Abstract
The state of the art of research on the National Socialist employment of labour in Yugoslavia can be summed up as follows: the whole of southeast Europe represents a major gap when it comes to researching forced labour in the occupied territories.1 Where the residents of Yugoslavia are mentioned in the context of forced labour within the Reich, this occurs in a rather inconsistent way, that is either as Yugoslavs or separately as Serbs, Croats, more rarely Slovenes, and other Yugoslav peoples — which seems to mirror the German sources. On the one hand, it is hard to find out how many Serbs hide behind the label ‘Yugoslavs’; on the other hand, existing research has shown little further curiosity, even when Serb labourers are explicitly mentioned.2 That is, while the forced labour of Yugoslav citizens, and particularly Serbs, is mentioned as existent, it is hardly dealt with in any extensive or contextual way.3 Yugoslav or Serbian research on the period of National Socialist occupation is characterized by an ideological perspective, first communist, then anti-communist, as well as, on the whole, by an imbalance of the topics that are being researched.4
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Notes
See Mark Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz. Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und Häftlinge im Dritten Reich und im besetzten Europa 1939–1945 (Stuttgart and Munich: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 2001), where Yugoslavia is dealt with on three pages; see also the essays in Norbert Frei et al. (eds), Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentlichkeit. Neue Studien zur national-sozialistischen Lagerpolitik (Munich: Saur, 2000), dealing with the Soviet Union, and especially with the Ukraine, then with Poland and Czechoslovakia, yet not with south-east Europe. The third volume of the series, National-Socialist Occupation Policies, published in 1997, leaves out south-east Europe as well; see Richard J. Overy et al. (eds), Die ‘Neuordnung’ Europas. NS-Wirtschaftspolitik in den besetzten Gebieten (Berlin: Metropol, 1997).
See Ulrich Herbert, ‘Einleitung’, in Herbert (ed.), Europa und der ‘Reichseinsatz’: ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und KZ-Häftlinge in Deutschland 1938–1945 (Essen: Klartext, 1991), pp. 7–25, p. 8, who writes that, in autumn 1944, approximately 180,000 civil labourers and prisoners of war from Yugoslavia ‘and including Croatia’ were employed in the German Reich. Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit, pp. 66–69, 105f., attempts a differentiation of the Yugoslav peoples. Robert Bohn, Reichskommissariat Norwegen. ‘Nationalsozialistische Neuordnung’ und Kriegswirtschaft (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000), p. 379, mentions the considerable number of Serb forced labourers in Norway only in passing. ‘In the course of the years … about 25,000 prisoners and forced labourers from Poland and Serbia’ were added to the predominantly Russian ‘Ostarbeiter’, with whom he deals more extensively. This study confirms the tendency to leave south-east European matters unattended when it comes to reflecting on the employment of labour and the war economy.
See Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 653–660; Walter Manoschek, ‘Serbien ist judenfrei’. Militärische Besatzungspolitik und Judenvernichtung in Serbien 1941/42 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993), p. 39; Karl-Heinz Schlarp, Wirtschaft und Besatzung in Serbien 1941–44. Ein Beitrag zur nationalsozialistischen Wirtschaftspolitik in Südosteuropa (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1986), pp. 205 and 215f.; Klaus Schmider, Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Mittler, 2002), pp. 561f., all mention the employment of labour only succinctly.
With regard to Serbian research, see for example Milija Stanišić, Strategijske vertikale narodnooslobodilačkog rata 1941–1945 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1999); Žarko Jovanović, Neostvareni ratni ciljevi Draže Mihailovića (Belgrade: INIS, 2001); and Branko Petranović, Strategija Draže Mihailovića: 1941–45 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2000).
See Milan Ristović, Nemački ‘Novi poredak’ i jugoistočna Evropa 1940/41–1944/45. Planovi o budučnosti i praksa (Belgrade: Službeni glasnik, 2005); Schmider, Partisanenkrieg; Bundesarchiv Koblenz (ed.), Die Okkupationspolitik des deutschen Faschismus in Jugoslawien, Griechenland, Albanien, Italien und Ungarn (1941–45) (Berlin: Hüthig, 1992); Branko Petranović, Srbija u drugom svetskom ratu 1939–1945 (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački novinski centar, 1992); Dušan Lukač, Treći Rajh i zemlje Jugoistočne Evrope, vol. 2: 1941–45 (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavaćki Zavod, 1987); Institute for Contemporary History (ed.), The Third Reich and Yugoslavia 1933–1945 (Belgrade: Narodna Knjiga, 1977).
See in particular Dragan Aleksić, Privreda Srbije u drugom svetskom ratu (Belgrade: INIS, 2002); also the works by Milan Ristović, ‘General M. Nedić — Diktatur, Kollaboration und die patriarchalische Gesellschaft Serbiens 1941–1944’, in Erich Oberländer (ed.), Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1919–44 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2001), pp. 633–687; Milan Ristović, U potraži za utočištem: jugoslovenski jevreji u bekstvu od holocausta 1941–45 (Belgrade: Javno Preduzeće Službeni List SRJ, 1998). See also Žarko Jovanović, ‘Poljoprivreda Srbije u ratu 1941–1945’, in Latinka Perović et al. (eds), Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima XX veka (Belgrade: Institut za noviju istoriju, 1994), pp. 143–150; Manoschek, ‘Serbien istjudenfrei’; Schlarp, Wirtschaft und Besatzung; also some older studies: Klaus Olshausen, Zwischenspiel auf dem Balkan. Die deutsche Politik gegenüber Jugoslawien und Griechenland von März bis Juli 1941 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1973);Roland Schönfeld, ‘Deutsche Rohstoffsicherungspolitik in Jugoslawien 1934–1944’, in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 24 (1976), pp. 215–258; Robert Herzog, Grundzüge der deutschen Besatzungsverwaltung in den ost- und südosteuropäischen Ländern während des zweiten Weltkrieges (Tübingen: Institut für Besatzungsfragen, 1955); and Lutz Ewerth, Der Arbeitseinsatz von Landesbewohnern besetzter Gebiete des Ostens und Südostens im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Tübingen: Diss. Phil., 1954).
For example Nikola Živković, Ratna šteta koju je Nemačka učinila Jugoslaviji u Drugom svetskom ratu (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju i NIP Export-Press, 1975). Miodrag Zečević and Jovan Popović (eds), Dokumenti iz istorije Jugoslavije: državna komisija za utvrdjivanje zločina okupatora i njegovih pomagača iz drugog svetskog rata, 2 vols (Belgrade: Arhiv Jugoslavije, 1996–98), does not contain any documents issued in the framework of the Serbian Committee of Enquiry for the Investigation of the Forced Labour in the Bor Mine (Anketna komisija Zemaljske komisije Srbije za ispitivanje prinudnog rada u Borskom rudniku).
Mirko Bizjak, Der Erzbergbau Jugoslawiens (Belgrade: typed manuscr., 1969); Jelenko Bučevac (ed.), The Bor Copper Ore Mining and Smelting Basin Bor (Belgrade: Turistička štampa, 1965); Sergije Dimitrijević, Das ausländische Kapital in Jugoslawien vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1963); Sergije Dimitrijević, Karakteristike industrije i rudarstva bivše Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Biblioteka Društva Ekonomista Srbije, 1949).
Marie-Janine Calic, Sozialgeschichte Serbiens. Der aufhaltsame Fortschritt während der Industrialisierung (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994), pp. 216f., mentions 28 per cent or, in absolute numbers, 1,247,435 persons, who had become victims of the war. The delegation of the SHS-State declared in the course of the Versailles peace negotiations that 50 per cent of the ore mines in Serbia were destroyed, and 100 per cent of the coal mines.
Bundesarchiv Koblenz (ed.), Okkupationspolitik, pp. 19f.; see Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1991), pp. 69f.
Tomasevich, War and Revolution, pp. 614ff.; Schönfeld, ‘Rohstoffsicherungspolitik’, pp. 231–234; Tomislav Pajić, Prinudni rad i otpor u logorima Borskog rudnika 1941–44 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1989), p. 22; and Živko Avramovski, Treći Rajh i Borski rudnik (Bor: Muzej rudarstva i metalurgije, 1975), pp. 51–67.
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Okkupationspolitik, pp. 210ff., Doc. 103: Aus der Aufzeichnung des Wehrwirtschaftsamtes des OKW vom 8. Oktober 1942 zur wirtschaftlichen Ausnutzung Südosteuropas für die deutsche Rüstungsindustrie. See ibid., p. 345, Doc. 294: Aus dem Lagebericht von Generalmajor Erwin Braumüller, Chef des Wehrwirtschaftsstabs Südost, für Juli 1944 über die wirtschaftliche Ausbeutung Serbiens, which reveals that the copper ore extracted in that month was used by the German war economy almost in its entirety. In February 1943, Bor delivered ‘50 per cent of the entire demand for copper of the German armament industry’; see Randolph L. Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account (New York: Pro Arte, 1963), pp. 104f., Doc. 58: Note by Fränk of the Organization Todt Regarding the Need for Hungarian Jews to Work in the Copper Mines of Bor.
‘Radnike tražimo za rad u rudnici’, 24 October 1941, p. 8; ‘Rudarskog nadzornika spremnog …’, 3 November 1941, p. 8; ‘Traže radnici’, 28 November 1941, p. 5; ‘Traže se …’, 24 December 1941, p. 8, all in Novo Vreme; AJ, DK, k. 599, fasc. 649, 6 June 1945, Testimony of Milan Šarenac. This corresponds to the General Principles of the Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz (Plenipotentiary-General for Labour Employment). ‘Das Programm’, in Friedrich Didier, Handbuch für die Dienststellen des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitseinsatz und die interessierten Reichsstellen im Großdeutschen Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten (Berlin: Dr W. Meyer, 1944), pp. 27–39, p. 36. For those German workers obliged to work ‘far away from their hometowns’, the guidelines foresaw a ready-furnished room, order, cleanliness, and healthcare as well as leisure activities organized by the party and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front).
‘Die Arbeitskräfte für den Bergbau Serbiens’, Montanistische Rundschau, vol. 34, no. 8 (1942), p. 129.
For the latest translation of Miklós Radnóti’s poems into English see Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklós Radnóti: A Bilingual Edition, selected and trans. by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner (Budapest: Corvina, 2002).
Leonid Gibianskii, ‘The 1948 Soviet-Yugoslav Clash: Historiographic Versions and New Archival Sources’, in Jasna Fischer et al. (eds), Jugoslavija v hladni vojni/Yugoslavia in the Cold War (Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, 2004), pp. 49–70.
Holm Sundhaussen, ‘Die “Genozidnation”: serbische Selbst- und Fremdbilder’, in Nikolaus Buschmann and Dieter Langewiesche (eds), Der Krieg in den Gründungsmythen europäischer Nationen und der USA (Frankfurt a.M. and New York: Campus, 2004), pp. 351–371, pp. 358f. (emphasis in the original).
Predrag J. Marković et al., ‘Developments in Serbian Historiography since 1989’, in Ulf Brunnbauer (ed.), (Re)Writing History — Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism (Münster: Lit, 2004), pp. 277–316, pp. 280f. In the year of Tito’s death (1980), of 125 books on the Second World War published in Yugoslavia, 46 were regional war histories, 26 reconstructions of local Partisan wars, and 13 local hero stories. Heike Karge, Steinerne Erinnerung — Versteinerte Erinnerung? Kriegsgedenken in Jugoslawien (1947–1970) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), analyses this diversity of Yugoslav levels of war remembrance, taking Croatia and Serbia as examples. She begins her inquiry in the immediate post-war period, and in doing so her study differs from the majority of recent works, which search for explanations for the failure of the Yugoslav project and concentrate on the late 1960s and 1970s, when in fact the power of legitimation and efficiency of the official discourse on the past was already waning.
Miodrag Žečević and Jovan P. Popović (eds), Dokumenti iz istorije Jugoslavije. Državna komisija za utvrdjivanje zločina okupatora i njegovih pomagača iz drugog svetskog rata (Belgrade: Arhiv Jugoslavije, 1996), pp. 9–14; Živković, Ratna šteta, p. 10.
Branko Pavlica, Nemačka kao privredni partner Srbije i Jugoslavije 1882–1992 (Smederevo: B. Pavlica, 2003), pp. 73–84.
Rade Alavantić, Rudar socijalističke Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Izd. Izd.-štamp., 1950), p. 5.
Ibid., pp. 27f. In the list of mining societies that received prizes in the form of financial support reproduced here it is obvious that also this system of group (and individual) incentives was applied in accordance with a proportional distribution between the constituent nationalities.
On this law see Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis, Verantwortung und Rechtsfrieden. Die Stiftungsinitiative der deutschen Wirtschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2003).
According to ‘Pravda duga pola veka’, Glas Javnosti, 27 August 2000, until the end of the year 2000 about 20,000 Serb forced labourers were compensated, receiving between 5,000 and 15,000 Deutschmarks. At the moment of the deadline for filing compensation requests on 31 December 2001, 17,861 requests had been issued in Serbia and Montenegro. See Sabine Rutar, ‘Heldentum, Verrat und Arbeit in Jugoslawien: Arbeitseinsatz im sozialistischen Kontext’, in Hans-Christoph Seidel and Klaus Tenfelde (eds), Zwangsarbeit im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts. Bewältigung und vergleichende Aspekte (Essen: Klartext, 2007), pp. 75–101, p. 100.
Randolph L. Braham (ed.), The Hungarian Labor Service System 1939–45 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).
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Rutar, S. (2011). Employment of Labour in Wartime Serbia: Social History and the Politics of Amnesia. In: Ramet, S.P., Listhaug, O. (eds) Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347816_3
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