Nr. 99 vom 29. Juni 2022

International Conference 

Building a Nazi Racial Community in the South-East 

Mobility and Transnational Transfers between Nazi Germany and the South-Eastern European ‘Volksdeutsche’ 

Cluj-Napoca, July 7–9 2022

This international conference aims to open a debate about the flow of discursive tropes and political practices between Nazi Germany and South-Eastern European ‘Volksdeutsche’, but also the entanglements connecting the Nazi movements within the German ethnic groups in the region. The discussion will focus on transnational mobility and transfers as a key component of the emergence and structure of Nazi movements within the German minorities in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Among the aspects of this topic which need further inquiry, we mention issues such as:

(1) youth mobility from German minorities in South-Eastern Europe to Nazi Germany; networks of personal relations created by this mobility and its role in the assimilation of Nazi ideology;

(2) the role of the transnational networks of personal relations in structuring the leadership of local Nazi movements and transferring political practices;

(3) the circulation of Nazi ideological tropes, institutional models and practices between Germany and South-Eastern Europe, with a focus on how the local Nazi elite understood and adjusted them to the local context;

(4) the discursive practices aiming at eradicating the social, religious, and cultural identity differences between the German groups in Romania with a view to create a “Nazi racial community” (Volksgemeinschaft);

(5) the afterlife of the aforementioned transnational networks after  World War II.

PROGRAM 

Thursday (July 7, 2022) 

Venue: King Ferdinand I Aula, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeș-Bolyai University, Napoca street 11 

9.00–9.30   Registration  

9.30–9.45   Conference Welcome and Announcements 

9.45–11.00 Panel 1: Building the Volksgemeinschaft: From Theoretical Approaches to National Case Studies (I) 

Chair:  Virgiliu Țârău (Cluj-Napoca)   

Constantin Iordachi (Vienna): Studying Fascism from a Transnational Perspective: Methods and Case Studies 

Rachel O’Sullivan (München): Creating the “Volksgemeinschaft” in Annexed Poland: Nazi Germany’s Resettlement and Assimilation Policies through a Colonial Lens 

11.30–12.45 Panel 1: Building the Volksgemeinschaft: From Theoretical Approaches to National Case Studies (II) 

Chair: Enikő Dácz (München) 

Winson Chu (Milwaukee/Wisconsin): Deconstructing “Volksgemeinschaft”: Regionalism and the German Minorities in Interwar Poland 

Florian Kührer-Wielach (München): Which Volk? Which Gemeinschaft? Romanian Germans Between Nation, Reich, and Region. The Long-term Perspective 

* 

14.00–16.15 Panel 2: Mechanisms of Radicalization of the Volksdeutsche: Inner and Outside Factors  

Chair: Florian Kührer-Wielach (München) 

Michal Schvarc (Bratislava): Billige und zuverlässige Arbeitskräfte? Anwerbung und Einsatz der Deutschen aus der Slowakei im „Dritten Reich“ 

Beáta Márkus (Pécs): Ungarndeutsche in der Waffen-SS. Freiwillige Meldung als Folge der Kontakte zum „Dritten Reich 

Ottmar Trașcă (Cluj-Napoca): Unternehmen „Regulus”. Die Zusammenarbeit deutscher Geheimdienste mit der Deutschen Volksgruppe aus Rumänien und der Eisernen Garde zur Errichtung eines deutschfreundlichen Widerstandsnetzes in Rumänien (September 1944–Mai 1945) 

Norbert Spannenberger (Leipzig): Ideologische Radikalisierung wegen Expansion? Der Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn 1940–44 

* 

16.45–18.00 Panel 3: Youth, Mobility and Transnational Networks (I) 

Chair: Ottmar Trașcă (Cluj-Napoca) 

Ingrid Schiel (Gundelsheim/N.): Mobilität von Jugendlichen im Rahmen der Volksgemeinschaft der Deutschen in Rumänien 

Zsolt Vitári (Pécs): Jugendmobilisierung bei den Ungarndeutschen nach reichsdeutschem Muster? 

Friday (July 8, 2022) 

Venue: King Ferdinand I Aula, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeș-Bolyai University, Napoca street 11 

9.00–10.45 Panel 3: Youth, Mobility and Transnational Networks (II) 

Chair: Beáta Márkus (Pécs) 

Pauli Aro (Florence): For the Suffering Children of Vienna. Vienna’s Banat Swabian Community Between German Solidarities 

Irina Nastasă-Matei (Bucharest): German-Romanian Student Networks and the Transnational Far Right during 1933–1944 

Adrian Defta (Cluj-Napoca): Youth Organisations of the German Ethnic Group in Romania 

* 

11.00–12.45 Panel 4: Cultural Transfers and Entangled Far Right Ideologies 

Chair: Ingrid Schiel (Gundelsheim/N.) 

Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu (Brașov): Eigen- und Fremdbilder in der Lyrik des “Klingsor” 

Enikő Dácz (München): Karl Kurt Klein und Heinrich Zillich als Gestalter des literarischen Transfers zwischen dem Dritten Reich und Rumänien  

Timo Hagen (Bonn): Gab es eine nationalsozialistische Architektur in Siebenbürgen – und wenn ja, wie viele? 

* 

14.00–15.45 Panel 5: Press and Nazi Propaganda in South-Eastern Europe (I) 

Chair: Philippe Henri Blasen (Iași) 

Filip Krčmar (Zrenjanin): “Volk und Arbeit”: Case Study of a Nazi Magazine in the Interwar Yugoslavia 

Mihai Panu (Timișoara): Organizational Infrastructure of Nazi Ideology in Banat: The Case of Youth Movements 

Corneliu Pintilescu (Cluj-Napoca): Historical Myths and Nazi Propaganda in the German Language Press in Romania (1940–1944) 

* 

16.15–17.30 Panel 5: Press and Nazi Propaganda in South-Eastern Europe (II) 

Chair: Iuliana Cindrea-Nagy (Cluj-Napoca) 

Daniela Popescu (Cluj-Napoca): Romanian Perspectives on the Propaganda of the German Ethnic Group 

Manuela Marin (Cluj-Napoca): “Two Souls in One Chest”: The Creation of the German Ethnic Group as Reflected in the Romanian Press. The Case Study: “Universul” 

17.30–18.45 Panel 6: Antisemitism and the Radicalization of the German Minorities in South-Eastern Europe 

 Chair: Winson Chu (Milwaukee/Wisconsin) 

Mariana Hausleitner (Berlin): Verbreitung des Antisemitismus bei den Deutschen in der Bukowina und Bessarabien 1933–1939 

James Koranyi (Durham): Fascist Pioneers: Germans and Antisemitism in Interwar Romania  

Saturday (July 9) 

Venue: King Ferdinand I Aula, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeș-Bolyai University, Napoca street 11 

9.00–10.15 Church and National Socialism in Romania 

Chair: Rudolf Poledna (Cluj-Napoca) 

Ulrich A. Wien (Landau): Infiltration and Dissolution of Church Youth Work in the Evang. Landeskirche (1933-1942) 

Philippe Henri Blasen (Iași): Antisemitism in the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession: The Question of the Baptism of the Jews (1940-1944) 

* 

10.45–13.00 Uses and Misuses of the Files: The Nazi Past in the Secret Police Archives of the Eastern Bloc 

Chair: Remus Gabriel Anghel (Cluj-Napoca) 

Hannelore Baier (Sibiu): Die Instrumentalisierung der NS-Sympathien von Bischof Friedrich Müller durch die Securitate, um ihn von der Leitung der Evangelischen Kirche A.B. zu entfernen 

Virgiliu Țârău (Cluj-Napoca): Turning Old Files into New Ones: How the Securitate Seized and Instrumentalized the Former Archives of the German Ethnic Group in Romania 

Stefan Lehr (Oldenburg): Die Instrumentalisierung der NS-Vergangenheit von Funktionären der Sudetendeutschen Landsmannschaft und des Witiko-Bundes durch die sozialistische Tschechoslowakei 

William Totok (Berlin): Nachrichtendienstliche Überwachung und Unterwanderung der Rumäniendeutschen durch die Securitate  

* 

14.30–16.00  Guided tour of the old town in Cluj 

This conference is organized by the George Barițiu Institute of History of the Romanian Academy in partnership with the Institut für deutsche Kultur und Geschichte Südosteuropas e. V. an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München within the project “Building a Nazi Racial Community in the South-East: A Transnational Perspective on the German Ethnic Group in Romania”. This project was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-2081, within PNCDI III”.  

Institut für deutsche Kultur und Geschichte Südosteuropas
an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (IKGS)

Halskestraße 15 | 81379 München
Tel. +49 89 78 06 09 0
ikgs@ikgs.de | www.ikgs.de
Newsletter-Archiv | Impressum

Gefördert von
der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.