Abstract

Ethnic German peoples, Banat and Danube Swabians, have inhabited the Banat region of the former Yugoslavia for over 800 years but the post-World War II realignment exasperated tensions that led to an exodus of Germans across western Europe. The violence that followed the war and subsequent expulsion of the Swabians created spoken and written folk stories of Titoist Partisan Vampires. These stories should be viewed as a way for the once empowered German ethnic minority to come to terms with the trauma of their loss of place in the world and repressed guilt stemming from crimes conducted during the war.