[3] Following the ousting of Axis forces in 1944, this German-ruled region was dissolved and most of its territory was included into Vojvodina, one of the two autonomous provinces of Serbia within the new SFR Yugoslavia.

[4] Nazi plans for the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia as a whole however intended for the country to remain under some form of permanent German control.

[6] This was believed necessary to ensure German dominion over the Danubian basin of Southeast Europe, an economically vital area in consideration of Germany's wartime goals for the eastern territories that it expected to conquer in the Soviet Union.

[9] Between 1941 and 1944, at a Stratište locality near Jabuka village in Banat, more than 10,000 Serbs (who were mainly from NDH), Jews and Roma were killed by German forces.

[10] After the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia had been established, the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was formed from Yugoslav Germans (Volksdeutsche).

The core of the Division was made up of the SS controlled Protection Force or Selbstschutz consisting of Volksdeutsche from the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia.

[citation needed] "After the initial rush of Volksdeutsche to join, voluntary enlistments tapered off, and the new unit did not reach division size.

[citation needed] At the end of the war, in retribution, Partisan bands engaged in massacres of ethnic Germans, primarily in the area of present-day Vojvodina.

Of the approximately 524,000 Germans living in pre-war Yugoslavia, about 370,000 escaped to Germany in the last days of the War or were subsequently expelled by the Yugoslav Government (at one point, in January 1946, the Yugoslav Government requested the U.S. military authorities’ permission to transfer these ethnic Germans to the American-occupied zone of Germany, but it was not granted).

The president, Andreas Biegermeier, stated that the council will focus on property restitution, and marking of mass graves and camp sites.