History of Apatin

In 1944, as a consequence of World War II events in Yugoslavia, one part of Yugoslav citizens of German ethnicity left from the area, together with defeated German army. The antifascist council for deliberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) declared the remaining German population as public enemies and sent them to communist prison camps, where one part of them died from disease, cold and malnutrition. The death toll among the German population of Apatin amounts to 2,074 people known by name. This figure includes the victims of deportation to the USSR. After prison camps were dissolved (in 1948), most of the remaining German population left Yugoslavia in subsequent decades, mainly because of economic reasons. After the war, Apatin was populated by (mainly Serb) settlers from other parts of Yugoslavia, largely from Lika. Population censuses conducted after World War II recorded Serbs as the largest ethnic group in the town.

Between 1992 and 2003, Apatin was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, between 2003 and 2006 part of the State Union of