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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2022
There are still many historical blind spots in research on Europe's displaced persons (DPs) after the Second World War. In particular, there are relatively few studies that link microhistorical perspectives on repatriation and resettlement with global contexts. This essay addresses this gap, in empirical as well as methodological terms, by focusing on a group of DPs that hitherto has received little attention from scholars: former members of the Royal Yugoslav Army, whom the Nazis had taken to Germany as prisoners of war (POWs). Classified as DPs after 1945, they lived in camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Under the circumstances, they continued to maintain military-like routines and fiercely refused repatriation. This was partly an expression of loyalty to the exiled Yugoslav king, Peter II. But it also mirrored the fears of DPs about—and resistance to the idea of—being returned to their homeland in the context of the early Cold War. Using the example of a DP camp in Bad Aibling (Upper Bavaria), this article connects Yugoslav DPs, Allied DP politics, and the interests of Tito's government, as well as the interventions of international relief agencies. It shows how some DPs adroitly subverted the international logic of DP self-governance as promoted by UNRRA. A global microhistory approach thus reveals how local actors and sites are shaped by, but also foundationally constitutive of, global regimes of migrational self-governance.
This article is a revised, extended and translated version of Christian Höschler, “Von der Selbstverwaltung zum Repatriierungsstillstand: Ehemalige Soldaten der königlich-jugoslawischen Armee als Displaced Persons in Bad Aibling, 1946–1947,” in Lager—Repatriierung—Integration: Beiträge zur Displaced Persons-Forschung, ed. Christian Pletzing and Marcus Velke (Leipzig: Biblion Media, 2016), 19–46. The publishers of the aforementioned volume have agreed for the original article to be re-published in the present form as part of the Itinerario “Forced Migration and Refugee Resettlement in the Long 1940s” special issue.
2 Feder, Ruth, “Displaced Persons Go Home: How They Are Received in Yugoslavia,” The Churchman 161 (1947), 15Google Scholar.
3 Ibid.
4 Wyman, Mark, DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–1951 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), 79–80Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., 66–8; Wyman has described the memories of events such as the Bleiburg massacre as “scars across the collective memory of thousands of Yugoslavs in exile” (67).
6 For an overview of the existing literature on postwar DPs, see the specialised Bibliography on DPs on the website of the Arolsen Archives—International Center on Nazi Persecution, launched in September 2020, at https://arolsen-archives.org/en/search-explore/additional-resources/dp-bibliographie/.
7 Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, Vom Zwangsarbeiter zum Heimatlosen Ausländer: Die Displaced Persons in Westdeutschland 1945–1951 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985).
8 Among the few exceptions, the following two publications are particularly noteworthy: Lane, Ann J., “Putting Britain Right with Tito: The Displaced Persons Question in Anglo-Yugoslav Relations 1946–7,” European History Quarterly 22 (1992), 217–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hagenbruch, Karlheinz, “Der Lebensabend jugoslawischer Generäle auf Schloss Varlar, 1948–1970,” Geschichtsblätter des Kreises Coesfeld 31 (2006), 137–80Google Scholar.
9 See, for example, Shephard, Ben, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 78–81Google Scholar; or specifically with regard to children as DPs, Zahra, Tara, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families after World War II (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 For example, Ulrich Müller, Fremde in der Nachkriegszeit: Displaced Persons—zwangsverschleppte Personen—in Stuttgart und Württemberg-Baden 1945–1951 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990); as well as Anna Andlauer, Zurück ins Leben: Das internationale Kinderzentrum Kloster Indersdorf 1945–46 (Nürnberg: Antogo, 2011).
11 See Höschler, Christian, “Displaced Persons (DPs) in Postwar Europe: History and Historiography,” in Two Kinds of Searches: Findings on Displaced Persons in Arolsen after 1945, ed. Höschler, Christian and Panek, Isabel (Bad Arolsen: Arolsen Archives, 2019), 13–26Google Scholar.
12 See Andrade, Tonio, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory,” Journal of World History 21:4 (2010), 573–91Google Scholar.
13 For a more recent debate on the theory and practical use of global microhistory, see the special issue “Global History and Microhistory,” Past & Present 242, Issue Supplement 14 (2019).
14 Gottfried Mayr, Das Kriegsgefangenenlager PWE No. 26, Bad Aibling 1945–1946: Massenschicksal—Einzelschicksale (Bad Aibling: Historischer Verein Bad Aibling und Umgebung, 2002).
15 United Nations Archives, New York (hereafter UNA), Report by Annic de Lagotellerie, 28 September 1946, S-0436-0014-02.
16 UNA, Ralph W. Collins to C. J. Taylor, 17 October 1946, S-0437-0022-33.
17 UNA, Harold Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp,” June 1947, S-0425-0006-17. Although this particular source contains many interesting details about the camp's history, it is not without its problems, especially with regard to the crucial question of repatriation. In many instances Rosenblatt uncritically adopted the basic tenor of rumours that were spreading among DPs. The undoubtedly decisive influence of the former officers as leaders of the DPs, on the other hand, is barely mentioned.
18 UNA, Report by Joseph L. Zwischenberger, n.d., S-0436-0014-02; UNA, Monthly Report, UNRRA Area Team 1069, 18 December 1946, S-0436-0014-02.
19 For better distinction, the term “civilians” here and hereafter refers to those DPs who were not former soldiers. The latter technically also had civilian status due to their demobilisation. See Hirschmann, Ira A., The Embers Still Burn: An Eye-Witness View of the Postwar Ferment in Europe and the Middle East and Our Disastrous Get-Soft-With-Germany Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949), 180Google Scholar.
20 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
21 Otto Burianek, “From Liberator to Guardian: The U.S. Army and Displaced Persons in Munich, 1945” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1992), 209–10.
22 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
23 UNA, Selene Gifford to Yugoslavia UNRRA Office, 4 October 1946, S-0411-0002-11.
24 UNA, Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 10 April 1947, S-0437-0025-01.
25 Ibid.
26 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
27 UNA, Monthly Report, UNRRA Area Team 1069, 18 December 1946, S-0436-0014-02; UNA, Weekly Population Statistics of the Bad Aibling DP Camp, 22 February 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
28 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
29 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers: Displaced in German Camp Quieted by Explanation of UNRRA's Segregation,” New York Times, 27 May 1947.
30 Thomas L. McPhail and Steven Phupps, eds., Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 276.
31 Feder, “Displaced Persons Go Home,” 15.
32 Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
33 UNA, Franciszek Harazin to Repatriation Division, UNRRA District 5, 25 March 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
34 UNA, Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947, S-0425-0006-17.
35 Ibid.
36 Harazin to Repatriation Division, 25 March 1947.
37 See Roberts, Walter, Tito, Mihailović and the Allies: 1941–1945 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.
38 Rudolph Rummel, Demozid—der befohlene Tod: Massenmorde im 20. Jahrhundert (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2003), 299; Shephard, The Long Road Home, 78–81.
39 Harazin to Repatriation Division, 25 March 1947.
40 Ibid.
41 UNA, Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947, S-0437-0025-01.
42 Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
43 See, in general, Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn.
44 Ibid., 180.
45 Ibid.
46 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
47 Harazin to Repatriation Division, 25 March 1947. The doubts of Ralph Collins, head of UNRRA Field Operations in the American occupation zone of Germany, regarding a takeover of the Bad Aibling DP Camp by UNRRA, would also prove to be justified: “We will inherit a camp [. . .] complete with generals and colonels and military discipline. This point seems to offer possible security and political implications to both [U.S.] military and UNRRA.” UNA, Ralph W. Collins to C. J. Taylor, 17 October 1946, S-0437-0022-33.
48 A former inhabitant of the camp recalled that the barracks were each occupied by “one Lieutenant and one NCO who had to ensure discipline.” Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
49 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
50 Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
51 Main Bavarian State Archives, Munich, Monthly Report, Military Government Bad Aibling (MG Det. E-285), May 1947, Main Bavarian State Archive, Munich (OMGB) 13/154–1/16.
52 UNA, English translation of the leaflet, n.d., S-0425-0006-17.
53 UNA, Report by Gertrude Steinova, 15 May 1947, S-0425-0006-17.
54 UNA, [Anon.] to Mack S. Wishik, 4 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
55 A former camp resident stressed that fear of Communist agents was widespread. Letter from former resident of the Bad Aibling DP Camp (name withheld) to Christian Höschler, 7 March 2013.
56 On the concept of governmentality, see Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
57 George Woodbridge, UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 522.
58 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
59 Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, “Ortlos am Ende des Grauens: ‘Displaced Persons’ in der Nachkriegszeit,” in Deutsche im Ausland—Fremde in Deutschland: Migration in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Klaus J. Bade (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1992), 371.
60 Holm Sundhaussen, Jugoslawien und seine Nachfolgerstaaten, 1943–2011 (Wien: Böhlau, 2012), 80.
61 Ibid., 80–2.
62 Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn, 182–3.
63 On other instances of labour history in the context of postwar DPs, see, for example, Markus, Andrew, “Labour and Immigration 1946–9: The Displaced Persons Program,” Labour History 47 (1984), 73–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; as well as Steinert, Johannes-Dieter, “British Post-War Migration Policy and Displaced Persons in Europe,” in The Disentanglement of Populations: Migration, Expulsion and Displacement in Post-War Europe, 1944–9, ed. Reinisch, Jessica and White, Elizabeth (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 229–47Google Scholar.
64 The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), Report by George Rendel, 13 July 1946, FO 945/389.
65 Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
66 TNA, Report by George Rendel, 13 July 1946, FO 945/389.
67 Sundhaussen, Jugoslawien und seine Nachfolgerstaaten, 67.
68 Lane, “Putting Britain Right with Tito,” 223.
69 Feder, “Displaced Persons Go Home,” 15.
70 Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn, 180.
71 Archives Nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Announcement by Josip Broz Tito, 12 April 1947, AJ/43/407.
72 Lane, Putting Britain Right with Tito, 238.
73 UNA, Minutes of meeting with Yugoslav liaison officers in Frankfurt, 10 April 1947, S-0437-0025-04.
74 UNA, Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 27 November 1946, S-0436-0014-02.
75 UNA, Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 6 February 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
76 UNA, Ralph W. Collins to Carl H. Martini, 26 November 1946, S-0437-0022-33.
77 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
78 UNA, Monthly Report, UNRRA Area Team 1069, 14 January 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
79 UNA, Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947, S-0437-0025-01.
80 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
81 Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 6 February 1947.
82 Report by Joseph L. Zwischenberger, n.d.
83 UNA, Gertrude Steinova to Joseph L. Zwischenberger, 15 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
84 UNA, Paul B. Edwards to Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, 23 April 1947, S-0437-0024-12.
85 Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947; Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
86 Quoted from Hirschmann, The Embers Still Burn, 182–3.
87 Maurice Rosen to Ralph W. Collins, 1 April 1947.
88 Ibid.
89 Ralph B. Price to Ralph W. Collins, 10 April 1947.
90 Report by Margaret E. Borland, 7 May 1947.
91 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers.”
92 UNA, Weekly statistics of the Bad Aibling DP Camp, 31 May 1947, S-0436-0014-02.
93 “Yugoslavs Mourn Loss of Officers.”
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 UNA, Ralph W. Collins to Fay Greene, 24 May 1947, S-0435-0014-24.
97 Commentary by Maurice Rosen, 13 June 1947.
98 Rosenblatt, “History of the Bad Aibling DP Camp.”
99 ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, Bad Arolsen, “Population statistics for US Zone DP camps,” 20 September 1947, 3.1.1.0/82383748.
100 Archives Nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Monthly Report, IRO Area 7, 30 December 1948, AJ/43/772.
101 On the IRO Children's Village Bad Aibling, see Christian Höschler, Home(less): The IRO Children's Village Bad Aibling, 1948–1951 (Berlin: epubli, 2017).
102 International Organization for Migration, Migration in Serbia: A Country Profile 2008 (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2008), 23–6Google Scholar.
103 Molnar, Christopher, Memory, Politics, and Yugoslav Migrations to Postwar Germany (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.