Kulturbund (Yugoslavia)

Founded in June 1920 in Novi Sad, it was originally conceived as a cultural and social organization representing the interests of the nearly 500,000 ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia in the interwar period and preserving their culture and language by promoting German-language education and publishing a German-language newspaper, the Deutsches Volksblatt,[1] while also campaigning for Germans' land rights.

In the 1920s, the organization's motto was "faithful to country, faithful to nation" (German: "staatstreu und volkstreu"),[2] which the Kulturbund leadership intended as a gesture of loyalty to the newly founded Yugoslavian state while also working to represent the interests of the German minority.

[7][8] While the organization was controlled by an older generation of conservative, Roman Catholic ethnic Germans in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Kulturbund came under the control of younger pro-Nazi elements in the late 1930s, partly because of the machinations of the SS-controlled Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.

Janko claimed that by summer 1940, the organization had 300,000 members and was actively trying to recruit the additional 200,000 Germans living in Yugoslavia.

Novi Sad, the location of the organization's headquarters, was occupied by Hungary, and the Janko received instructions from Berlin to move his headquarters to Banat, where the Kulturbund was tasked with organizing Volksdeutsche collaborators among the region's 130,000 ethnic Germans.