Baltic Germans


Baltic Germans are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettlement in 1945 after the end of World War II, Baltic Germans have drastically declined as a geographically determined ethnic group in the region, with diaspora generally relocating to Germany proper and beyond.
Since the Late Middle Ages, native German-speakers formed the majority of merchants and clergy, and the large majority of the local landowning nobility who effectively constituted a ruling class over indigenous Latvian and Estonian non-nobles. By the time a distinct Baltic German ethnic identity began emerging in the 19th century, the majority of self-identifying Baltic Germans were non-nobles belonging mostly to the urban and professional middle class.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, Catholic German traders and crusaders began settling in the eastern Baltic territories. With the decline of Latin, Low German became the dominant language of official documents, commerce, education and government and later on High German. By the first half of the 20th century, the Baltic Germans were, until after World War II, along with the Transylvanian Saxons and the Zipser Germans, one of the three oldest continuously German-speaking and ethnic German groups of the German diaspora in Europe.
The majority of medieval Catholic settlers and their German-speaking descendants lived in the local towns of medieval Livonia. However, a small wealthy elite formed the Baltic nobility, acquiring large rural estates. When Sweden had ceded its Livonian territories to the Russian Empire after the Great Northern War, many of these German-speaking aristocrats began taking high positions in the military, political and civilian life of the Russian Empire, particularly in its capital city Saint Petersburg. Most Baltic Germans were citizens of the Russian Empire until Estonia and Latvia achieved independence in 1918. Thereafter, most Baltic Germans held Estonian or Latvian citizenship until their coerced resettlement to Nazi Germany in 1939, prior to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Estonia and Latvia in 1940.
The Baltic German population never surpassed more than 10% of the total population. In 1881, there were 180,000 Baltic Germans in Russia's Baltic provinces; however, by 1914, this number had declined to 162,000. In 1881 there were approximately 46,700 Germans in Estonia. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, there were 120,191 Germans in Latvia, or 6.2% of the population.
Baltic German presence in the Baltics came effectively close to an end in late 1939, following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent Nazi–Soviet population transfers. Nazi Germany resettled almost all the Baltic Germans under the Heim ins Reich program into the newly formed Reichsgaue of Reichsgau Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia. In 1945, most ethnic Germans were expelled from these lands as part of the wider expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. Resettlement was planned by the Allies for the territory remaining under Germany under terms of the border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference, i.e. west of the Oder–Neisse line.
Ethnic Germans from East Prussia and Lithuania are sometimes incorrectly considered Baltic Germans for reasons of cultural, linguistic, and historical affinities. Germans of East Prussia held Prussian, and after 1871, German citizenship, because the territory they lived in was part of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Ethnic composition

Baltic Germans were not a purely German ethnic group. The early crusaders, tradesmen and craftsmen and even nobles often married local women,as there were no German women available. Some noble families, such as the Lievens, claimed descent through such women from native chieftains. Many of the German Livonian-Order soldiers died during the Livonian War of 1558–1583. New German arrivals came to the area. During this time, the Low German of the original settlers was gradually replaced by the High German of the new settlers.
In the course of their 700-year history, Baltic German families had ethnic German roots, but also intermarried extensively with Estonians, Livonians and Latvians, as well as with other Northern or Central European peoples, such as Danes, Swedes, Irish, English, Scots, Poles, Hungarians and Dutch.In the early years of the Russian empire, some even married into Russian nobility and society. In cases where any intermarriage occurred, members of the other ethnic groups frequently assimilated into German culture, adopting German language, customs, and family names. They were then considered Germans, leading to the ethnogenesis of the Baltic Germans. The families of Barclay de Tolly and of George Armitstead, who had emigrated from the British Isles, married into and became part of the Baltic-German community.

Territories

Baltic German settlements in the Baltic area consisted of the following territories:
  • Estland, roughly the northern half of present-day Estonia; major towns: Reval, Narwa, Wesenberg, Weissenstein, Hapsal.
  • Livland, roughly the southern half of present-day Estonia and the northern and eastern part of today's Latvia ; major towns: Riga, Wenden, Wolmar, Walk, Dorpat, Pernau, Fellin.
  • Kurland, roughly the western half of present-day Latvia ; major towns: Mitau, Windau, Libau.
  • Ösel belonging to present-day Estonia; major town: Arensburg.

    History

Conquering the Baltics

Small numbers of ethnic Germans began to settle in the area in the late 12th century, when traders and Christian missionaries began to visit the coastal lands inhabited by tribes who spoke Finnic and Baltic languages. Systematic conquest and settlement of these lands was completed during the Northern Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries; this resulted in creation of the Terra Mariana confederation, under the protection of Roman Popes and Holy Roman Empire. After the heavy defeat in the 1236 Battle of Saule the Livonian Brothers of the Sword became a part of the Teutonic Order.
During the next three centuries, German-speaking soldiers, clergymen, merchants and craftsmen constituted the majority of the quickly growing urban population, as the native inhabitants usually were prohibited from settling there. In 1230, the Livonian Order invited over 200 German merchants from Gotland to settle in Tallinn where they founded a market town. Membership in the Hanseatic League and active trade links with Russia and Europe increased the wealth of German traders.

Polish–Lithuanian and Swedish rule

As the military power of the Teutonic Knights weakened during the 15th century wars with the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Livonian branch in the north began to pursue its own policies. When the Prussian branch of the Order secularized in 1525 and became a Polish vassal state as the Duchy of Prussia, the Livonian branch remained independent while searching for a similar way to secularize. Livonia became mostly Protestant during the Reformation.
In 1558, the Tsardom of Russia began the Livonian War against Terra Mariana which soon involved the Kingdoms of Poland, Sweden, and Denmark and lasted for 20 years. In 1561, Terra Mariana ceased to exist and was divided among Denmark, Sweden and Poland, which annexed the newly created Duchy of Livonia, and granted the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal state of Poland-Lithuania, to the last Master of the Livonian Order Gotthard Kettler. The secularized land was divided among the remaining knights who formed the basis of Baltic nobility.
The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia existed as a German-speaking country until 1795, while the northern part of Duchy of Livonia was conquered by Sweden which controlled parts of Estonia between 1561 and 1710 and Swedish Livonia between 1621 and 1710, having signed an agreement with the local Baltic German nobles not to undermine their political rights and autonomy.
The Academia Gustaviana was founded in 1632 by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. It remained the only institution of higher education in the former Livonian territories and became the intellectual focus of the Baltic Germans.
At the end of the 17th century, Sweden introduced the land reduction in its Baltic provinces and properties held by German nobility became the property of the Crown. That effectively turned serfs into free peasants. However, it would be overturned when Russia conquered these territories in 1710 and restored the rights of German landowners under the Treaty of Nystad.

Russia's Baltic governorates (1710–1917)

Between 1710 and 1795, following Russia's success in the Great Northern War and the three Partitions of Poland, the areas inhabited by Baltic Germans eventually became Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire: Courland Governorate, Governorate of Livonia and Governorate of Estonia.

Autonomy

The Baltic provinces remained autonomous and were self-governed by the local Baltic nobility. Until the imperial reforms of the 1880s, local government was in the hands of the landtag of each province, in which only members of the matriculated Baltic nobility held membership and cities were ruled by German burgomasters.
Between 1710 and approximately 1880, the Baltic German ruling class enjoyed great autonomy from the Imperial government and achieved great political influence in the Imperial court. Starting from the 18th century, the Baltic German nobility also assumed some leading posts in the Russian imperial government.
Germans, other than the local estate-owners, mainly lived in the cities, such as Riga, Reval, Dorpat, Pernau and Mitau. As late as the mid-19th century, the population of many of these cities still had a German majority, with Estonian, Latvian or Jewish minorities. By 1867, Riga's population was 42.9% German. Until the late 19th century, most of the professional and learned classes in the region, the literati, were Germans.
German political and cultural autonomy ceased in the 1880s, when Russification replaced German administration and schooling with the usage of Russian. After 1885 provincial governors usually were Russians.