“War, war, we are at war” screamed the nineteen year old Anna Parthe of house No 9 as she came crying out of the Jaklitsch house, No 11, on Sunday morning April 6, 1941, where the radio had just announced  the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. The outbreak of war was particularly distressing to Anna because Hans Michitsch, aged twenty seven and the younger son of the sexton to whom she was affianced, was a soldier in the Yugoslav army.

Also in the army was Alois Primosch, at twenty five the oldest son of Johann and Magdalena Primosch of Masern No 10. Magdalena was sitting on the bench in front of her house breastfeeding Adolf, the youngest of her eight children when Anna came running from the Jaklitsch house across the road. Adolf had been named after Hitler in a baptism performed by Father Gliebe in our church, with the sexton Michitsch ringing the bell and me as the altar boy assisting the priest.
 
It was a shock to most people in the village, especially since just over a week ago the Gottscheer Zeitung of Thursday March 27, 1941 announced with a banner headline:

“Yugoslavia in Steady Hand”.

“In these destiny-burdened times, King Peter II has decided to take the fate of Yugoslavia into his own hands. Peace proclamations are being distributed in the entire land pronouncing unwavering loyalty to the King.
 
“Long live King Peter II !”

The headline continued:

“Yugoslavia joins the Three Power Pact”.

“At a festive state act in the Belvedere castle in Vienna, in the presence of the Fűhrer on the 25th of March, the joining of Yugoslavia to the Three Power Pact, Germany - Italy – Japan, was consummated. The Pact already includes Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.”

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The next issue of the GZ, scheduled for Thursday, April 3rd, had not been printed due to the uncertain events that had taken place in the country during the prior week. Therefore the coup of the night of March 26-27, that displaced the government of King Peter II in Belgrade, nullified the alliance with the Axis and started a chain of events that had not yet come to the attention to the people of Masern.
 
April 6:  Germany and its Axis allies including Italy invaded Yugoslavia. In the early morning, relays of 150 Luftwaffe planes started bombing Belgrade. The city  was subjected to a continuous rain of bombs for one and a half hours which leveled the entire city, killing 17,000 civilians.

The sudden invasion took the VGL by such surprise that it allowed the Slovene authorities, on April 6, 1941, to take into custody as hostages twenty two leading Gottscheer, among them three VGL members. The remainder of the VGL managed to flee into the forest.
 
April 9:  On this day, all hostages are released by the Slovene authorities.  But during the night of April 10-11, the VGL in turn ordered all Sturm units to take up their weapons and Gottscheer Sturm troopers disarm all Slovene gendarmes in the district. They also arrest leading Slovene administrative officials, police and judges.
  
April 13:  The twenty five year old National-Socialist Wilhelm Lampeter assumed the position of District Chief, head of the enclave. He is now head of a Gottscheer mini-state. German troops were expected momentarily. The VGL directs that swastika flags be hung from every building in the enclave.
 
April 17:  In Berlin, the “Menscheneinsatz” branch of the RKFDV proposed the re-settling of 58,000 Volksdeutsche to the annexed Slovenia from which 130,000 Slovene are to be removed. 48

April 18:  Yugoslavia capitulated to the Axis powers and the government of the military junta in Belgrade dissolves.
 
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On the morning of April 18, the Yugoslav army unit, having spent the night in their wagons on the square in front of the Masern church and in the hay lofts of adjacent barns, abandon their weapons, their military gear and their transport vehicles and disappear. Some of them trade their warm woolen uniforms for civilian clothing with willing villagers so as to allow them to merge into the population and not wind up in POW camps of the conquering army, be it German or Italian. The considerable weapons cache is acquired by the Jaklitsch militia and safely hidden away.

Anna Parthe’s premonition of disaster on April 6 became reality ten days later on April 16 when word came that the body of her fiancé Hans Michitsch was lying in a field near Novo Mesto (Rudolfswert).  He had been shot dead as a deserter by a Yugoslav army unit on April 16, two days before the end of the war after he refused to stop on the way home. The body, covered with a blanket, was brought back to Masern on April 17 by a group of Lampeter’s militia in the back of a truck on a layer of straw. Hans was buried in the Michitsch family plot on April 19 after a funeral Mass celebrated by Father Gliebe.
 
More fortunate was Magdalena Primosch the mother of Anton who came home on April 25, leading a pair of prize oxen which he had uncoupled from an abandoned Yugoslav army wagon and brought back to his father’s stable.  But the oxen were the property of a Slovene. They had been requisitioned by the Yugoslav army during the rapid mobilization shortly before the war. The owner traced their whereabouts to Masern and Anton’s unhappy father was forced by the gendarmes from Dolenja Vas to return them to their Slovene owner.
 
Since the beginning of the war on April 6, the people of Masern, the Germans of the enclave and the VGL had been hoping that Slovenia and the enclave would be occupied and annexed to Germany. The Gottscheer are shocked when it becomes obvious that annexation of their part of Slovenia to the Reich was not to be. Now all were consumed with a burning question “what will become of us?”
 
But on that Sunday morning of April 6, neither Anna nor Magdalena Primosch or anyone else in the village could wildly imagine what this war would bring. Not imagine that in only eight months, specifically on December 7, 9 and 10, the residents of Masern would be leaving their homes, their properties, their way of life for nothing more than a promise. And, even more unreal, that in only forty nine months, they would be homeless refugees, victims of a failed ideology forced on them by a small group of misled young fanatics.
  
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April 20:  At the two day conference in Vienna, the distribution of the former Yugoslavia lands, including Slovenia, is decided. The ethnic Germans of Lower Styria succeed in getting their part of Slovenia annexed to the Reich. Hitler, however, relinquishes the Gottschee enclave and other parts of Slovenia to Italy in an agreement with Count Ciano, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. In his memoir Dr. Stier writes:

“Axis politics forced Hitler to concessions toward his partner at the partitioning of the conquered Yugoslavia”.  49

On this day, Himmler informs the VGL of Hitler’s decision to resettle the Gottscheer Germans.

April 23:   Italians arrive in their part of the now divided Slovenia which also includes the Gottschee enclave. But the Italian occupier has no tolerance for an independent and armed district within its territory. They dissolve the “District Commission” set up by the VGL and disarm the Sturm troopers of the enclave. The Italians also release the arrested Slovene police, judges and administrative officials, and restore to them their former offices and positions. This immediately alienates the VGL toward the Italians, a mistrust that will only increase in the coming months. The Italians in turn are, understandably if cautiously, antagonistic toward the Gottscheer who behave as if they are an independent entity, not subjects of the Italian occupier but part of the Reich.

The VGL reacts to the dissolution of the “District Commission” by forming, in turn, the “Volks Gruppen Organization” or VGO, a hierarchal structure in which all Sturm units of the enclave are under the formal leadership of the VGL. As such the VGO however has no civil function; this had been taken from them by the occupying Italians when they dissolved the “District Commission”. But, unofficially, on May 1, 1941 the VGO becomes a State within a State.
 
- - - -

The Gottscheer farmer K.R. from Slovenska Vas, (Windischdorf ) comments about this period in his memoir dated March 6, 1958.  It was published in  Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Europa V, Das Schicksal der deutschen in Jugoslawien 50

On page 31, the farmer is quoted:

“At the beginning of the war between Germany and Italy on one side and Yugoslavia on the other side, we Gottscheer were convinced that within a short time our country would be occupied by German troops and that thereafter, we would be made part of the German Reich. The disappointment was, however, very great when, instead of the expected German troops, Italians occupied the country.”
 
And the Gottscheer Reverend Alois Krisch of Stari log [Altlag], in his memoir written in the winter of 1947/48, also published in Dokumentation der Vertreibung, (on page 9) writes:

“To be part of Italy pleased no one.  Emigrate?  This is also a unique reaction. Leave?  Into the unknown? “
 
- - - -

With the disappearance of Yugoslavia, the Gottscheer are jubilant since they have been freed from a State which, for twenty three years, denied them “Minority Status”; a State that forced them to learn Slovene as the official language and insisted that they adhere to its parliamentarian laws. But with the much hoped for annexation not to be the enclave is, nevertheless, once again under the jurisdiction of a ‘friendly’ power. Imperial Austria, the protector of the Gottscheer minority for centuries, has been replaced not by Germany but by Italy, an ally of the invincible Third Reich.
 
But with Slovenia partitioned and the part containing the enclave annexed to Italy, would they now be “assimilated” by the Italians and required to learn the Italian language? At this time, no one except the VGL knew yet of Hitler’s decision to move the population of the enclave into the Reich.

- - - -

April 26: At a meeting in Maribor, Hitler confirms the planned resettlement of the Gottscheer to a VGL delegation of Lampeter, Schober and Sturm. This decision had already been given to them by Himmler on April 20.
  
At the meeting, Hitler also reveals to the VGL delegation the settlement area to be adjacent to the north-west side of the Save - Sotla Rivers, a border area just inside the annexed part of Slovenia, the part now bordering on that occupied by Italy. He tasks the Gottscheer with an historic assignment to be border farmers of the now enlarged Reich.

At the meeting, the VGL members ask Hitler to allow that:

1.   the Gottscheer be resettled as a group,
2.   the VGL conduct its own resettlement program, and 
3.   the VGL be given the “right for self-selection”.
 
Hitler grants all three requests on the spot.
  
The VGL makes the requests because it believes the requested items are crucial to the success of the resettlement. This conviction is based in large part on the results of the less than successful program to resettle the ethnic Germans from the South Tyrol into the Reich. That effort, which had started in 1939, was still underway in 1941 and far from completion.  In view of this, Hitler fully understands the reasons for the requests of the VGL and therefore willingly agrees. 51

On return of the three leaders from Maribor, the VGL decides to keep Hitler’s decision to resettle the Gottscheer a secret. They believe such delay would soften the shock in a tense population expecting to be annexed, not resettled. As confirmed National Socialists they are prepared to execute the order of the Führer without the slightest reservation. They are also sure the entire youth of the enclave would follow Hitler’s order with great enthusiasm.

They are, however, less certain about the older population and for this reason they believe it is necessary to delay the announcement. Delay it at least until after their return from Berlin, to where they have been invited at the April 26 meeting with Hitler to discuss the resettlement policy and program with the RKFDV. They believe that after their conference there they would be in a better position to present the resettlement in the best possible light.

This delay tactic, however, does not work as expected; it actually causes great unrest and encourages rumors and uncertainty. Consequently, the VGL tries to calm the population with various evasive assurances at meetings throughout the enclave.  The rumormongers are attacked by an article in the Gottscheer Zeitung of May 1, 1941.
 
 “These troublemakers should take note: The future shall soon teach them that they are ’Volksschädlinge’ [parasites] and that this future has no place for such Volksschädlinge other than the Concentration Camp.”

The same issue also announces the formation of the VGO which defines the structure of the Gottscheer “mini-state” and lists the responsibility of each member of the leadership circle, the VGL. In addition, the front page of this weekly is changed to prominently display the Nazi emblem, the swastika.

- - - -

May 2:  A VGL delegation is received by Emilio Grazioli, the Italian High Commissioner for the occupied Slovenia, headquartered in Ljubljana. The VGL has requested this meeting to cement the relationship with this ‘friendly’ Axis power.  Volksgruppenleiter Schober, the former head of the enclave branch of the Kulturbund and now the ‘official’ figurehead member of the VGL (being the “oldest" of the young leadership), presents to the Commissioner a Declaration of Allegiance to Italy. (The undisputed leader of the group remains, as before, the Mannschaftsführer Wilhelm Lampeter.)

At the same meeting, the VGL also requests special rights “from time to time” from the High Commissioner. This demand is documented in a letter to be forwarded by the Commissioner to the Duce.

May 2:  Himmler appoints Gauleiter Uiberreither, the chief of the civil administration of the Styria Gau (administrative district - province) of the Reich, to also be the chief civil administrator of the annexed Slovenia. He is also appointed as the local representative of the RKFDV, the SS organization in Maribor and made responsible for the annexed area into which the Gottscheer are to be settled.

May 6:  At a SD (Sicherheitdienst, SS Secret Service Police) conference in Maribor, it is announced that 260,000 Slovene are to be removed from the annexed Slovenia. The rapid resettlement of the Gottscheer into part of the vacated areas is determined to be first priority.

- - - -

Three members of the VGL, Lampeter, Schober and Sturm arrive in Berlin on May 12. They have been invited, at the April 26 meeting with Hitler, to come to the SS Headquarters there to discuss the resettlement program and plans with the RKFDV. 52

Wilhelm Lampeter, in his Gedächnisschrift of Feb. 9, 1942, (Die Gottscheer Volksgruppe) reports on the meeting:

“Deliberations were with Dr. Greifeld, SS-Brigadeführer [Brigadier General] and heads of the various branches of the Reichskommissariat. [RKFDV].  Discussed were the efforts of the VGL in the coming re-settlement. In particular, the rough details of a family questionnaire (Familienbogen) were agreed upon.”
 
Frensing 51 quotes Dr. Stier, SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel), the resident technical adviser of the RKFDV Resettlement Office:

“The VGL welcomed the promise of ‘closed settling’ of all Gottscheer in the new area by not splitting them up and resettling them into various parts of the Reich. But it does ask that the following exceptions be made; mixed marriages, unfit peasants.
 
“Among the unfit peasants there are some who are capable of becoming full fledged farmers in the settlement area.  But the majority of them are not qualified for this exception. In order to avoid conflicts between the differently handled peasants, the VGL asks that all be re-settled into another region.”

“The RKFVD accepted the proposals of the VGL and is in full agreement with the request for a rapid resettlement”.

Frensing adds:

“Later on, to the two groups [mixed marriages and unfit peasants] was added the group described as the ‘List of the politically unreliable’ ”. [The list was generated by Lampeter as a secret document which he submitted to the SS on October 17, 1941]. With this simple concept, the VGL wished to make certain that only those it viewed as racially pure, professionally able and politically reliable Gottscheer reach the new settlement region.

“The RKFDV also re-affirmed to the VGL the full responsibility for the resettlement effort and the ‘right for self-selection’, granted by Hitler personally on April 26.

“The ‘right for self-selection’ had been requested by the VGL to allow it to cleanse the population of those Gottscheer [ it ] judged not fit to become citizens of the Reich. In addition to mixed marriage and unreliable political views, cause for rejection will be a lack of physical fitness and an inability to operate a farm or business. Exceptions may be classified as special cases and dealt with at a later date.”  But more on this later.

- - - -

In the discussions between the VGL and RKFDV in Berlin, the resettlement of the ethnic Germans of Alto Adige (South Tyrol) undoubtedly contributed significantly in arriving at a resettlement policy for the Gottscheer. This is made apparent in Rolf Steininger’s: “South Tyrol; A Minority Conflict of the Twentieth Century”, (New Brunswick, London 2003, later: South Tyrol)

South Tyrol was under the Austro Hungarian monarchy until 1918 when the south side of the Alps was allocated to Italy at the Peace Conference in Versailles. Until then a part of the larger Tyrol, the German speaking residents of South Tyrol (Alto Adige under the Italians) were now separated from their north-Tyrolean German brethren and required to learn Italian, the official language of their new government. The northern Italians, who had been under Austro-German domination for centuries, were not inclined to make such an exception. This requirement, called denationalization policy by the South Tyroleans, became even more forceful after 1922 when the Italian Fascists came to power.

The resistance of the Germans of South Tyrol to the new order was similar to that of the Gottscheer in the enclave. In both cases the state mandate for learning another language was also viewed as forceful assimilation. And as in the enclave, the Germans of South Tyrol were hoping to be annexed by the Reich. But this was not to be since Hitler had concluded that South Tyrol, like the enclave, must be sacrificed to an alliance with Mussolini.

And like the Gottscheer in the enclave, the South Tyroleans came to believe that only by resettling would they maintain their German nationality. Except perhaps for their leadership, few of the population, if any in either enclave, knew that they were no more than part of Hitler’s strategy for replacing the population in conquered territories with ingathered ethnic Germans and thereby securing his enlarged Third Reich.

The Gottscheer resettlement process is striking for its use of methods that worked well in South Tyrol and the avoidance of those that did not. This was due to either the VGL being very cognizant of the details of the South Tyrol process, or to the extensive briefing it received during its visit in Berlin in the middle of May 1941.  Perhaps it was a combination of both.
 
The facts provided by Steininger permit a side by side comparison of the methodology used in resettling the two ethnic groups. In each case, the deciding part was played by a committed local Nazi organization. In South Tyrol it was the VKS, (Völkischer Kampfring Südtirols). In the Gottschee enclave the VolksGruppenOrganization, the VGO with Wilhelm Lampeter as its ideological head.

In any event it is reasonable to assume that a discussion of tactics that worked in South Tyrol and those to be avoided took place at the conference in Berlin. This was very helpful to the fanatical young members of the VGL who were determined to succeed in the assignment given them by Hitler personally.

- - - -

The 12,000 Gottscheer were to be settled as a group into a part of the annexed Slovenia from which (initially) a quarter million Slovenes were to be removed. The settlement area had been announced to the VGL by Hitler in April 1941 and the resettlement was to be completed seven months later. The destination was withheld from the population by the VGL until the trains carrying the settlers and their possessions started to leave. The first train left on November 14, 1941 carrying 40 persons, 22 animals and nine freight cars loaded with possessions. The last train completing the resettlement left on January 23, 1942. From start to finish, the “Ingathering” (including preparation) took nine months.

By contrast, the destination of the 75,000 South Tyroleans who opted for resettlement had not even been selected by Himmler when trains started to roll in November 1939.
 
According to Rolf Steininger, a March 1938 memorandum that became the basis for German policy, states: “Total resettlement of the South Tyroleans will be to an area made available in the future by conquest in the East”. 53

And Himmler (who had been made responsible by Hitler for planning the operation on June 16, 1939 had promised “that the South Tyrolean people will be resettled as a single unified group and that its leaders will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the regions that will come into consideration for resettlement before a final decision on the selection of land is made”. (For reference: the occupation of Poland started September 1, 1939.)
 
Steininger continues: “Himmler’s assurance of a unified, contiguous area of settlement was a trump card that the VKS had successfully played in its propaganda”. A similar promise was made to the VGL and as with the South Tyroleans, the promise was equally false.

Trains carrying re-settlers out of South Tyrol began to leave in November 1939.  At the end of 1939, approximately 11,500 had left. The largest number; 37,500 left in 1940. Thereafter, numbers began to decrease. 18,750 in 1941, 6,000 in 1942, 3,000 in 1943. 54

Steininger claims the most important reason for the decrease was that the promise of Himmler was not kept. When the trains were leaving, the South Tyrol re-settlers did not know where they were going. Instead of being taken to their final destination, “the emigrants [according to Steininger] were housed in emergency quarters (sublet rooms, barracks, monasteries, army bases) and had to accept jobs that were often not quite what they were used to. There was no longer much mention of the grand promises that had been made in the past.

“Furthermore, there were tremendous difficulties and delays in establishing the asset value of the South Tyroleans who opted for Germany; for this reason, many delayed their departure for as long as it took to establish this value.

“By August 1942, Himmler was urging the responsible authorities in Bozen, [Bolzano] to speed up immigration and cease accepting the excuse that individuals were waiting for final selections of a contiguous resettlement territory. But even the replacement of the top man in the resettlement agency did not speed up the process”.

The above makes clear why the VGL pressed to:

a.  have the resettling effort under their own control, 
b.  perform the task as quickly as possible,
c.  resettle as a group into a clearly defined area,
d.  assess the property values of the re-settlers immediately.

When the VGL left the Berlin conference, the responsibility for the resettlement of the Gottscheer was totally theirs and they knew exactly what they had to do. They also took with them a page from the South Tyrol model, the “Abyssinia card”. (Steininger on pages 56 and 57, talks about the “Sicilian Legend”, the rumor that the Italians would deport to Sicily, Abyssinia or other regions, all those who did not opt for Germany).
 
- - - -

The announcement that the Gottscheer will be resettled is finally made on May 22. It had been kept secret since April 20, five weeks after Himmler informed the VGL of Hitler’s decision. Hitler’s decision is announced in banner headlines on page one of the May 22, 1941 issue of the Gottscheer Zeitung:
 
“Gottscheer Countrymen and Countrywomen”.

“The Führer is calling us home to the Reich. Accept with iron discipline his command. Prove to the final hour through work and diligence that you are worthy to be Germans of Adolf Hitler.

“The harvest of 1941 in the old homeland shall prove to the world that we, as we have for 600 years, even during this last year as ethnic Germans, are able to extract from this meager soil our bitter bread, thanks to the power of our German will. Present to our Italian ally a unique portrait of German manhood as an expression of our unshakable loyalty to the expressed policy of the Axis.

Signed:  “Der Volksgruppenfűhrer,  Josef Schober.  Der Mannschaftsfűhrer, Wilhelm Lampeter.”

This initial announcement of Hitler’s decision to resettle the Gottscheer was brief in part because the three leaders Lampeter, Schober and Sturm had just returned from their meeting with the RKFVD in Berlin.  But the May 29 issue of the GZ provided greater detail:

“Greater Germany takes us home”.

“ The decision has been made. The Führer has taken the destiny of our group into his hand. We are going home into the Reich from which we came more than 600 years ago. We look with great confidence to our own leadership which in these times has taken so much upon itself and knows that every Gottscheer these days will understand the necessity and correctness of this measure derived by the leaders of our great [German] Nation. Think not only of ourselves but of the whole of the nation, the state and its future.  This is the substance of our German view of the world.

“With admirable discipline, aware of this new, beautiful and great task, our comrades accepted this decision. All, without exception, have inwardly accepted this way into the future. In meetings throughout our land, held so often by our leadership, we have been made aware of the coming duties and tasks, duties placed upon us through the honorable confidence of our nation bestowed upon us by our Führer for all future time. Our future new homeland will be better than the old one which in past centuries brought so much agony and in recent years so much pain, tears and bitterness.  We will not lose much, but gain a great deal more.

“In the meetings which took place throughout the land, we all acknowledged the call of the blood, the nation and that of the greatest of German men, the Führer. The news that we will no longer be Volksdeutsche without a homeland was received with enthusiasm and uproarious joy.
 
“Home to the Reich.”

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After returning from Berlin, Lampeter with his staff leaders visit all village groups to announce the “Heimkehr”, the homecoming call of the Führer. Lampeter, in his Die Gottscheer Volksgruppe of Feb. 9, 1942, writes:

“Immediately on his return, the Mannschaftsführer ordered a ‘pre-option’ [to resettle] to be performed throughout the enclave [to determine the willingness of the population]. The ‘pre-option’ was 100% successful because the Mannschaftsführer with his three staff leaders spoke to all village groups about the ‘Heimkehr’ of the Gottscheer.  The call of the Reich was understood by the entire population.

“On the so called family questionnaire, distributed by the Sturmführer after these meetings, each Gottscheer German, willing to be re-settled, had to state all his personal details including a declaration that he wishes to return to the Reich.

“To the mentioned family questionnaire, signifying a ‘pre-option’ was added a second sheet to be filled out fully in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Mannschaftsführer. This was to be done in detail, responsibly, objectively and in total secrecy by the Sturmführer of each village, his Deputy the Unterfűhrer or other trustworthy individuals. As a result, we have on each Gottscheer German, a valid picture regarding his capability and character.”
 
The Gottscheer farmer K.R. from Slovenska Vas, (Windischdorf )], reports on this in his memoir dated March 6, 1958 as follows:

“The first news that we would be re-settled by the German Reich arrived approximately at the end of May 1941. I, like most of the Gottscheer, did not believe that this would become reality. Our common and complete striving was to remain loyal to the soil of our homeland into the future.
 
“At one meeting with many participants, where I was also present, our ‘Fűhrers’ promised that we will, in our new homeland in the German Reich, receive fine and modernly outfitted farms. We were also told that, as a result of our re-settlement, no losses will occur to anyone; the Reich is vouching for this. The farms will be equal in value and substance to the present one. We should, however, expect an improvement since the soil in our new homeland is more productive than ours. And due to the enduring persistence in our Germanness, the German Reich will place us into an improved situation.
 
“These were the first announcements. Because of these rosy promises by our leaders, the majority of the population was enthusiastic about the resettlement. However, in a short while this enthusiasm sank so that a large part of the population was against the resettlement. In the outlying villages all residents were against the resettlement, including myself. I often went to evening meetings where we consulted each other.
 
“And we were not told where our new homeland in the German Reich would be. Had the population known where this new homeland would be, in my opinion, no one would have joined the re-settlement, including the [young] leaders. 
“At the meetings the leaders, when asked about the destination, claimed they did not know themselves and that the Führer Adolf Hitler would tell us this as soon as he believed it necessary.”

And the Gottscheer Reverend Alois Krisch of Stari log (Altlag), in his memoir of 1947/48 Dokumentation der Vertreibung, pg. 9, writes:

“The thoughtless youth was enraptured. Mature people felt odd in their hearts, they had peculiar reactions. Abandon the homeland and all that is part of it?  Is there no other escape; no other alternative?” 55

- - - -

But the ethnic Germans of the enclave remained in the dark about when the resettlement was to start and where in the Reich their new homes were to be. The fact that this was another part of Slovenia from which the resident Slovene would be forcibly ejected continues to be Top Secret.

Part of the reason for not disclosing the early resettlement date was the fear that the farmers might not continue with the planting of this year’s crop, thereby creating a food shortage in the event the resettlement was delayed.  This is apparent in the May 22 appeal to the “German will” to extract yet another harvest from the “meager soil”. The appeal was justified, since already in May of that year there was a critical shortage of food in the enclave. This prompted Lampeter, in a letter published in the June 5 issue of the GZ, to urge the population to share existing supplies with others. It seems the urging of May 22 was taken seriously since the harvest of 1941 was an abundant one and was reported as such in the September 25 issue of the GZ.

The real reason for not disclosing the settlement area in the Reich is given by the head of the Resettlement Offices, SS-Obersturmbannführer, Dr. Stier who reports on the Berlin meeting with Lampeter and is quoted by Frensing on page 94:

“Weighing on the mood of the meeting was the demand of the VGL, at the insistence of Mannschaftsführer Lampeter, to keep the new settlement region a secret. The Mannschaftsführer explained that the new settlement region can not be made public since the majority of the Gottscheer know this region and are aware that the properties and houses are in very poor condition.

“Responding to my position that disappointment would be worse than honest explanation of the conditions, he [Lampeter] stated that there is time for an explanation after the option is closed. Also the Mannschaftsführer was not willing to announce to the Gottscheer even the fact that the quarters are temporary and a re-planning and redevelopment is envisioned, since he feared unrest due to such announcement.”

Frensing, on page 62, offers his own assessment of the reasoning of Lampeter and the VGL:

“The Resettlement Decision as well as the Settlement Region was not announced to the public. Through this the General Tactical Line, with which the VGL decided to proceed becomes clear. At first, the population shall exercise the Option, only then - when there is no return - shall the farmers be notified of the Settlement Region.”

 - - - -

Franz Jaklitsch, the Sturmführer of Masern and the adjacent Masereben, Sturm 13, requested that all village men attend an important meeting in the large room of his tavern at 10 o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, May 27. There was to be an important announcement by high officials from the City.
 
The news that high officials from the City were coming spread rapidly. And long before the motorcar came to a halt that morning, the Jaklitsch tavern was filled with anxious men while a good part of the village was waiting for the visitors around the linden on the square across the street.

They came in the car owned and driven by Franz Tschinkel, my father’s City cousin and Führer of Sturm No 1, the Gottschee City Sturm. (The one who had sold me the bicycle). The canvas top had been rolled back and a small swastika flag fluttered impressively from the front fender. After it stopped in front of the tavern, we kids went nearer but stopped at a respectful distance from the car as four men in their fine leather boots, black riding britches and white shirt with the swastika armband, were getting out. All four made for the tavern door, but only after Franz authoritatively ordered all kids to stay away from the car. This was difficult; such a vehicle was not often in our village.  Since the meeting behind the closed doors lasted quite a while, the crowd around the linden thinned out, except for the youth which had little else to do, now that there was no more school ever since our teacher Alojzij Dežman had left at the beginning of the year.

The four uniformed men left as abruptly as they had arrived but Jaklitsch continued the meeting. And when the obviously agitated village men, each with a sheet of paper in hand (the pre-option form) finally started spilling out the door, they made for home without much delay, trailed by their folk emerging from the crowd around the linden.
 
Mitzi, Paul and I joined Father who gave the sheet of paper to me to carry so that he could walk more quickly on his crutches on the way home. He would not answer questions and remained silent until he was seated in his favorite corner in the kitchen. “We are leaving Masern and moving to the Reich” he finally said.
 
I remember only my own reaction, a reaction of joy to the news which promised excitement, adventure, new places in a new world about which I had gathered only glimpses in books, magazines and brief visits to Ljubljana. I do not know how Mother accepted the news and what discussions followed after he spoke those fateful words since I immediately ran out to see if the other youngsters shared my joy. All did, if perhaps for different reasons; not only in Masern but throughout the enclave.

As had been exclaimed by the Reverend Alois Krisch:

“The thoughtless youth was enraptured …”.

To my deep regret, I never asked my parents about their reaction.  Neither then, nor during the many years since. Then, because I was too young and overjoyed by the prospect of moving. And later on, after it had all gone wrong, I did not ask since it was difficult for them to talk about it and more so because it was irrelevant to me then; an attitude that unfortunately changed only years after both had died.
  
I can, however, after many years of contemplation and the benefit of hindsight, imagine not only Mother’s reaction but also that of Father. I am certain that their reaction was not unlike that generalized by the Reverend.
 
But with my parents there was much more. Theirs was not the typical Gottscheer family.

Mother, now finally and firmly placed in her own home, on her own land, was being asked to surrender what had come to her with so much pain and suffering for a future consisting of nothing more than a promise. She was also asked to leave behind all her Slovene family and friends and all contacts she had maintained ever since she married and moved to Masern. But I am certain that ultimately she willingly accepted the bitter logic that her husband presented her with, if not then, certainly not much later.

Father’s initial reaction was, most likely, similar to that of the farmer K.R. and others like him. But more than loyalty to the land, Father was burdened with more practical considerations.  He had no choice.
 
No choice but to leave with the others in the village, all of whom “were enthusiastic about the resettlement”, to again quote the farmer. With the village emptied out and no one left with whom to exchange the use of his lands for labor he depended on to cultivate his farm, his family could not survive. All of Mother’s arguments for staying could not withstand that cruel fact.
 
Not wanting to remain in an empty village was the logic of even those not handicapped as was Father; unencumbered farmers who, with other able handed family members, could work the land and extract a livelihood from it. And all knew that the village itself was an interdependent family that functioned only as a unit which allowed it to exist for centuries in the past and could not continue otherwise in the future.

It was precisely this kind of thinking the VGL encouraged and counted on to successfully accomplish the mission ordered by the Führer on April 26.
 
And “if you don’t take up the option now, you will not have a second chance” was used very persuasively.

But what Father did not know then, if ever, was that the VGL list of undesirables excluded him from being part of such a village in the new land. It excluded him because he was in a “mixed marriage” to a Slovene and for not being “fit” to become a border farmer in the Reich. He was to be resettled with the other “unworthy Gottscheer” to another place. That in his case both of these prohibitions were ultimately overlooked, is at least in part attributable to Franz Jaklitsch who, even as a committed Sturmführer sidestepped the brutal Aryan idealism of the VGL for his friend of many years. But there was another, far weightier, directive which ultimately saved Father and his family. This will be explained in the chapter called Veliko Mraševo.
 
- - - -

The VGL was encouraged by the first reaction of the general population especially from the youth in which it had such a devoted following. Resistance had been expected from the better educated bourgeoisie of the city, the clergy and especially from the older generation of farmers who professed a sentimental attachment to their land and their way of life, hard as it was. These were the reasons the VGL insisted (at the Berlin meeting) that the re-settlement be accomplished at “the earliest possible date” to prevent any resistance from taking hold in the enclave.

The VGA, however, did not foresee their plans would be hampered by the occupying Italians, Axis members and close allies of the Reich. This unexpected problem became apparent very early on and is described by Frensing on page 64:

“..the VGL pressed for the earliest possible re-settlement in view of the difficulties already experienced with the occupying Italians, i.e. the disarming of their militia. Given this, the three VGL leaders sought to exploit the critical attitude of the Gottscheer population regarding the Italian position toward the ethnic group. Since this attitude had developed into outright mistrust, the VGL wished, through a rapid resettlement, to take advantage of this situation and thereby capture an unsuspecting population by surprise.”

The “critical attitude of the Gottscheer population regarding the Italian position toward the ethnic group” was, in reality, the result of a campaign by the VGL to turn the population against the occupier. The VGL believed this was necessary because they had become aware that the Italians were, from the start, against removing the population from their occupied territories and wished the Gottscheer to remain in place.
 
Commenting on this is Dr. Heinrich Wollert, then the German official responsible for the re-settlement of ethnic Germans out of the Ljubljana province. Dr. Wollert, in his memoirs dated March 27, 1958, recalls the meeting in Vienna on April 20, 1941 between Hitler and Count Ciano, the Foreign Minister of Italy, where Hitler announced the resettling of the Gottscheer:

“The Italian side, as I remember, was reluctant to agree to the re-settlement plan.  Obviously so, because the Italian side realized that this region was densely populated with ethnic Germans and, therefore, was afraid that a resettlement would produce a vacuum. Even then there were indications of Yugoslav partisan activities, and the Italians were concerned that, in an empty area such as the enclave, the partisans would dig in and cause military difficulties for the Italian occupying army”.

That the Italians were not sympathetic toward the VGL is clear from a report sent by Alfred Busbach, Stabsfűhrer for Organization and Propaganda, to SS-Obersturmbannfűhrer (Lieutenant Colonel) Hannes Wagner. Busbach was the head of “ Der Wachsturm”, ( the watchgroup) an intelligence unit within the VGO to deal with reluctant or hostile elements. The group had members implanted strategically in seven of the twenty five Stürme, with each member tasked to report any deviant behavior of their comrades or the population.  Busbach writes:

“In the month of May 1941 there came to us a totally German-friendly Italian Lieutenant Carlo Aglieta. His attitude is evident from the fact that he informed me of a secret letter written by Emilio Grazioli, High Commissioner for occupied Slovenia, to Sisgoreo, the commissioner of the local civil authority. In this letter, Grazioli directs Sisgoreo to construct sound arguments with which to dissolve the VGO as an organization. Through timely awareness of this letter we were able to prevent Sisgoreo acting on the directive by taking the issue to the Reichsführer [Himmler]”.

Frensing in Die Umsiedlung, on pg. 43 adds a further perspective:

“The Italians, in their handling of the re-settlement question, went even one step further.  It was apparent that Italian authorities tried, in the spring of 1941, to persuade the Gottscheer not to resettle. To influence these ethnic Germans, a German-Italian newspaper was to be founded.”

 And to stop the activities of the Italians, “Dr. Stier informed his foreign office that this position of the Italians was viewed as an unfriendly act and should as such be presented to Italian government. Thereafter, the interference of the Italians in the preparation effort of the VGL ceased.”

The differences between the Italian and German sides continued throughout the resettlement negotiations which began in Rome in the beginning of July 1941 and ended with the signing of the contract on August 31, 1941.

The effectivity date was set for October 1, 1941.

Until then [the signing of the contract]  (according to SS-Oberführer Creutz.)

“the Italian side persisted in their request for a population exchange between the Gottscheer and the affected Slovene. This caused some difficulties between the Italians and the Germans.  Finally, on June 18, 1941 the RKFDV ordered the German negotiators to work up a plan for a one-sided resettlement of the Gottscheer.” 56

(Hitler had never intended a population exchange. This is clear from the Ingathering Directive of the Führer, dated7 October, 1939, as formulated by Himmler.  It is summarized by Frensing  in Die Umsiedlung on pg. 28.

“From the areas annexed to the Reich, the non-German population was to be moved out and as ‘foreigners’ either brought to the Altreich for work or pushed into the ‘Generalgouvernement’. [Holding area for ‘undesirables’ in occupied Poland.].  Ethnic Germans are to be resettled into the annexed provinces of the Reich.”

- - - -

The VGL stuck to its plan of keeping the resettlement date and the destination in the Reich Top Secret. Instead, it attacked the source of any resistance with a wave of propaganda in meetings and in the Gottscheer Zeitung. In a series of articles it confronted the rumors circulating throughout the villages and in the city:

“In questions regarding the resettlement, only the instructions and directions of the VGL should be believed.  Utterances of others are not authoritative”.  57

“Those who continue to fall for every dumb rumor and all empty talk should take note…”. 58

“From the Office of Organization and Propaganda:

 “The Roman Catholic priest Kraker of Rieg is, in the villages of the hinterland, disseminating irresponsible propaganda against the VGL …”. 59

“As was recently discovered, our older population is becoming, through especially tenacious and fully invented rumors related to our pending resettlement, confused and frightened….” 60

This ever widening opinion forced the VGL to make the first exception to their existing line. Seven weeks after the decision was made, the resettlement date was finally announced in the GZ of July 10, 1941.
 
“In line with our position and resistance against various bleak rumors, it is stated that the date for the resettlement is set for this coming autumn.”

- - - -

The announcement of the resettlement date was also prompted by another imponderable. It came, mid July, in the form of a pamphlet from the Gottschee Area War Council of the Communist Party of Slovenia:

“Gottscheer Worker and Farmer!

“The National-Socialistic leaders and their little Gottscheer deputies wish, prior to their own final collapse, to also bring the Gottscheer people into misfortune. They demand that you leave your Gottscheer land in which you have lived peacefully for 600 years.  They wish to make a war profit at your expense.

“Many of you, who even last year believed these servants of Hitler, have recognized their criminal intention and now resist resettlement. How right you are!  They wish to resettle you on the soil and estates stolen from Slovene farmers and workers whom they drove into the unknown without any of their possessions.
 
“The entire resettlement is a crime against the Gottschee people!
 
“Rightfully, the indigenous nationals will view you as intruders, as allies of Fascist robbers, as thieves of foreign soil and the fruit of some one else’s toil. They will set on fire the houses in which you settle, at every step they will slay you and haunt you incessantly. And when the German imperialism is crushed, the rightful owners of the land on which they want you to settle will drive you out. Others will have settled in Gottschee and you will be empty handed, without land, without money, without homes. Toward such a destiny your own leaders, the agents of Hitler, lead you.

“Gottscheer Workers and Farmers. This is the last moment for you to take your future into your own hands!”

The pamphlet shocked the population and generated a rumor wave which seriously damaged the credibility of the VGL while giving support to those who counseled against resettling. Shocked because the pamphlet revealed for the first time to an already skeptical population that they will not be resettled to an area inside old Germany proper, but to a place in the annexed Slovenia from which the Slovene population was to be driven out to make room for the Gottscheer. The rumor disclosed the place to be the border area surrounding Brežice, (Rann), only 40 km in a northeasterly direction.

With this pamphlet, the VGL was pressured to deviate from its dogmatic line to keep the population in the dark.

“It now realized that it did not adequately consider the psychological imponderables and had judged the national discipline of the Gottscheer too high”. 61

- - - -

The following points describe the political, technical and psychological elements of the resettling task that was given to the VGL by Hitler, then the most powerful man in Europe:
 
1:   Much of the political aspect, the conversion of the population to the National-Socialist ideology had already been accomplished prior to 1941. This effort had been started by Dr. Hans Arko in 1927, the first to bring this ideology into the enclave. 62  It was taken to new heights by the VGL in the years after 1938.

2:   Many of the technical aspects of the resettlement had already been addressed by the VGL before Hitler gave them the assignment on April 26, 1941. By then, the VGL had already formed the structure of an organization capable of running the resettlement process, since it believed that in the event the enclave was not annexed in a future conflict between the Reich and Yugoslavia, it was likely to be resettled. They had been preparing themselves for this ever since their meeting with the German consul in Ljubljana on November 6, 1939 where, according to Frensing in Die Umsiedlung, pg. 25:
   
“..they pledged their subordination to the Reich. Even with regard to a re-settlement, the interest of the ethnic group must stand behind the interest of the entire [German] nation”.
 
3:  The VGL was fully aware of the psychological aspects of the resettlement; it being the main challenge to their task. Having made the Gottscheer believers in National-Socialist ideology was one thing. But to pry them loose from their land was quite another.  The challenge, therefore, was to convert the Gottscheer from love of their land to love of the Führer. And if the slogan: The Führer is calling us home to the Reich” was not followed willingly, the VGL was prepared to use the forms of persuasion that had been successfully used in South Tyrol on which they had been adequately briefed during their stay at the SS-Headquarters in Berlin. Including the Abyssinia card, which ultimately convinced any wavering South Tyrolean to submit to pressure and agree to resettle.
 
Having been tasked for this mission personally by the Führer, the VGL was not going to fail.
 
- - - -

Perhaps the most pressing task of the VGL after May 22, the day the resettlement decision was made public, was to take the ideological indoctrination of the leaders of the Mannschaften and the Youth Groups to a higher level. All of the youth and most of the men and women above twenty one had already been converted to National Socialism in prior years. But now further indoctrination was necessary to arm the entire leadership hierarchy under the VGL with the ideological weapons needed to persuade the resisting and hesitant to sign the option to move.

To accomplish this indoctrination, a series of leadership training camps were held in various strategic locations in the enclave. The Sturmfűhrers and their squad leaders were indoctrinated and trained by Wilhelm Lampeter the Mannschaftsführer; the Hitler Youth leaders and their respective deputies by Jugendführer Richard Lackner.  Ludwig Kren was the leader responsible for the camps.
  
Each of these week-long or ten day training courses spanned or ended on a Sunday when there was conducted a rally called a “Morgenfeier”, a morning celebration. It was held to coincide with religious services in the local church to limit or prevent attendance at Mass, thus effectively isolating the clergy. To make it into an impressive propaganda event, Sturm units and their associated Youth Groups from surrounding villages were called in to take part in mass marches through the City and the nearest villages. 63

The first such training course was held by the twenty two year old Youth Leader Richard Lackner (b. 14 August, 1919) during the week from June 4 to June 10 on the sports field near Gottschee City. Lackner was assisted by twenty year old camp leader Ludwig Kren (b. 17 December, 1920). A total of 120 Hitler Youth leaders took part. The GZ of June 12 reports on the event, the rousing speeches and the daily march led by drums and marching songs through the City. Training alternated between “Weltanschauung” and fitness training. “Much have they experienced and much was learned to pass on to their comrades” reported the GZ.
 
Another Youth leadership camp was held from August 21 to 31. Again it was conducted by Lackner, with help from the twenty five year old Lampeter and Ludwig Kren.  The camp called Alttabor, was just outside the village of Moschnitze.  The “Morgenfeier” took place on Sunday August 31. That camp also ended in a mass rally with Sturms 19, 20, 22, 23 and their youth groups taking part.
 
On June 22, 1941, Hitler terminated the non-aggression pact by invading the Soviet Union. After this day, the three million strong German army and additional armies from its Axis allies, made rapid progress deep into the Soviet Union.
 
The GZ of June 26 reports in banner headlines:
 
“The Reich leads young Europe in the crusade against the Jewish-Bolshevik nest of conspiracy in Moscow.”

This event greatly emboldened the VGL since it now could freely include Communism as one of the “Universal Evils” confronting National-Socialism in their leadership courses.
 
- - - -

Lampeter conducted his own week-long leadership training course for the Sturmfűhrers and their Zugführers (subordinate squad leaders) from July 17 to July 24. The “Morgenfeier” took place on Sunday July 20.  It ended in a rally and mass march through the City.

To make the “propaganda marches” impressive, the units of Sturm 1, 2, 7 and 12 including their associated youth groups were brought to the camp for this purpose on Sunday July 20. 64 The purpose of this march and the other six mass rallies in key parts of the enclave was to demonstrate unity not only to the reluctant Gottscheer but also to the Italians and Slovene. 65

Prior to the training, the GZ of July 17 printed a rousing front page appeal by the Mannschaftsführer to the population:
“Wir wollen heim ins Reich.

“The Führer calls us home and we follow with a joyous heart.  …. Reason alone does not speak for our return.  It is love for the Führer, the belief in Germany and the call of our blood. …  We young National-Socialists are proud to be Germans and wish to be fighters for Führer and Volk. We wish to be part of the Sonnenvolk [sun nation] on earth from which we stem. We are born as fighters and rulers, not to be servants.

“We want to return home to the Reich”.
 
The training was to solidify the commitment of the leaders to Adolf Hitler, to the VGL and the resettlement and in turn enable them to pass this commitment to the ranks below. With this, the VGL put to use the existing hierarchal structure, developed under the cover of the Kulturbund since 1939, through which it was able to reach every member of the population in each of the villages and Gottschee City.

The training camp was purposely located on the sporting ground near the City to influence its bourgeois citizenry, the most reluctant part of the population, through a massive show of strength and determination. Lampeter writes about the success of the camp in his confidential Lagerbrief  report of July 1941.

“Finally I mention the powerful propagandistic impression on the population created by the camp activities and the propaganda marches through the city and surrounding villages”. 66

The objectives of the leadership indoctrination were spelled out to the participants in advance by Lampeter:

“The imminent Resettlement will above all, deeply affect the internal composure of our people. It is therefore especially urgent to apply everything that will solidify the inner capability of the responsible men of our national group and through thorough ideological schooling strengthen such capability or, where absent, establish one...”  67

At the conclusion of the training, Lampeter requested that each attendee submit a report. He insisted that each participant write an essay, describing the experience and what he learned at the camp.  One such reply was in his “Final Report”.

“The camp gave me a 100% conviction and satisfaction that we have, in our young leadership in the Gottschee land, the right men as our leaders. Men who are capable not only to lead us in the  large and important resettlement task, but who are also capable of resettling spiritually into the great ideal German Reich of Adolf Hitler”.

And after he received the replies, Lampeter sent a confidential letter to the participants with objectives that he reveals in his introductory paragraph:
  
“From your replies I notice how deeply the experience of camaraderie at the training camp on “Weltanschauung” (worldview) has affected you. However, I also notice how necessary it is that I write you this Report; a letter which will keep the experience fresh in your minds and which you will consult whenever you wish to be refreshed about the core questions and guiding statements regarding our contemplative views of the world. I know that in these few days, so much has been forced into you, that it is nearly impossible to comprehend and keep it all. The superficial impressions and experiences, however, do not disappear so fast. I will, therefore, write little about them.”
 
After the above introduction, Lampeter summarized the training and at the end repeated selected impressions written by the attendees. Apart from describing the superiority of the German race - “Sonnenvolk auf Erden” – (sun-race on earth) and glorifying Adolf Hitler as the foremost role model, the main aim of this indoctrination was to give the ranks the ideological weapons in the battle against “the universalistic perception of the world”.
 
“The Propagation Theory [dissemination] is the cornerstone of the National-Socialist Weltanschauung. We see here how much the universalistic worldview - Liberalism, Communism, Catholicism - differ from National-Socialism. All these universalistic perceptions claim that all people are equal. These perceptions all have their start in a lower ranked race which attempted to conquer humanity through equalization.

“Until now, the creators, founders and defenders of all popular universalistic worldviews were predominantly Jews. The Propagation Theory therefore is the cornerstone of the National-Socialist worldview, since through it all other universalistic views will come to nothing as the German person learns to grasp life, nature and its laws.”

By discrediting each of the three versions in his universalistic worldview, Lampeter sought to instill a fundamental strategy for battling any opposition to the resettlement. Leading this strategy was the concept of German racial superiority, hammered unrelentingly into the psyche of the Gottscheer population at rallies  throughout the enclave and the weekly Gottscheer Zeitung. ‘Was this racial superiority not evident in the successes of the Third Reich which in only eight short years transformed Germany from a defeated to the most powerful nation in Europe?  And now, in 1941, was it not well underway to conquer Soviet Russia, the enemy of civilization?’ Nearly every subsequent issue of the Zeitung reports yet another major battle won at the eastern front as it had reported since April 1941 on successes elsewhere.
 
The concept of racial superiority found easy acceptance within the enclave; it resonated there even before Hitler came to power in 1933. Dr. Arko began to proclaim it in 1927 and added to it the disdain for the “inferior Slovene” who denied the Gottscheer access to the German language and forced them to learn their “inferior language”. But Lampeter and his VGL evolved the disdain into hatred as part of their overall strategy to convince the Gottscheer to move to “The Reich” and thereby forever become united with the other members of the super race.

The groups opposing the resettlement were made to fit one or more of the three versions and were attacked accordingly.
 
- - - -

Liberalism, the major opponent in the “universalistic Weltanschauung” was associated by Lampeter with the better educated bourgeoisie, which saw itself as the cultural and social elite of the Gottscheer, having a broader and more seasoned perspective of the world than the farmers of the enclave. Included were Dr. Arko and the Reverend Eppich, the leaders the VGL replaced in 1939. This elite, living mostly in the city, resented and deeply mistrusted the young upstart fanatics with their militant ideological attitude ever since they had come to power.

The VGL mistrust of the “elite” was replaced by open hostility when it discovered that members of this ‘liberal’ opposition were conspiring against the resettlement. The conspiracy is described in the letter Alfred Busbach, the head of “Der Wachsturm”, wrote to the SS on the resistance revealed to him by Aglieta in May 1941:

“Aglieta mentioned that he was told by the Slovene dean of the Kočevje city parish, Peter Flajnik that an action against the resettlement was in process. In the Reich, this action is led by Director Widmer in Vienna, Professor Ramor in Graz and Professor Jonke in Klagenfurt. [All of them Gottscheer living abroad.] In Gottschee the leaders of this action are the Catholic priests Schauer of Nesseltal, Kraker of Rieg and Eppich of Mitterdorf.  Working hand in hand with these priests is the former Volksgruppenführer Dr. Hans Arko, the Chairman of the Savings and Loan Bank Josef Hönigmann, the wine merchant Robert Ganslmayer and the carpenter Josef Kraker.

 “ And when I was informed that the mentioned individuals were all preparing to travel to the Reich and on behalf of all Gottscheer submit a memorandum informing Reichsführer Himmler that the Gottscheer were against resettling, I immediately contacted an organization [?] in the Reich that this was not the case.

 “What they actually did in the Reich is not clear to me. But after their return, their propaganda against the resettlement continued.”

The above was sufficient reason for the VGL to start an active campaign to undermine and discredit the bourgeoisie, particularly the former leadership.  It was aimed to negate and eliminate their disturbing influence. Publicly named was Dr. Arko, a committed and self professed National-Socialist since 1927, a fact which the VGL conveniently omitted to mention.
 
- - - -

Communism, another part of the “universalistic worldview” had no direct influence in the enclave. However, Communism was now, since the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, described as the universal enemy not only of the Reich but of all western civilization, an enemy the victorious armies of the Reich were defeating in great victories and would soon destroy completely. This was hammered home relentlessly through the GZ and at all rallies throughout the enclave.

More directly threatening was the “negative influence of America on the Gottschee population”. American capitalism, another version of the “capitalistic/liberal universalistic worldview”, which like Communism was controlled by “international Jewry”, was seeping into the enclave via relatives who had emigrated there in large numbers around the turn of the century. In 1941, there were more Gottscheer in America than in the enclave, most retaining a sentimental attachment to the “homeland” and urging the family there to stay. Lampeter in his Lagerbrief  68Report had this to say:

“America is the sand where German blood oozes away.  Thirty million Germans moved there and in the second or third generation they are no longer German.  They all became Americans. Of the 30 million, only 4 million are still aware of their Germanness. Strange world views rule in this land.  The Jew has the power in his hand. It is the Dollar hunger that lured the German being to America and became his ruin. The majority of German immigrants never obtained ownership of the Dollar and had to spend a miserable life in some gray hole wishing they could return.  But of these, the relatives back home do not hear.”
  
“Any emigration through which German blood is lost must be stopped. Today the flow of German blood is in the opposite direction; no longer out from the German nation, but returning home to the Great German Reich.”

- - - -

Catholicism, the third part of the “universalistic worldview” was seen as the most dangerous opponent of the VGL. In his letter to the SS, Busbach describes the priests preaching [from the pulpit] against the resettlement claiming it to be an undertaking of young rascals, have-nots with nothing to lose. The settlement area land was described by them as unproductive, swampy and cursed.

Opposition by the priests to the resettlement had spread to such an extent that it forced the VGL to a direct and open attack in the June 26, issue of the Gottscheer Zeitung:

“The Roman-Catholic cleric K. [Josef Kraker] of Rieg has, in recent times and in various parts of the Hinterland, been recklessly disseminating propaganda against the Volksgruppenfűhrung [VGL]..... .

 “The mentioned clerical person has been insulting leading men in our ethnic group by referring to them as ‘snotboys’ and refers to the GZ as a ‘Jewpage’. He produces false assertions against the resettlement and with great effort is trying to persuade members of the ethnic group not to resettle. He [Kraker] requests that the people wait for the outcome of the war and thereby awakens doubts about the final victory of the Axis. We await the intervention of church officials to put a halt to this peculiar doing. This even more so since through such intervention, conflicts of conscience, awakened in our pious people by this incomprehensible doing, will be stopped.”
 
This was followed one week later with a reprint of the graveside eulogy by the Reverend Josef Eppich for the recently deceased August Schauer, also a priest resisting the resettlement:

“Come what may, we will not surrender our faith, love of home and mother tongue. These words I defend to my death. What pains me deeply is the observation that in recent times, our people began to swerve from this belief and the attachment of the younger generation to their Gottscheer homeland started to waver. From this love of homeland, I derive my position against the resettlement, a position shared by my spiritual brothers.” 69

The VGL printed the attack on Kraker and the eulogy of Josef Eppich, as a part of a campaign to advertise an open split in the clergy. By showing that the priests were not unanimously opposed to the resettlement, it aimed to negate their influential role among the population.

Support for the resettlement by the clergy was published on July 31 in the GZ.  It came from the Reverend Heinrich Wittine:

“Why are we leaving? ‘This is a superfluous question’ you will say. We Germans belong together like father, mother and child; besides, the Führer is calling us and he knows why. …. What the Führer knows and is capable of he has already demonstrated.
 
“The thought, that an injustice will be done where we are going, is groundless; was not the Führer’s hand of friendship rejected so often?”
 
Another supporter was the Reverend Alois Krisch. His defense was written post facto in the winter of 1947/48 and later reproduced in the Dokumentation der Vertreibung (1961). His lengthy justification leaves little doubt about his position, since his opinion mirrors that of the VGL and his blinkered view denies their politics:

“No, Nazis they were not, even if they are now accused of having been such; no, of the Nazi party they knew little and understood it not. They saw only the pure part of German (without any Party coloring) ……!”

His personal justification was to follow his flock:

“I am your priest.  If the majority of our people leave, so will I. And if they remain, I will remain.” 
Contrary to his calling as a priest, he decides to follow, not lead. And he eases his and the conscience of those in his flock who questioned the forced displacement of Slovene:

“Many of the [Gottscheer] people … had great reservation when it became known that a large part of Slovenia will be emptied for us. ….   But as their spiritual adviser I told them to ignore such scruples; the whole affair is only an exchange between two states; the individual is not responsible.”

The VGL had managed to divide the clergy and thereby reduce their influence on the population.  But the priests who continued in their opposition created much doubt about leaving. Their resistance, together with that of the bourgeoisie, jeopardized the unanimity of the resettlement sought by the VGL to such an extent that ultimately the SS Resettlement Authority was forced to intervene to prevent it from becoming a humiliation.

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After the VGL realized that the cause of this growing resistance was the bourgeoisie and the clergy, it started an intense effort to discredit both. Defame each and thereby eliminate their influence on the farmers and landed villagers, the majority of the population of the enclave whose acceptance of the option was the key to the success of the resettlement.

“The tactics used to discredit the opposition were designed to fit each of the two groups. The bourgeoisie is unrelentingly attacked in the Gottscheer Zeitung and at meetings throughout the enclave as being ‘philistines of a capitalistic coinage’ and other similar defamations to isolate it from the predominantly rural population.
 
“With respect to the clergy, finer methods are applied. Within the VGL ‘Catholicism’ is viewed as a ‘universalistic Weltanschauung’ which must be eradicated, however outwardly it practiced restraint given the strong attachment of the population to its clergy. In public, therefore, the split among the clergy is exploited in line with ‘divide et impera’ and through this, neutralize the influence of the priests.” 70

With the indoctrination of its leadership completed, the Mannschaften trained and the opposition identified, the VGL is now in a position to systematically eliminate the spreading resistance to the resettlement.
 
As a reminder of this, Lampeter issued a command in the July 24 issue of the GZ:

“Order of the Mannschaftsführer:”

“I have trained all Sturm and Squad leaders in Weltanschauung and Sport matters and instructed them on the subject of keeping order such that the leaders of the Stürme are, from now on, capable of performing their work at a higher level than up to now. All Sturm men have to attend to their scheduled duties, since otherwise they will have to bear the consequences.”
   
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