OSIJEK OSIJEK, Oct 25 (Hina) - Delegations from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Croatia met in Osijek on Friday for the main electoral assembly of the World Alliance of
Danubian Ethnic Germans.
OSIJEK, Oct 25 (Hina) - Delegations from Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Rumania, Yugoslavia, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina
and Croatia met in Osijek on Friday for the main electoral assembly
of the World Alliance of Danubian Ethnic Germans. #L#
The assembly was opened by a former alliance president, Jakob
Dinges from Germany, who reminded about the importance of
cooperation among ethnic Germans in the Danube River region in
preserving their national identity. He added that so far the
alliance had been trying to solve the problem of property
restitution and payment of damages to Danubian Germans affected by
the post-war communist regime.
Danubian Germans, who were collectively accused of Nazi crimes and
who survived genocide, have organised into associations across the
globe, the president of the German National Association - World
Association of Danubian Germans, Nikola Mak, said.
The associations nurtured the German language, customs and memory
of the old homeland. Since 1992 they have been part of the World
Alliance of Danubian Germans, with the central office in
Sindelfingen in Germany, he said.
Explaining the term "Danubian Germans", Mak said those were Germans
and Austrians who had lived in significant numbers in Croatia
between the end of the Ottoman rule in the late 17th century and
1945, when, he said, more than 150,000 Danubian Germans lived in
Croatia, and a total of 550,000 in the whole of Yugoslavia.
Today, there are about 3,000 declared Danubian Germans in Croatia,
although there are around 70,000 people in Croatia whose background
and last names undoubtedly point to their German roots, but most
declare themselves as Croats, Mak said.
Rudolf Reimann from Vienna was elected the new alliance president.
(hina) lml sb