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The paper deals with the topic of eugenics ("Erbgesundheitslehre" or "Rassenhygiene") among the Germans in Romania, which was mainly carried by Transylvanian Saxon actors. Based on Tudor Georgescu's monograph The Eugenic Fortress: The Transylvanian Saxon Experiment in Interwar Romania (2016), the topic is analyzed in depth for the 1920s. Using Heinrich Siegmund's Sächsisches Wehr- und Mehrbuch, which was published in 1914 and in a revised form in 1922, as well as other source examples, it is shown that the eugenic discourse was not only a transfer from the "West" to Transylvanian Saxony, but took on a specific form. The central actors of the biopolitical discourse among the Transylvanian Saxons, especially Heinrich Siegmund and later Alfred Csallner, acted in an interpersonal and intertextual network, especially one supported by institutions, that was primarily connected to Germany--the exchange on eugenics was thus a reciprocal process, not an exclusively one-sided "import" from the "West." However, it is further noted that there was relatively little demonstrable exchange with Romanian and Hungarian eugenicists. The implementation of the teachings of eugenics was intended to counter a demographically induced decrease in the population of the German minority. The main target was the younger generation, especially in rural areas--this milieu was seen as having the best chances of resisting the "decline" by means of biopolitical measures. On the one hand, the analyzed discourse reveals the intertwining of traditional and contemporary topoi; on the other hand, a radicalization of biopolitical concepts can be seen parallel to political developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins by discussing the loyalty-faith-betrayal triad in relation to the Crown, the empire, and one's one nation, and then it proceeds to analyze the situation of the Banat region in the aftermath of World War I and the attitude of the local German population towards the tumultuous events that took place after November 1918. Among the elements thus highlighted we find the confusion experienced by the region's multiethnic population (Romanians, Germans, Serbs, and Hungarians), the intervention of the Entente forces, as well as the attempts made by the authorities in Budapest to maintain control over Banat--among other things, by trying to set up an administrative unit of Banat sometimes referred to as a "republic," which was never actually proclaimed, was never granted international legal status and never acquired its own institutions or distinct legislation, and was therefore ephemeral and practically non-existent. The authors then examine the options available to the German population in what concerned their chances of still living as Germans in a land they had profoundly shaped in economic and cultural terms for the past 200 years, at a time what the Romanians had clearly opted for a union with Romania, the vacillations of a population that included a modest intellectual class between the old loyalty towards the Hungarian state, the loyalty towards one's own community (amid the renewed hope of a German revival), and also the loyalty expected by the Romanian state (of which they knew little, and the little they knew tended to be mostly negative), without forgetting the decision--otherwise influenced by the Saxon leaders (Rudolf Brandsch)--to accept the union with Romania and to support this decision at the Paris Peace Conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the historical process of expelling the Ottomans from Europe, Habsburg rule spread across Central and Eastern Europe. In the context of the somewhat later dominant views that guided politics, such as the Enlightenment or the populationist politics, the settlement of colonists became more and more important, also in Banat, a depopulated area during the Turkish wars, which was mainly used for defense purposes. Here, the new colonists, the new types of settlements and the industrial activities in a highly multicultural environment made Banat one of the most developed and industrialized regions of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the description of the settlement of German population groups that took place in the 18th century, the example of the Transylvanian Saxons is used first, who were settled very early on by the kings of Hungary on the eastern border of the kingdom in order to protect them and also to farm. Over time they have developed and always defended their own identity and dialect as well as their own laws and constitutional status. The settlement of the Banat Germans, which took place in several waves, is followed along the social, geographical, economic and last but not least demographic coordinates. Later, the constitutional status of Banat also changed, until this multicultural region became part of Greater Romania after the First World War. All these changes always brought new challenges for the Banat Germans, who had their own organizational forms at that time. Political activity in defense of collective rights continued throughout the interwar period, marked by political instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzes texts from Serbian and German newspapers published in Yugoslavia and Banat during the 1930s and 1940s concerning renewalists, the Nazi element in the German minority. This paper examines the newspapers published in Serbian, as well as the papers published by the German minority organization Kulturbund. The writing of the pro-Nazi newspapers from Banat about the organization which imitated German Nazis and their propaganda methods has been analyzed separately. The religious component has also been analyzed, as well as the relation of the Catholic and Protestant German churches in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with the renewalists, that is, Nazis. This paper states that the renewalists had a great influence on the German minority in Banat and Yugoslavia, directing it ideologically towards German national-socialism. It can be concluded that the media had a significant role in the Nazi propaganda, as well as in the attempts to suppress Nazism and show the deadly consequences of that totalitarian ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is based on a field trip to Roma communities the Carpathian region and focuses on the Roma living in two villages, Hlynytsya in Bukovina (Ukraine) and Uila/Weilau in Transylvania (Romania). Both cases refer to settled Roma, who make their living as hired workers in agriculture, combined with the provision of musical services to specific ethnic communities in their home region and even farther away. The analysis of some characteristics common to both Roma communities makes it possible to draw several conclusions about their historical and current development, which in both cases led to the creation of two new small Roma groups. The study comes to confirm once again that the contemporary mosaic of Roma communities in Europe, formed after several centuries of Roma presence, is only a temporary historical phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate the perspectives adopted by two Romanian (Florian Porcius, Nestor Şimon) and two German authors (Karl Klein, Gustav Ritter Amon von Treuenfest), who explored various aspects pertaining to the Năsăud military border. In terms of their accomplishments, the two Romanian historians provided an attitude model that was consistent with the realities of the periods in which they lived and wrote, showing, at the same time, that the Romanian society which had been the beneficiary of the border guard system was an equal partner in dialogue with those who had proposed and organized it. This attitude model had been beneficial for the government and the governed alike. The two German authors performed valuable synthetic overviews of the military history of the Năsăud border regiment, setting the events related to this regiment against the background of the general political and military history of the Austrian monarchy and even of Europe. They did not intend to use the history of the regiment for any political or administrative purpose, but some descriptions provided sufficient examples that the Romanian political leaders adopted in their vindictive action in favor of the Transylvanian Romanians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the saddest realities of contemporary Transylvania is the extinction of the German minority that has arrived at 0,7% of the population. But the writers, artists or other intellectuals who have chosen to live in occidental European countries never forgot their homeland. Such an example is Hans Bergel, a saxon writer, author of the Siebenbürgen, Bilder dner europäischen Landschaft where he offers a poetical and sentimental image of his homeland, Transylvania, an idyllic land where people of different cultures, animals, birds and houses complete a bucolic vision of this mysterious and melancholic space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]