparison: Try to move an orchard
with older trees even just a few meters. It is not going to work out. Our
Gottscheers
were solidly rooted trees and were so for centuries. He agreed with me.
... In spite of all these things that I have listed, it must be said that
much anger, grumbling, much wailing, much suffering, and very many tears
were
only all too justified.
Many families, including those with many children who had a beautiful and spacious
house at home, were housed in truly miserable shelters. They lived here not
only for a few weeks or months but even through the second,
many even through the third and fourth winter. They had to endure, even though
they made every effort and tried in many ways to bring about a change. There
were many inequities in the assignment of the houses. Some people
who had a good and well-running farm at home were given the same; other farmers
and proprietors who were just as well-off were offered things that were barely
worth a quarter of what they had in their homeland. Many of
them, of course, did not accept. Others were made offers that surpassed their
holdings at home at least tenfold. Some accepted, others appropriately declined
to take on commitments for which they would have to pay for decades (they
were offered a thirty-year mortgage) .. .
Many of our people were resettled far away, near Marburg, Pettau, and
elsewhere, so that they were isolated from our people and one hundred
or more kilometers
away. So-called "O-cases" were also deliberately created by
making unjust offers. Settlers were made such offers that they obviously
could not accept. The second and third offers were no better. Since they
also did
not accept these, it was said that they were people who could not be satisfied
despite several offers and hence were to be sent "nach Osten" (to
the east) (O-cases), that is, to Poland. I know of a case in which the young
Gottscheer farmer
who was threatened with this said: Mr. St., offer me something which has
just half or at least a third of the value of that which I had at home, and
I will
accept!
... Besides the O-cases there were also the "A-cases." These had
already been classified as such at home during the processing. An "A" was
placed in their "resettler passport." They were those who were
considered to be not up
to standard (apparently according to the race law). They were supposed to
be separated from the other Gottscheers and were to be transferred to the "Altreich" (Old
Reich) (hence A-cases). They, that is, the whole family, were then taken
there and, again segregated from all others, were put to work in different
factories,
even though they were farmers at home and had owned property.
The old and disabled
were solicitously housed in nursing homes. Of a number of them we know that
they were taken to Passau. Of some also that they soon died there. Of the
rest: Was it really solicitude or - ?
The ties and the unity which had
made the typical character of the Gottscheer people at all possible were
already
aimlessly
destroyed in Lower Styria. A new Gottscheer people could not grow from this
destroyed land. The staff headquarters had intended to make a survey of the
still existing Gottscheer ethnic treasures before the transfer from Gottschee.
But the cultural commission that was planned
by the DUB was never set into motion. The Italians intentionally prevented
its entrance into the province of Ljubljana by delaying the granting of the
visas until the inclement weather made the research impossible. It was only
a lucky coincidence that the Viennese scholar of ethnic traditions, Dr. Richard
Wolfram, was still able
to question the older generation of Gottscheers about the annual traditions
before the Yugoslavia campaign. Professor Wolfram newly traced the "Brauchtum
der Gottscheer" (Folklore of the Gottscheers), a field which had been
somewhat neglected, in five articles in the "Jahrbuch für Ostdeutsche
Volkskunde" (Yearbook of East German
Ethnic Studies) and in several lectures. He was well aware that having matured
in the warmth of familial tradition, the Gottscheer folklore was nonetheless
condemned to wither in the icy air of the resettlement region.
The longing for the homeland circulated among the Gottscheers. At home
the farms were vacant. Were they still standing? No one had thought of
offering
at least the larger villages with the good soil to the Slovenes who had been
removed from here. Of course, the "High Commissioner" in Ljubljana
would have done everything in his power to prevent their settling there. Now
they were without a homeland, these as well as those, prisoners of their fate.
Only very few Gottscheers considered the land that they now tilled as their
own and final property. "After
the war everything will be different and better." Hardly a conversation
among Gottscheers still concluded with this statement. They fared no better
and no worse than everyone else and lived as the war permitted. They were
only less secure from year to year because in that region in which the Gottscheers
had been settled as "Wehr- und Grenzbauern" (defense and border
farmers), there was no Reich´s border for the partisans. They thought of
it as Slovenia.
They saw the resettlers from "Kocevje" as free game. With squads
of up to twenty men they attacked,
sometimes almost with military preparedness, their settlements, seized, robbed,
plundered, and murdered. Herbert Otterstädt gives a vivid example of this
on page 20
of his pictorial book: "A troop of partisans attacked a young Gottscheer
teacher by the name of Franz Hönigmann by daylight and forced him, while
his students watched, to dig a grave. Then they bludgeoned him to death and
threw
him into the pit." - The kidnapped Gottscheers were never heard
from again.
Only a few individual reports exist about the life of the Gottscheers
in Lower Styria after the completion of the "settlement." Little
was made known about the fate of those who had refused to take the option
after the
twelve thousand left. Their exact number was never known. There may have
been 400 to 500 of them. The settlement region that the Gottscheers left
behind
was now practically a military no man´s land. Already in the winter
of 1941-42, the partisans occupied the outer villages that had been evacuated
first and
burned the fruit trees, barns,
and stables. From these isolated strong points, they more and more frequently
attacked the larger villages in the main valleys which were occupied mainly
by the Italian forces. In this struggle which resembled guerrilla warfare,
the opponents burned down each other´s strongholds. It will never be
known whether the Italians or the partisans razed more Gottscheer villages
to the
ground. Except for a few completely or partially preserved villages, almost
all of the settlements were burned down. We are not surprised that the old
settlement centers were best able to
withstand this chaotic time. The Reverend Josef Eppich in Mitterdorf, who had
been against the resettlement and had decided to stay, was killed in June 1942
during a battle between the Italians and the partisans by a supposedly stray
bullet. The priest happened to be outdoors at the time. Supposedly!
![](../../../Geistlichkeit/Bilder/Sonstige/03t.jpg)
The Reverend Josef Eppich.
The priests Josef Kraker, Rieg, and Josef Gliebe, Göttenitz, also had not
resettled. Kraker, no longer safe in Rieg, succeeded in getting to Ljubljana
and to Veldes
where he was helped by his fellow Rieger, Ferdl Wittine. Through the latter´s
intercession, Reverend Kraker was given a parish near Veldes where he died
in 1949 as a priest who was respected by the Slovenes. This Gottscheer who
was so very aware of his ethnic background could no longer find his way back
to his fellow countrymen and had to give his sermons in a foreign tongue.
At
first Gliebe stayed in Göttenitz, was robbed several times, until the order
came in 1949 to clear the entire village. Those who had come to Göttenitz
from Laserbach right after the war also again left the village. Josef Gliebe
stayed in Niederdorf where he died. The oldest monstrance of Gottschee, which
is surrounded by legend, was rescued by him and by his niece respectively.
The
region surrounding Göttenitz is - "verbotene Zone" (restricted
zone).
With delaying tactics, the Italian occupation forces finally withdrew
to the city and the northern Oberland. By cutting deep aisles in the mountain
forests they hoped to be able to keep a better eye on the partisans. This
turned out to be a mistake. The Slovenian underground fighters also made
life difficult
for the Fascist army in the new positions by attacking them with small arms
artillery.
The Castle of Auersperg in the city, the seat of the district office and
other offices, was heavily damaged. It was particularly hard hit during the
final
battle for the city.
Supposedly it would not have paid to rebuild it again, so the leading partisan
circles claimed. But that was not the issue. On the contrary, they were much
more eager to leave no trace of this reminder of the six-hundred year presence
of the Gottscheers
in Lower Carniola, no matter what the cost. Now no Slovenian child would have
to ask who had built this big house. On the spot where the castle once stood
a modern department store and a partisan memorial were set up.
After the landing of the Allied forces in southern Italy and the subsequent
collapse of the Mussolini-state, the province of Ljubljana was occupied by
the Germans. Dr. Wollert, the DUB in Ljubljana, reports about the resulting
new situation on page 8 of Volume V of Dokumentation des Vertriebenen-Ministeriums
(Documents of the Ministry for the Displaced) in Bonn:
"... In addition, the
Italians left the Slovenian region at the end of 1943, the beginning of
1944. The region became an occupation zone and was placed under the jurisdiction
of German military personnel. As a result, the German official in charge
of
the resettlement with the consent of the EMONA and
with the confirmation of the German military authorities, again became the
administrator of the property, and this time as a trustee. Since the rural
regions in Gottschee could no longer be administered, his administrative
duties
after this time were mainly concerned with paying the debts and claims that
the settlers had left behind. The local agencies understandably attached
great importance to this.
About February 1945 the German official in charge of the resettlement
liquidated his office by dismissing the Slovenian employees in an entirely
orderly way,
taking the files to Velden/Wörthersee, and appointing a local
trustee in the person of an attorney from the region for the property remaining
in Ljubljana, particularly for the cash and bank accounts. The trustee was
instructed to hand over these values to the agency which was legally entitled
to them. It was necessary to take these measures at that time because Ljubljana
was about to be occupied by the partisans."
1944: The frontier around the German
Reich continues to contract. For the
third time, the Gottscheer farmer plows soil that his conscience knows does
not belong to him. The Slovenes who had remained behind in the "new
settlement region" carry their heads higher, look past or through the
Gottscheers with a triumphant smile. Many resettlers from the "Ländchen," however,
still believe in victory because they are afraid to consider what would happen
if the Reich is defeated. Hardly anyone of them, however, does not ask himself
if there had been no alternative to the resettling. This question followed
them everywhere, even
into church when they attempted to pray. Remembrance and hope which still
had brightened the conversations during the first year following the resettlement
lose their glimmer. The content changes. Their thoughts leave the landscape
for which they have no feeling of homeland. The Gottscheer, cornered and
urged
on by the imperative to wander, thinks that the simplest solution would be
not to return to the homeland after the war but to find some spot somewhere
in the world, best of all in America, among one´s own people. To find
peace finally. Not to live in fear once again. Not to have always to obey
the stronger
one!
1945: The Gottscheer farmers plow the fields for the fourth and last
time. Work outdoors has become life-threatening. During the day, low-flying
planes shoot
at everything that moves. The partisans attack during the night.
The Reich is almost totally occupied by the Allies. The final struggle for
Berlin has begun. Hitler operates with divisions that no longer exist. Tito,
however, controls the entire Yugoslavian state with his partisans, visibly
and invisibly.
![](../../../Partisanen/Bilder/Sonstige/01t.jpg)
TITO, Josip Broz, 1892-1980.
There is no longer any hope. The Gottscheers and their comrades
in fate from South Tyrol and Bessarabia, whom one had also attempted to resettle
in the Rann-triangle, are helpless, defenseless, and immobile. No one is
allowed to leave his workplace and residence without permission from the
NSDAP-district
office. The
district office, however, pretends that there still is time. The district
leadership in Graz would give the necessary commands in time. On another
side, the order
had already been given in February to fit horses and oxen with horseshoes
and to get the wagons ready. Graz, however, remained silent. Finally, but
not until
May 5—7, 1945, were several hundred women and children put on trains
and brought to safety in Austria.
And precisely on the day the German army
capitulated, on May 8, 1945, the NSDAP district leader´s order to move
out arrived.
Now save yourself, Gottscheer!
As quickly as possible, the "resettlers" who had now become refugees
gathered in Gurkfeld and Rann. Treks were put together awkwardly. Laboriously
they headed north. They had barely left the gathering sites when the first
partisans appeared. "Partisans"? Actually they were adolescents
who wanted to test and prove their manliness with the machine guns they had
hanging
around their necks and by plundering the defenseless. Otterstädt reports
these circumstances that surrounded the flight on page 52 of his pictorial
book:
"They spent the first night in houses, in ruins, and outdoors in Lichtenwald,
a village insignificant in itself, now filled with refugees and damaged by
English air raids. The partisans guarded them from the edge of the village.
In the morning they left the burning village of Lichtenwald and headed for
Steinbrück under the guard of mostly armed adolescents. Repeated "luggage
checks" en route saw to it that the Gottscheers first lost their vehicles,
then their bundles, and finally their handbags, and, when they finally reached
the camp of Sterntal, also their money, jewelry, rings, and identification
papers. After days of murdering, cruel tortures, plundering, and inhuman
sadism, the
survivors arrived in the notorious death camp of Sterntal near Pettau by
way of Tüffer, Cilli, back again to Tüffer, and again to Cilli.
![](../../../Sterntal/Bilder/Sonstige/01t.jpg)
Death camp Sterntal / Kidricevo near Ptuj /
Pettau
This camp Sterntal near Pettau, in which a large number of the fleeing Gottscheers
were penned up, was hell. The sanitary facilities on the site of this former
munitions plant were totally inadequate for the thousands of occupants
and defied every description. Epidemics, hunger, maltreatment, and murder
killed them in droves. No Gottscheer child under the age of two survived.
The younger
women and girls were free game for the guards. The torture only ended when
the Red Cross intervened.
Personal accounts reveal that besides the treks a larger number of fleeing
Gottscheers (the exact number cannot be determined) succeeded in reaching
Austria at unguarded spots along the border. They, too, are survivors of
the tragedy
of their
small tribe. When they entered Austria, they were not first of all Gottscheers
or the descendants of old-Austrians or refugees from brutal force or "re-settlers," but,
like many uncounted victims of this war, people poor as beggars who were
happy just to be alive ... Return to the homeland? Yes! But to be sure
in a different
sense than was stated in the document "Menscheneinsatz" (manpower)
of the staff headquarters. This was now a return to humanity. Here they found
help, understanding for their predicament, and trust. To be sure, they also
had to be content to live in camps, but what a difference from Sterntal!
Like their comrades in fate from other "outpost" regions, the Gottscheers,
too, were mainly housed in the camps at Kapfenberg and Wagna near Leibnitz
in Styria. In Carinthia, they found shelter in Camp Feffernitz at Feistritz/Drau
near Spittal an der Drau.
Here they again found peace, they again came to their senses after the devastating
mad journey from Lower Styria. To be sure, for many the camp was to be a
substitute homeland for ten years or longer. Life went on, in a limited way.
Marriages
were entered into, children were born, death took its share.
Were the Gottscheer
camp-occupants in Feffernitz near Spittal an der Drau aware that fate had
led them close to the Ortenburg city? They were hardly aware of the symbolic
nature
of their situation. Mrs. Paula Suchadobnik from the city of Gottschee, who
had organized the peddling undertaking in Dr. Arko´s law office during
the thirties, also came to Feffernitz. Here, too, she took care of people.
She
wrote letters for the elderly, filled out questionnaires for them, advised
and
helped wherever she could. To the young she gave English lessons. Why English?
Because the camp happened to be in the English occupation zone? Perhaps young
Carinthians did so, but when a Gottscheer begins to learn English, then his
first thoughts are of America.
("Jahrhundertbuch
der Gottscheer", Dr. Erich Petschauer, 1980)
www.gottschee.de
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