6th century: Prior to the Czechs entering the area of Bohemia and Morovia, Celtic and Germanic tribes lived there.
12th and 13th centuries: Czech Dukes invited German Settlers – farmers, skilled craftsman, merchants and artists – to explore and develop the border area called the Carpathian region.
15th century: Czech and German war with Hussites.
1526 August 29: Battle of Mohacs: The Turks beat King Ludwig II of Hungary. His death (in battle) brings Hungary and Bohemia under the crowns of the Habsburgers.
1526-1918: The Habsbugers reign over Bohemia and Hungary.
1683 September 12: Under Grand-Vizier Suleiman II the Turks attempted to expand their empire further into Europe that were decisively defeated in an epic battle at the gates of Vienna by the combined Christian armies mainly recruited in Germany and Poland.
1687: Second battle at Mohacs. The Austrians beat the turks decisevely. From then on Hungary and Siebeburgen are free of the Turks.
1716-1718: Austrias army under Prince Eugen beat Turks back. Peace of Passarowitz (1718). The Batschke (Banat, Serbia and northern Bosnia) become part of Austria.
1722: It became obvious to the Imperial War Council in Vienna that the territory could not be held unless it was populated by the loyal subjects of the Habsburg crown. The southwestern German principalities of Europe were invited to settle in the Habsburg crown lands of Hungary by Emperor Charles the IV.
1722-1726: The first “Large Schwabenzug” (trek of Swabians) under Kaiser Karl VI.
1746-1780: The second “Grosser Schwanbenzug”. Marie Theresia (Empress) moves about 50,000 Germans into the Balkan(Hungary, Romania, Serbia)
1781: Emperor Joseph II promulgates the Edict of Tolerance – Freedom of Religion. New laws replacing outdated laws. German language replacing Latin Regional administration with equal rights for all citizens, for reasons of “Realpolitik.” Freed the serfs. Closed the monasteries. Joseph II was often judged the most enlightened of all Emperors. As enlightened Monarch he was ahead of the contemporary administrators and his subjects, therefore often misunderstood.
1782-1787: Third “Grosser Schwabenzug” under Kaiser Joseph II (oldest son of Maria Theresia).
1806-1867: The homeland of the Suduten Germans was a substantial part of the Austro/Hungarian Monarchy.
1867: Double Monarchie Austria/Hungary. Most Donauswabian become Hungarian citizens. (Danube Swabian—a people of German extraction whose ancestors had come to a region after the expulsion of the Turks)
1880: More than 36% of the Budapest’s population were Danube Swabians.
1905: The German language was replaced by Hungarian. No one could get a job with the government, the railways, or other national institutions, nor take pare in the Olympic Games without adopting a Hungarian name.
1907-1920: The poet Adam Muller-Gutten Brunn (1852-1923) reawakes the German ideas of the Donauswabian.
1918: 1,400,000 Donauswabians become citizens of Hungary, Romania and Jugoslavia.
1918: Czechoslovokia was created through the breakup of the Austro/Hungarian Monachy.
1923: Lausanne Treaty on Greek-Turkish Population Exchange
1938: Sudetes Mountains, in the north of Czech Republic; annexed by Germany (Sudenten Germans- the Germans who lived in the border area of Czech Republic)
1939: The end of Czechoslovokia, after the separation of the Sudeten area.
1941—1944/45: the Yugoslavia State did not exist and the Danube Swabians were a minority in four states, instead of three.
1941: With Germany being at war with Russia, partisans rob, plunder and kill Donauswabians.
1943 November 29: At a meeting of Tito’s party in Jajce, Bosnia, the Communists proclaimed that in a future Yugoslavia all large ethnic groups would be given national rights—except the Danube Swabians. The council passed a resolution consisting of three main points after stating that when Yugoslavia was reestablished the ethnic Germans were to be dispossessed and deprived of all human rights, including the right to life. The ethnic German property was to be distributed among Tito’s fighters. This would be achieved through: Mass liquidation, Mass deportation and Extermination through starvation and forced labor in the homes in the country, as well as farms and livestock of the dispossessed.
1944 October: Start of evacuation of ca100,000 Donauswabians from Symien and Slawonien. 10,800 Swabians from the west Banat and 80,000 from the Batshka to western Europe.
1944: “Bloody Autumn” in the Batschka region. During October and November approximately 9400 civilliams (mostly old people and children) were killed by the Communist Partisans. Most of them were shot, after digging their own graves.
1944 November 21: AVNOJ Decision, Belgrad: Danube-Swabians are declared enemies of the state. Loss of civil rights as well as unrecoverable loss of property were the result.
1944-1945: Starting in December 1944 until the fall of 1945, 167,000 Danube-Swabians were driven out of their homes and put into death camps and slave labor camps. During the preparation of the expulsion some 250,000 Sudeten Germans lost their lives.
1945 August: Sudenten Region allocated to Czechoslovakia.
1945: Conference in Potsdam an agreement was made to “transfer” (in Czech “odsun”) 3.5 million Sudeten Germans from the Sudeten Region was agreed.
1944-1949: Starting around Christmas 1944, 70,000-80,000 Danube-Swabians, girls, women and men from Yugoslavia, Romania, and Hungary were deported to the USSR (Russia) and put in slave labor camps.
1946-1947 Autumn, Because of the pressure from the Western Countries, flight from death camps was somewhat tolerated by the Communists. 40,000 Danube-Swabians could flee from Yugoslavia into Hungary and Romania.
1956: During the Hungarian uprising, when the west looked on while the Russian tanks massacred Hungarian freedom fighters, the Danube Swabians in Austria and Germany were the first to help the escapees with food and temporary shelter.
1979 Manifesto: Sudeten German Landsmannschaft (Association) and of the Sudeten German Council (a passage reads as follows):
“We the Sudeten Germans of the year 1979, renew the pledge to our homeland, the land of our ancestors. We shall continue to apply, in all our actions, the principles of truth, justice and freedom so as to achieve the peacefull co-existence of all nations and a liberated Sudetenland in a free Europe.”
1980: in Banet the land generations of Danube Swabians were collectivized as the greatest “slave trade” in European history. Dictator Ciaucescu sold his Danube Swabians to the Bonn Government for 8000 to 14000 Deutsche Mark a piece.
1996: Dayton Peace Accords
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