Danube Swabian Foreland

The Danube Swabian Foreland (German: Donauschwäbisches Vorland), commonly known as the Foreland (German: Vorland), was a formally autonomous division of the Danube Swabian Republic, a German Reichsnebenland, that existed from 1944 to 1955. Historically and contemporary, the region is referred to as Bačka in Serbo-Croatian and Batschka in German.
Previously, the region had fallen to the Magyars in 1940 as part of the Second Munich Award. Immediately following Unternehmen Margarethe, the Reichswehr orchestrated the Räumungsaktion Theresia in April 1944. The Germans "cleared Bačka of Hungarian troops" and formally handed it over to the German civil administration in Temeschwar as an associated region. Thus, Bačka was de jure annexed into Danube Swabia, however the government in Temeschwar never exercised effective control over the area. The Reichswehr, which occupied the Vorland throughout its entire existence, established a Reichsfestung in Subotica, which soon regained its old name Maria-Theresiopel, and from there controlled the occupation of Hungary, Transylvania, and the Banat.
As relations between the former Allies deteriorated, the Reichswehr established a so-called Verbotene Zone (German: Forbidden Zone) at the border between Bačka and Yugoslavia, commonly known as the death strip, where civilians were prohibited from entering. The German Reich maintained its occupation of Bačka until the outbreak of the Yugoslavia Crisis in 1955. After Yugoslav and Hungarian revolutionaries announced an uprising in Bačka, the RSM dispatched a Doppeladlerverband of the Kaiserliche Garde to "pacify" the region. Thousands of civilians fell victim to the ensuing clashes, including more than 2,000 people in the Massacre of Neusatz.
Shortly thereafter, Germany and Italy concluded the Liquidation Treaty in Beograd, which provided for the dissolution of the Danube Swabian Foreland. Bačka, like the Serbian Banat, was reincorporated into Yugoslavia, and the Reichswehr relocated its Southeast European headquarters to Hermannstadt, Transylvania. The smaller, formerly Hungarian part of Bačka, did not become Hungarian again until 1956.