Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22586/csp.v54i3.23847
Demographic and Actual Losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians Caused by World War II: Estimates, Calculations and Lists
Vladimir Geiger
; Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
An overview of the most systematic calculations and estimates of the demographic and actual human losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians caused by World War II and their comparison, and the comparison of these calculations with indicators in historiographical, popular, and victimological works—and, above all, the much more reliable lists of human losses by name—clearly points towards the need of questioning the reliability of the number of both demographic and actual humans losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians—and especially the structures of these losses—in the calculations and estimates that are most commonly referred to in Croatian historiography and in the Croatian public scene.
The lists of human losses by name that cover Croatia—and Yugoslavia—in World War II, which can never be complete and without error, nonetheless contribute greatly to correcting calculations and estimates of actual human losses. Lists of victims by name cannot be considered final. The fundamental issue with lists of names that were created primarily based on testimonies rather than original documents is that many data providers did not know the circumstances, time, and place that a certain person lost their life. Along with the necessary and unavoidable supplements and corrections in lists of names, there are also noticeable changes in the structure of human losses, including transfers from one national/ethnic group to another, which can also be seen in the case of Croatian Germans and Hungarians.
There are clearly serious dilemmas regarding the demographic and actual human losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians. The number of persons who emigrated, fled, or were expelled from the country, as well as the number of those who were ‘assimilated’, is questionable, and therefore the numbers of actual and demographic human losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians are also questionable. Namely, the number of those who emigrated, and above all the number of ‘assimilated’ persons, are assumptions or even guesses in even the most systematic calculations. The indicators of the lists by name are indispensable not only in analyses of human losses, most of all actual losses, but also in the corrections of calculations and estimates of demographic human losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians.
There is no doubt that there remains a series of open questions and counter-questions in historiography and victimology regarding the number of demographic and actual human losses of Croatian Germans and Hungarians and the structure of these losses.
Keywords
World War II; Croatia; human losses; Germans; Hungarians
Hrčak ID:
292858
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2022.
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