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Worlds Apart: The Swabian Expulsion from Hungary after World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Thomas Spira
Thomas Spira*
Affiliation:
University of Prince Edward Island and editor of Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism
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Extract

The German expulsion is a sad chapter of post-World War II Hungrian history. After 1945, hundreds of thousands of Hungary's German-speaking citizens (popularly known as Swabians) were expelled as traitors. They were accused of having joined the Nazi-oriented Volksbund, or of having “volunteered” in the Third Reich's SS forces. The legality, morality, and rationality of the Hungarian government's action will be disputed for many years to come. More useful, however, might be an exploration of this apparently arbitrary and cruel expulsion of German-speaking Hungarian citizens. This essay surveys the troubled relationship that bound the Swabians and Hungarians together in ceaseless controversy from 1918 until the end of World War II. Their misunderstandings were basic and defied solution through dialogue, mutual concessions, or compromise.

Prior to World War I, Hungary's German citizens considered themselves relatively secure in their adopted Magyar-dominated homeland. As Hungarian citizens, they owed allegiance to Franz Josef I in his dual capacity as king of Hungary and as emperor of the supra-national Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Despite some assimilationist efforts by the Magyars after the Ausgleich of 1868, the Swabians felt protected by the presence of a German king-emperor, and by the fact that the empire was largely Germandominated.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985 , pp. 188 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Inc. 

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References

1 For a general history of the expulsion, see de Zayas, Alfred M., Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans: Background, Execution, Consequences (London and Boston, 1977).Google Scholar

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6 Spira, Thomas, German-Hungarian Relations and the Swabian Problem (New York, 1977), pp. 27–36.Google Scholar

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33 Cited in Tilkovszky, Ez volt a Volksbund, p. 323.Google Scholar

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