Collection of documents

edited by Srđan Mićić and Nataša Milićević
Belgrade: Istorijski arhiv Beograda; Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2020

edited by Zoran Janjetović
Institute for Recent History of Serbia
Belgrade 2020

Little is known about the Serbian Diaspora until the departure of the great wave of “guest workers”
in the 1960s.
Notes by Kosta Sofronijević, a skilled hatter, prove that Serbian and South Slavic emigration in general,
to Berlin was comparatively large even before the First World War. It comprised not
only manual laborers, but also  skilled craftsmen who
often had their own shops, coffee-house owners, and even some factory owners. His notes
acquaint us with an important social phenomenon we usually associate with more recent times - mixed
marriages with the Germans.
Kosta Sofronijević's notes from the First World War contain an account of the life of an
"enemy national" among the Germans during the Great War and the subsequent revolution
and provide an excellent insight into the behavior and thinking of both the ordinary people and
the officials.
For the Second World War, the author left us a very detailed record of the German capital
under bombs that destroyed entire city blocks.


the content of the book can be downloaded here