After 1918, most of Maribor's Austrian Germans left the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for Austria. A policy of cultural assimilation was pursued in Yugoslavia against the Austrian German minority similar to the Germanization policy followed by Austria against its Slovene minority in Carinthia. From 1922 to 1929, Maribor was the seat of the Maribor Oblast, a subdivision within Yugoslavia and was later part of the Drava Banovina. Up until World War II, Maribor was considered the fastest-developing city in the country.