The German Occupation Regimes in Southeastern Europe as a Research Problem in Yugoslav and Serbian Historiography

The author revisits works produced during the time of socialist Yugoslavia to assess the historiographical literature on the German occupation regimes there. He concludes that since Yugoslavia’s demise there has been hardly any evolution towards a more solid nor more differentiated historiography such as would meet international standards. To be sure, significant new research has been produced, but it has been hampered by the narrow and often difficult academic frameworks that have existed in the last twenty-five years. Scholars have been expected to respond to the new nationalized agendas of the successor states, and have seen few structural incentives to link their work to international research networks, or to the work of their colleagues in neighbouring countries. The author’s focus is the German occupation of Serbia, but he includes some examples of scholars whose focus is German-occupied Slovenia, or the Independent State of Croatia, and he keeps in perspective the wider (Southeast) European contexts.