his thesis compares legal development in Yugoslavia and Republic of Czechoslovakia, focusing mainly, but not only, on acts concerning german minority. The reason for this comparation is that both countries faced at same time very similar issues and the main goal of this thesis is to point out different methods of dealing with those issues. Thesis starts with brief historical introduction on both countries. It main goal is to inform reader on formation of legal authorities in both countries capable of issuing legal acts. Than the thesis continues with main topic, comparison of several legal areas. Firstly it deals with topic of abortion of acts created by occupation administrations and abortion of rullings of this administrations. Second topic is citizenship of citizens of german nationality and the way both countries resolved the question of revocation of this citizenship. In this part, other nationalities, whose citizenship was also contested, are also mentioned. Third, and largest topic of the thesis is property law. Focusing mainly on confiscation or seizure of property of german (but not only german) minority. Subtopics in which comparison is being made in this chapter are: 1) persons and legal personalities subjected to seizure of property, 2) extent of property bieng seized, 3) trials in which...

This Master thesis deals with the topic of the German minority in the village Lenora. As the life in Lenora was very closely connected to the local glassworks, the thesis provides a brief history of glass in the Bohemian Forest and the glassworks in Lenora as well as the historical context in the country dating from the establishment of Czechoslovakia and the analysis of the life in Lenora. The thesis also describes the situation after the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia because many Germans stayed in Lenora even after the expulsion due to their employment in the glassworks. In addition to the history of Germans in Lenora, interviews with several contemporary witnesses were made. After the expulsion, the population in Lenora changed significantly, which was the reason for dedicating one chapter to the topic of remigration. The last chapter informs about the current state of affairs concentrating on the society Heimatkreis Prachatitz administered by Germans who lived in the district of Prachatice.

The history of the Afrikadeutschen of Kroondal that began with the formation of the Hermannsburg Mission Society in 1849 and that grew to encompass a century of German nationalism over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, provides an important dimension to the greater story of German immigration and settlement in South Africa. It is a narrative in which the position of the community’s growing association with their adopted landscape or Heimat serves to create the inevitable counterpoint to their ideological identity as Germans and thereby too, its reconciliation in the name Afrikadeutsche (African-Germans). Situated in the North-West province of South Africa, the community of Kroondal displays a unique collection of archival and literary source material that along with the this dissertation’s use of the specifically German descriptors Heimat and Deutschtum (Germanness) then serve as the basis for its investigation into its African-German identity. / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted

This diploma thesis analyzes the identity of German minority in the town of Medzev (South Slovakia). The research traced the development of identity manifestation from the mid- 20th century until now. The aim was to discover what factors (historical events, homogenization politics, private motivation or randomness) influenced the representation of identity of the German minority in the local cemeteries. The cemeteries thus serve as a source of information about local German identity manifestation. The field research was carried out in 2016 and 2017 in Medzev, which is a town with symbolical value for the German minority in Slovakia. In the cemeteries the author analyzed the used language and names on the gravestones, as well as the position of the gravestones, their form and material. The qualitative research in the cemeteries was supported by biographical and semi-structured interviews with members of the local German minority. The main contribution of this project lies in the reconstruction of German identity manifestation in the local cemeteries in the course of last 70 years. Based on the results of the confrontation of mostly invariable inscriptions on gravestones with testimonies of the narrators, the ambition of the thesis is to point out how flexible and multilayered are identities in the...

This dissertation examines the implementation of the SS’s Greater Germanic idea in the Danish border region of South Jutland. Its focus is on how Danish and ethnic German (volksdeutsche) national socialists, organised in their respective Nazi parties, dealt with the SS’s crusade on behalf of a supranational racial vision. The study traces why the two groups reacted so negatively to the SS’s ideology - despite the SS’s power, despite the Greater Germanic promise of high racial prestige, and despite shared service in “Germanic” units of the Waffen-SS. The SS’s attempts to use a race-based ideology to overcome the disputes that divided South Jutland’s two Nazi parties ran aground on fundamentally nationalist identities. For most members of the German minority, the Greater Germanic ideology was a threat. The German minority hoped for border revision; to acknowledge Danes as racial equals would endanger their political goals. Nor were Danish Nazis more enthusiastic. To be sure, the SS’s vision did provide an ideological weapon in the fight against demands for border vision. But the potential imperialism of the Greater Germanic idea worried those who prized continued Danish sovereignty. After all, the first hope of the Danish Nazis was to rule an independent national-socialist Danish state. The study makes it clear, however, that the fate of the Greater Germanic idea cannot be understood simply in terms of Realpolitik. Rather, the conflicts between the SS and its collaboration partners must also be understood as a clash between racial and völkisch concepts of community. The SS's vision of a Greater Germanic Reich based on ideologies of race clashed with the German-minority and Danish national-socialist commitment to Volk-based nationalism. Despite their strong commitment to Nazi ideologies, both collaboration partners found the SS’s racial community “unimaginable”.

This thesis deals with the issue of the German minority in the interwar Czechoslovakia as a factor of foreign policy of Germany. The aim is to analyse how German foreign policy misused this minority to expand his power. It will be also demonstrated which consequences this policy brought and how it affected the Czech-German relations to the present.

The Policy of the German Minority in the Interwar Czechoslovakia on the Example of German Social Democratic Workers Party in Brno Abstract of Diploma Thesis The diploma thesis deals with the politics of the German minority at municipal level in the first years after the Czechoslovak Republic was established. The relations between Czech and German political representation in the years 1918 to 1924 are described by the example of the German Social Democratic Workers Party in Brno. The case study is based on the analysis of contemporary press, especially the party journals of the German Social Democracy, and archival documents from the sessions of the local municipal government. The introduction describes the reactions of German politicians to the loss of the privileged position in the city after the break-up of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. The first municipal elections after World War I represented a turning point in the politics of the Germans in Brno. They rejected the requirement of joining Moravian capital Brno to Austria and started to be interested in their own representation in the municipal government, and thus participation in the Czechoslovak political system. The next part of the thesis follows up the development of the relationships of the German Social Democrats towards other Czech and German...

The diploma thesis deals with cultural and social life of the German minority in the Czech lands with the focus on its development in the Karlovy Vary border region since 1989. The study is based on an analysis of the German minority press, especially the periodicals Aufbau und Frieden, Prager Volkszeitung, Landeszeitung, LandesEcho and Eghaland Bladl, and a research survey based on interviews with members of the German minority and questionnaires addressed to the representatives of local authorities of the towns in which the research took place. First of all, the basic concepts and minority policy at the national and international levels are defined. Next, the thesis concentrates on the historical and legislative development and social-demographic situation of the German minority in the Czech lands after 1945. The next part of the thesis discusses the development of the cultural and social life of the German minority in the Czech lands and closely characterizes four main areas - organization activity, cultural and social activity, language situation and media. These four areas are explored within the research survey in the main part of the thesis. The aim is to analyze the development of the cultural and social life of the German minority in the Karlovy Vary Region, and to depict the current status.

Am Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs hat die wiederhergestellte Tschechoslowakei die Mehrheit ihrer deutschen Bevölkerung vertrieben. Eine kleine Gemeinschaft von 200,000-300,000 blieben im Lande, die überwiegend aus Menschen bestand, die über benötigte industriellen Fachkenntnissen verfügten, in Mischehen lebten und/oder antifaschistische Aktivitäten nachweisen konnten. Aus verschiedenen Gründen, oft verbunden mit den politischen Realitäten des kalten Kriegs und der vorherrschenden antideutschen Diskriminierung in der Tschechoslowakei, verschwanden diese Menschen aus dem Blickfeld der Geschichte. In dieser Dissertation gehe ich zwei Fragen nach, die mit den kulturellen Bestrebungen dieser kleinen Gemeinschaft verbunden sind. Zuerst erforsche ich, ob es möglich ist, durch die Auffindung ihrer literarischen Bestrebungen, das Bemühen dieser Gemeinschaft ihre kulturelle Identität zu bewahren zu dokumentieren. Trotz der Einschränkung von Veröffentlichungsmöglichkeiten, wurde es klar, dass die Gemeinschaft literarisch tätig war. Ihre Texte habe ich in eine Bibliographie eingetragen, die Anhaltspunkte für weiterführende Forschung zu dieser Gemeinschaft bietet. Die zweite Frage nimmt die Erstellung einer Analyse des generellen kulturpolitischen Umfelds der Gemeinschaft auf sich. Durch die sorgfältige Lektüre der Gemeinschaftszeitung auf der Suche nach literarischen Beiträgen, war es möglich den Verlauf dieser Entwicklungen zu verfolgen, insbesondere die Auswirkung der Veränderungen, die von dem Slánský-Prozess, dem Prager Frühling und der Normalisierung ausgelöst wurden. Im letzten Kapitel dieser Dissertation biete ich eine Reflexion zur Frage inwiefern Bibliothekspraxis und –politik ermöglichen sowie verhindern die Erforschung von Randgemeinschaften und -themen. Ich behandle die Diskrepanz zwischen den Neutralitätsbehauptungen von Bibliotheken und der Auswirkung von menschlichen Entscheidungen und Neigungen auf Bestände und biete abschließend Vorschläge für Veränderungen. / At the conclusion of the Second World War, a reconstituted Czechoslovakia expelled the majority of its German population. A small community of 200,000-300,000 remained behind, consisting mainly of individuals with specialized trades or skills, in mixed marriages, and/or with antifascist credentials. For various reasons, many related to Cold War political realities and endemic anti-German discrimination in Czechoslovakia, these individuals largely disappeared from view. In this dissertation I address two questions related to the cultural aspirations of this small community. First, I explore whether it is possible to document the community’s attempts to maintain a German cultural identity by tracking their literary efforts. Despite restrictions on publication, it emerged that the community did actively produce literature. I recorded these texts in a bibliography that offers an entry point for further research on the German minority. The other question delves into constructing an analysis of the broader cultural politics of this community. By virtue of close engagement with the community’s newspaper while searching for literature, it was possible to trace the arc of these developments, in particular the impact of changes set in motion by the Slánský trial, the Prague Spring, and the period known as Normalization. The dissertation concludes with a chapter where I pursue the question of the extent to which the practices and policies of research libraries enable and thwart research on marginal communities. I reflect on the gap between libraries’ claim to be neutral organizations and the impact of human decisions and biases on collections and offer some concluding suggestions for changes that would help libraries address critical gaps in the human record.

The master's thesis "Development of the Sudeten German political movements in the years 1933 - 1938" is focusing on the formation and development of Sudetenland German political movements in the Czechoslovak Republic. It deals with the situation of German minority group, it analyses the assumptions and also attempts for unification of German (negativistic) political field in the process being aimed at establishment and forming Sudetenland German Patriotic Front (SHF) in 1933. The thesis subsequently follows up the chronological development of Henlein Movement (SHF), the relation to other German political parties and the state, and also the transformation in Sudetenland German Party (SdP) in 1935. Afterwards, the thesis include the analysis of its election programme, the ways of campaigning and the election results in the parliamentary elections in 1935 (the voter turnout in municipal election in 1934 and 1938 is also mentioned). The internal party crisis belongs among other milestones of SdP that are dealt in this thesis just as Carlsbad Programme (with the demands against Czechoslovakia), the dissolving of SdP and the changeover of former members to German National Socialist Labour Party (NSDAP) in 1938.