 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (June 2022) |
German: Deutsch-Balten | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| c. 5,200 (Germans currently in Latvia and Estonia, not necessarily Baltic Germans in the same historical and cultural sense) | |
 Estonia: 2,701 | |
 Latvia: 2,554 | |
| Historically: | |
| Languages | |
| Low German, High German | |
| Religion | |
| Lutheran majority Roman Catholic minority[1][2] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germanic peoples, Germans, Germans in Russia, Estonian Swedes, German diaspora |
| History of Latvia |
|---|
 |
| Chronology |
 Latvia portal |
| History of Estonia |
|---|
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| Chronology |
 Estonia portal |
Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten or Deutschbalten, later Baltendeutsche) 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 markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group in the region.[3]
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 (see Ostsiedlung) began settling in the eastern Baltic territories.[4] With the decline of Latin, German became the dominant language of official documents, commerce, education and government. 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 (in Romania and Slovakia respectively), 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 (1700–1721), 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.[5] In 1881, there were 180,000 Baltic Germans in Russia's Baltic provinces; however, by 1914, this number had declined to 162,000.[6] In 1881 there were approximately 46,700 Germans in Estonia (5.3% of the population).[7] According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, there were 120,191 Germans in Latvia, or 6.2% of the population.[8]
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.[9] Nazi Germany resettled almost all the Baltic Germans under the Heim ins Reich program into the newly formed Reichsgaue of Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia (on the territory of the occupied Second Polish Republic). In 1945, most ethnic Germans were expelled from these lands as part of the wider explusion 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.
- ^ According to Gerhard Reichling, out of 250,000 Germans deported from the Baltic states in the Flight and expulsion of Germans 239,000 were Protestant and 8,000 were Catholic.
- ^ Gerhard Reichling, Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, part 1, Bonn: 1995, pp. 8
- ^ Miljan, Toivo (2004). Historical Dictionary of Estonia. Scarecrow Press. p. 121. ISBN 9780810865716.
- ^ Christiansen, Eric (1980). The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100–1525. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816609949. OCLC 6092550.
- ^ "Baltic states | History, Map, People, Independence, & Facts". Britannica.com. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
- ^ Rauch, Georg von (September 7, 1974). Die Geschichte der baltischen Staaten. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520026001 – via Google Books.
- ^ Baltic Germans in Estonia, Estonian Institute einst.ee
- ^ "Latvia - Population". countrystudies.us.
- ^ Ķibilds, Mārtiņš (October 26, 2018). "After 700 years in Latvia, Baltic Germans vanished in a matter of weeks". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. Retrieved October 26, 2018.