The Aktion Intelligenzija in Karlsdorf refers to the abduction, mistreatment and execution of 36 predominantly Danube Swabian inhabitants of Karlsdorf. These war crimes mainly took place between 4 and 11 November 1944 and were carried out by Serbian partisans as part of the nationwide Aktion Intelligenzija initiated by the Titoist regime.
Background and research debate After the hostilities against the Wehrmacht in the southwestern Banat had ended, the German-descended inhabitants living there were categorized by the partisan movement under Josip Broz Tito as enemies of the people or traitors to the country. Apparently following the Soviet model, the educated class of this population group was to be liquidated in order to bring this ethnic minority under control.Hans Sonnleitner: Aktion Intelligenzija in Karlsdorf. Tatsachen und Hintergründe, Reflexionen zur Sinnfrage über Mord und Tod. Gedenkschrift 1944–1984 über die Ermordung von 36 Karlsdorfern. Donauschwäbisches Archiv, 1986. p. 15ff.
After a military administration had been established, thereby bringing approximately 160,000 Danube Swabians under Tito's rule, the first systematic arrests of prominent representatives of the ethnic German population group began in the second half of October 1944. In cooperation between the secret police, a special military unit, and the local military administration, the detainees were interrogated, not infrequently mistreated and tortured, and subsequently herded together in improvised camps. Whether Tito himself gave the order for this is not known. At least the “organizational structure of the military administration” for the “Banat, the Bačka and the Baranja, with its department for mobilization, camps and labor service” indicates “that at least a rather general, possibly only verbal order from the very top” was aimed at a “special treatment” of the German and Hungarian populations. In this context, Michael Portmann shares the view that emerged from the “Dokumentation der Vertreibung” as well as from “Danube Swabian literature,” namely that “a planned, centrally controlled course of action” should be assumed. Given the hierarchical structure of the party and the army under Tito, he must at least have known about the executions and approved of them.
The Serbian historian Zoran Janjetović, on the other hand, sees the killings of inhabitants of Karlsdorf merely as a “reprisal measure for the mistreatment and summary expulsion of Serbian colonists in April 1941” – as a survivor of this massacre, Hans Sonnleitner allegedly transformed spontaneous outbreaks of violence immediately following the liberation of Yugoslavia from Nazi occupation into the Aktion Intelligenzija. In this context, Janjetović rejects the thesis of an intelligence operation planned from above and carried out systematically, arguing that comparable executions did not take place in all German or Hungarian settlements and that “in some cases even beardless boys were killed” who “certainly did not belong to the village intelligentsia.”
Course of events
In October 1944, a partisan unit demanded a number of ethnic Germans from the Karlsdorf municipal office so that they could be executed. The demand was initially rejected by local Serbs on the grounds that there were no guilty persons. Nevertheless, individual Karlsdorf residents were murdered from the end of October onward. When another partisan unit appeared at the municipal office on 4 November 1944, prominent Germans were arrested and mistreated there. The wife of one of those arrested was told by the Serbian Titoist partisans that the reason was that those arrested were the “intelligentsia”. The 13-year-old Hans Sonnleitner, whose father was among those arrested, was interrogated. Preparations were made to execute the boy, but he was eventually allowed to leave. A total of six women and 27 men were eventually loaded onto several horse-drawn wagons in front of the Karlsdorf municipal office and deported to White Church. When one of the women went into labor on the way, she was taken off the wagon and shot in the militia building in Jasenovo. After numerous further instances of mistreatment, most of these people were jointly shot on 8 or 11 November 1944 near White Church in the “Schindergrube” on the Nera-Mühlen Canal. They had previously been forced to dig their own graves.See also: Hans Sonnleitner: Aktion Intelligenzija in Karlsdorf. Tatsachen und Hintergründe, Reflexionen zur Sinnfrage über Mord und Tod. Gedenkschrift 1944–1984 über die Ermordung von 36 Karlsdorfern. Donauschwäbisches Archiv, 1986, pp. 81–93.
Among the victims were, among others, the so-called Gemeindenotär, the most important administrative official during the German occupation; two former mayors of Karlsdorf; a physician; a Roman Catholic priest; lawyers, one of whom (Jozo Rogitsch) had previously served as Minister for Sport and Physical Culture in the Stojadinović government; the head of the Karlsdorf Deutsche Frauenschaft; merchants and wholesalers; business and factory owners; self-employed farmers; master craftsmen; as well as ordinary employees and craftsmen.Hans Sonnleitner: Aktion Intelligenzija in Karlsdorf. Tatsachen und Hintergründe, Reflexionen zur Sinnfrage über Mord und Tod. Gedenkschrift 1944–1984 über die Ermordung von 36 Karlsdorfern. Donauschwäbisches Archiv, 1986, pp. 231–234.
Aftermath
On 11 November 1983, a criminal complaint was filed with the public prosecutor's office and the Regional Court Munich I concerning torture and murder in Karlsdorf. However, the investigation had to be discontinued.Hans Sonnleitner: Aktion Intelligenzija in Karlsdorf. Tatsachen und Hintergründe, Reflexionen zur Sinnfrage über Mord und Tod. Gedenkschrift 1944–1984 über die Ermordung von 36 Karlsdorfern. Donauschwäbisches Archiv, 1986, pp. 71, 388.
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