Partisan Vampires

With Danube and Banat Swabians expelled from their homes by force or by their own choice, it became the job of historians and folklorists to record their stories. Two notable scribes, Utz Jeggle and Alfred Karasek, contributed the most to this project. Jeggle dedicated his work studying the cultures and folklore of small towns, notably with regional Jewish history and in this case with the Swabians. Karasek was a different story, he was an SS intelligence officer during the war, conducting research on local populations during the Nazi invasion of Europe. It was duly noted in Dr Black's piece, Expellees Tell Tales, that more likely than not Karasek had an agenda with his particular interest of the Swabian stories (Black, 2013). He even created his own genre of folklore, Vertriebenenvolkskunde, or expellee folklore. These selected stories showed the hardships of the Swabians in Yugoslavia and a particular interest was to cast Partisans in the least charitable light.

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The Vampire genre of folktales are interesting for a variety of different reasons and one that is certainly not unique to the region. It is also that particular genre of folklore that is very well documented by reliable sources but also embellished in some ways by those in the region. Prior to the second World War, the region was inhabited by many ethnic minority groups living in relative harmony. However, with the German invasion many Swabians were conscripted to serve and carried out many atrocities against other groups along the Danube. Tito's resistance in beating the Germans during and more infamously after the war is where our particular folktale comes from.

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While it may be easy to dismiss tales of rabid, bloodthirsty communist fighters as hyperbolic, there is actually quite a bit of evidence to suggest the symptoms refer to a condition referred locally as "Partisan Fever". Independent stories of Partisans collapsing, convulsing, speaking incoherently, and then attacking the closest person to them which sometimes resulted in a bitten bystander and spawning the beginnings of the vampire tale. This is most likely a condition akin to shell shock and should not be surprising considering the extreme violence and atrocities those on both sides were experiencing. These stories were also documented locally by not only Swabians but Slovenians, Croats, and Serbs alike. 

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What is interesting are the ways in which the documented stories of Partisan Fever were highlighted by folklorists like Jeggle and Karasek alike. Jeggle, the more reliable narrator, made sure to give detailed reports that included the extreme violence that usually preceded an attack of Partisan Fever and to remain faithful to each account. Karasek, selectively published the stories he chose, specifically painting female Partisans as the most susceptible to the fever, Partisan lust for German blood, and the demonic element of Vampires that would cause the most alarm to conservative Catholic Germans.