As in the autumn of 1944 the German units started retreating from the southeast,a large-scale refugee movement of the German civilian population from the territory settled by Germans in Yugoslavia began. It is difficult to say how many Germans had to retreat to the territory of what was then the Reich under the protection of the German army. Only estimates are available. At certain parts of the settled territory timely evacuation of the German civilian population was not possible.»Those Germans who could not flee or could not be evacuated, were eliminated without mercy after severe persecution or prolonged suffering.« With these words the writers of the German report on the losses of the »Volksdeutche« (ethnic Germans) in Yugoslavia opened the chapter on the exile of Germans from Yugoslavia.Slovenia had to deal with a numerous and economically strong, mostly bourgeois, German ethnic minority originating from Austria, not Germany. On the basis of concluded research I can state that the retaliation against the »Germans«in Slovenia – arrests, internment in the camps, and deportation of the Gottschee Germans (the Germans from Kočevje region) – definitely began as soon as in the first half of May 1945. In the paper I will present certain peculiarities of the Slovenian retaliation against the »Germans«. The first arrests took place alreadya couple of days after the liberation on 9 May 1945. According to the German sources, Slovenia wanted to deal with the German-speaking autochthonous populationas swiftly as possible, therefore it carried out »vast mass executions with excessive urgency« (in übersturtzter Hast).The same sources claim that the severy swift liquidation actions were the first feature of the Slovenian retaliation against »Germans«.The second feature of the Slovenian measures supposedly involved the actions of deporting the German-speaking population, especially women and children, over the Yugoslav-Austrian border. Allegedly small groups were alsoushered over the »green border«, while the larger groups were transported by trains. The systematic Slovenian banishment of the »Germans« to Austria began around Christmas 1945. Thus the winter of 1945/46 was the main period of the deportation of »Germans« from Slovenia, either by transports or over the green border. Allegedly the third feature of the Slovenian retaliation against the »Germans« was their exile to other parts of Yugoslavia (camps) and forced labour in the Soviet Union. The latter was the usual fate of the »Volksdeutsche« from Vojvodina and Slavonia, and I was unable to demonstrate this in the context oft he Slovenian situation. Roughly after 1948, when the camps for »Germans« were abolished, the position of the ethnic Germans started improving, at least partly. Thus in October 1951 the head of the German political representation in Belgrade Dr. Ulrichcould report to Bonn that the »German« situation had improved due to two reasons:»Firstly, Tito’s government obviously strives to eliminate everything that could affect good relations with the Federal Republic; and, secondly, it wants to preserve the remaining Volksdeutsche as valuable workforce, since in the political sense they no longer represent a realistic minority problem for Yugoslavia.«However, it took several years before the »Germans« remaining in Slovenia/Yugoslavia managed to get integrated into the new Yugoslav state. It remains a fact that today a minimal number of members of what was once a German ethnic minority, numbered in tens of thousands, remains in Slovenia.