The Germans of Serbia are an ethnic minority which numbers about 3,900 people, mostly in the autonomous Vojvodina

Vojvodina

Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...

 region. The Germans of Vojvodina refer to themselves as Swabian

Swabian

Swabian may refer:* to the German region of Swabia ; or* to Swabian German, a dialect spoken in Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany and adjoining areas See also:...

. The Hungarian and Serbian populations also refer to them as Swabian as well. They are known as the Danube Swabians

Danube Swabians

The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially alongside the Danube River valley. Because of different developments within the territory settled, the Danube Swabians cannot be seen as a unified people...

 or Banat Swabians

Banat Swabians

The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to what was then the Austrian Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic Banat Swabian...

. In the interwar period, Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 were the largest national minority on the territory of what is today Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, second only to the Hungarians in Vojvodina

Hungarians in Vojvodina

Hungarians are the second largest ethnic group in the Vojvodina province in northern Serbia. According to the 2002 census, there are 290,207 ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina who compose 14.28% of the provincial population. The number of ethnic Hungarians in the whole of Serbia is 293,299, and their...

. In 1943 Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 introduced compulsory military service for ethnic Germans in Serbia. The German defeat in WWII resulted in expulsion of the almost entire German community, more than 350,000 strong, from Serbia's territory.

In 2007, the minority formed a national council for the first time since the Second World War. In the 2000s several monuments to the pre-war

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 German population have been erected. In 2008 the Association of Danube Swabians requested that the government of the city of Sremska Mitrovica

Sremska Mitrovica

Sremska Mitrovica is a city and municipality located in the Vojvodina province of Serbia, on the left bank of the Sava river. As of 2002 the town had a total population of 39,041, while Sremska Mitrovica municipality had a population of 85,605...

exhume the bodies of Germans who died in a post-war camp in the town.