DANUBE-SWABIANS: Bibliography and Literature

• Scherer, Anton, Donauschwäbische Bibliographie / Das Schrifttum über die Donauschwaben in Ungarn, Rumänien, Jugoslawien und Bulgarien sowie - nach 1945 - in Deutschland, Österreich, Frankreich, USA, Canada, Argentinien und Brasilien [Danube Swabian Bibliography / Writings on the Danube-Swabians in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and since 1945, in Germany, Austria, France, USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil]
  • Volume I. 1935-1955, Verlag des Südostdeutschen Kulturwerks, 1966, Munich
  • Volume II. 1955-1965, Verlag des Südostdeutschen Kulturwerks, 1974, Munich
  • Volume III. 1965-1975, Verlag des Südostdeutschen Kulturwerks, 1997, Munich
• Schmidt, Josef. Bibliographie zur donauschwäbischen Geschichte und zur deutschen Auswanderung nach dem Südosten. Mit einem Verzeichnis von Veröffentlichungen von Felix Milleker. Anhang: Genealogische Vereine. 1996, AKdFF, 42 S. [Bibliography of Danube-Swabian history and German immigration to the southeast, with a list of publications of Felix Milleker. Appendix: genealogical organizations].
• A bibliography including a list of further bibliographies, some of which include lists of Heimatbücher and Ortsgeschichten is available by writing the publisher Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung e.V.

• German
  German language historical books may be found on the German version of this page.
• English
  • Aberle, George P. From the steppes to the prairies. Concerns the Germans settling in Russia (on the Volga and in the Ukraine), as well as in the Banat, and the Bohemians in Crimea; their resettlement in North and South America. 1981, Bismarck, ND, Tumbleweed Press. 213 pages. 9th ed.
  • Clark, Charles Upson, United Romania. New York: Arno Press & the New York Times, 1971.
  • Frey, Katherine Stenger, The Danube Swabians / A People with Portable Roots. Belleville, Ont., Canada: Mika Publishing, 1982. (out of print). [Available at Hamilton Public Library, Hamilton, Ontario]
  • Gruber, Fr. Wendelin. In the Claws of the Red Dragon. St. Michaelswerk, c/o St. Patrick's German Parish, 131 McCaul Street Toronto, Ontario, M5T IW3, Canada and Heimat Publishers
  • Kramar, Zoltan, From the Danube to the Hudson: US Ministerial Dispatches on Immigration From the Habsburg Monarchy: 1850-1900 Foreword by Steven Bela Vardy. Program in the East European and Slavic Studies Publication Number 9. Atlanta: Hungarian Cultural Foundation, 1978.
  • Koehler, Eve Eckert, Seven Susannahs: Daughters of the Danube, Milwaukee: Danube Swabian Societies of the US and Canada, 1976.
  • Kurth, K.O. (compiler), Documents of Humanity during the mass expulsions, 1954, New York, Harper and Brothers, edited by the Goettingen Research Committee, translated by Helen Taubert and Margaret Brooke, foreword by Albert Schweitzer, 180 pages. [short collection of testimonies from ethnic Germans who were expelled from their homelands in Central and Eastern Europe in l944-45]
  • Lessner, Erwin and Ann, The Danube, 1961, Garden City, New York, Doubleday. [Available at Library of Congress]
  • Locke, Raymond. The Great Chicago Refugee Rescue. 1998?, Picton Press, PO Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856. Soft cover, 6x9, 126 pp, photographs. $17.50 + S/H: $4.00 for first book and $2.00 for each additional. The book focuses on a group of Danube-Swabians living in Chicago at the end of World War II and how they responded to the catastrophe engulfing their kinsmen in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia as Soviet forces expanded into those countries.
  • Macartney, C.A., Hungary: A Short History, Edinburgh Univ Press, 1962.
  • Marczali, Henry, Hungary in the Eighteenth Century, introductory essay by Harold W. V. Temperley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910; reprint ed., New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971.
  • Müller (Wlossak), Traudie. The Whip, My Homecoming. Heimat Publishers, paperback, 320 pp. [The harrowing experiences of a Danube-Swabian woman and her two children in the post-war concentration camps of Yugoslavia].
  • Paikert, Geza C., The Danube Swabians / German Populations in Hungary, Rumania and Yugoslavia and Hitler's Impact on their Patterns, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967. (Note: the most thorough and well-documented work on the Danube Swabians.) [Available from California State University at Hayward]
  • Rothenberg, Gunther. The Military Border in Croatia, 1740-1881: A Study of an Imperial Institution. 1966, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 224 pp. [Extensive bibliography and a fold-out map of the Croatian and Slavonian military border regiments in 1847. Coverage of the Hungarian-administered military borders (including the Banat and Transylvania) is only incidental.]
  • Selig, Robert A., "Ungarland ist's Reichste Land: Carlowitz, the Rakoczi Revolt, and the Origins of German Settlement in Hungary", German Life magazine (Feb.-Mar. issue)
  • Seton-Watson, Robert William, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers. London: Eyre and Spottiswood Ltd., 1934.
  • Spira, Thomas. German-Hungarian Relations and the Swabian Problem, Eastern European Quarterly. 1977, New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Springenschmid, Karl, Our Lost Children: Janissaries? Translated with additional notes, by John Adam Kohler and Eve Eckert Koehler. Milwaukee: Danube Swabian Assoc. of the USA, 1981.
  • Steigerwald, Jacob. Donauschwäbische Gedankenskizzen aus USA - Reflections of Danube Swabians in America, 1983, Winona, MN, Jacob Steigerwald Translation and Interpretation Service.
  • Steigerwald, Jacob, Tracing Romania's Heterogeneous German Minority from its Origins to the Diaspora, 1985, Jacob Steigerwald Translation and Interpretation Service.
  • Tafferner, Anton, Josef Schmidt and Josef Volkmar Senz, The Danube Swabians in the Pannonian Basin / a new German ethnic group, translated by Dr. Josef Hahn, 24 pages. Heimat Publishers
  • Tenz, Maria Horwath. The Innocent Must Pay. Heimat Publishers, hardcover, 179 pp. [The heartrending story of a 12 year old girl in a Tito extermination camp.] Illustrated by artist Susanna Tschurtz.
  • Theiszmann Pitzer, Sister Mary Agnes. Es war einmal. The Yesteryears of the Danube Swabians. Only the title is German, the book is entirely in English. Color illustrated softcover. 269 pp. including 24 black and white photos by renowned Danube Swabian painter Stefan Jäger. Heimat Publishers
  • Walter, Elizabeth B., Barefoot in the Rubble, Pannonia Press
  • Zayas, Alfred M. de. Nemesis at Potsdam. 3rd edition [The expulsion of the Germans from the East following World War II]
  • Zayas, Alfred M. de. A Terrible Revenge. Heimat Publishers, paperback, 370 pp. [The ethnic cleansing of the East European Germans 1944-1950]
• French
  • Klein, B., "L'émigration en Hongrie a la fin du XVIIIe siecle" Annuaire de l'Association d'Histoire et d'Archéologie-Musée Regional de l'Alsace Bossue, no. 8 (1994) [Contact: M. Jacques Wolff, 11 Grand'rue, 67260 Sarre-Union, France]
• Regional Histories
  Please also consult the Bibliography sections of the individual Donauschwaben regions of interest to you.
  [Banat] [Batschka] [Bosnia] [Sathmar] [Swabian Turkey] [Slavonia] [Central Hungarian Highlands] [Syrmia]

• "Auswanderer" Books
• Brandt, Bruce, Where to Look for Hard-to-Find German-Speaking Ancestors in Eastern Europe, 1992. Index to 16,372 surnames and references to where they may be found in Galicia, Austria, Hungary, the Banat and Batschka. [Available at Family History Library 943 W22b.]
• Jensen, Larry O., "Tracing Germans in Southeast Europe", The German Genealogical Digest, Volume VII, Number 3 (3rd quarter 1991), 7 pages [This issue also includes a list of Ortssippenbücher. For back issues, write The German Genealogical Digest, P.O. Box 700, Pleasant Grove, UT, 84062, USA]
• Michels, Wendelin, "Austro-Hungary and the German Settlers Called Danube-Swabians", The German Genealogical Digest, Volume VIII, Number 1 (1st quarter 1992) [also includes a list of microfilmed church records for parishes in former Yugoslavia. For back issues, write The German Genealogical Digest, P.O. Box 700, Pleasant Grove, UT, 84062, USA]
• Senekovic, Dagmar, Handy Guide to Austrian Genealogical Records, Everton Publishers [AGLL]
• Stader, Stefan. Sammelwerk donauschwäbischer Kolonisten. [E: Collected Works of Danube-Swabian Colonists] is a many-year effort on the part of Stefan Stader and colleagues to collect together the various sources of Danube-Swabian settlers' cards.
  • A-D mit einer Anleitung zur Herkunftsforschung von Helmut Zwirner. 1997, Sindelfingen, AKdFF. 888 pages. DM 84 + postage.
  • E-G. 1998, Sindelfingen, AKdFF. 715 pages, DM 80,- + postage
  • H-Ka. 1999, Sindelfingen, AKdFF. 80,-DM + postage
• Suess, Jared H., Handy Guide to Hungarian Genealogical Records, Everton Publishers Besides help with research in Hungary, offers a Hungarian:English name list and a Hungarian:German:Latin common word list useful in deciphering church records. [AGLL]
• Szili, Ferenc, Kivándorlás a délkelet-dunántúlróol horvát-szlavónországba és Amerikába 1860-1914, [Emigration from Southeastern Transdanubia to Croatia-Slavonia and America 1860-1914] 1995, Kaposvár, 326 pages, ISBN 963-7232-23-0. In Hungarian with short German and English summaries. [Available from Somogy County archive in Kaposvár, Hungary.]
• Tafferner, Anton, Quellenbuch zur Donauschwäbischen Geschichte, 1978, Stuttgart, Verlag Buch und Kunst Kepplerhaus [Search the index to the contents of this work.]
  • Part 1, 1974, Verlag Hans Meschendörfer, Munich. ISBN 3-87538-015-0
  • Part 2, 1977, Verlag Buch und Kunst Kepplerhaus, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-921005-20-5
  • Part 3, 1978, Verlag Buch und Kunst Kepplerhaus, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-921005-24-8 [see index]
  • Part 4, 1982, Verlag Buch und Kunst Kepplerhaus, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-921005-61-2
  • Part 5, 1995, Verlag Südostdeutsches Kulturwerk, Munich. ISBN 3-88356-056-1
• Wilhelm, Franz and Josef Kallbrunner, Quellen zur Deutschen Siedlungsgeschichte in Südosteuropa / Im Auftrage der Deutschen Akademie und des Gesamtvereines der deutschen Geschichts- und Altertumsvereine, [Sources of German Settlement History in Southeast Europe] 1935, Munich, Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 416 pages, indexed, with map and statistical tables. ISBN 3-89433-005-3. [Available as Family History Library microfilm #0897413 item 4 and #1256477 item 2]
• Central European Genealogical Terminology, Everton Publishers
• Donauschwäbische Familienkundliche Forschungsblätter
  • Volume 1, Editions 1-15, 1975-1980 (out of print)
  • Volume 2, Editions 16-30, 1980-1983 (out of print)
  • Editions 31-91, 1984-present, not yet bound

Heimatbücher are German local history books, similar in style and content to American town and county history books, but written in German about German villages. Typical topics usually include a list of the original settlers (frequently including house numbers), an "Ortsplan" with house numbers, a list of more recent residents sometime in the period 1938-1944 (usually 1944), a list of those killed in the two world wars, a discussion of the circumstances of the founding of the village, special features, photos of village scenes, personalities, a short history of the village, industry, agriculture, business, and lists of elected and appointed officials. Heimatbücher are often written by the local teacher, or another educated local citizen. Their usefulness in genealogy is to provide local "flavor" and corroborating evidence.

The Guide to Ortsfamilienbücher includes all these different types of books.

Other Works of Interest
Donauschwaben coat of arms in 4 colours. 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 from Heimat Publishers
Please see the list of Publishers for Eastern Europe to find sources for these and other works.

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