The Germans in Celje (Cilli) and the Yugoslav Question before the First World War

Abstract

The author on the basis of writing of the newspaper »Deutsche Wacht« presents the points of view of German lnhabitants in Celje as regards the Yugoslav question which grew into the central one of political life in the monarchy after annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and especially after the Balcan wars. The Germans in Celje rejected so common and especially the Slovene trialistic concepts of the monarchy reform, because to their opinion it was aimed against German diasporas in the Slovene countries. They saw the solution of the Yugoslav question, which for the Germans in Celje existed only as a Slovene one, in an agreement between the Germans and the Hungarians, as well as in an organized policy of the German ownership strengthening in the Slovene countries.