Baltic Germans Look Back, But Not in Anger (5)

Published: 08.09.2010 09:25

German-governed Estonia and Livonia 1260 A.D.
( Photo: Wikimedia Commons )

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On September 11, the Baltic-German Cultural Society will hold a seminar in the Tallinn Central Library about local Germans in the 1920s and 1930s.

The seminar is a continuation of the series of events held in 2006 and 2009, respectively devoted to the 19th century Baltic-German art scene, and the 1939 Umsiedlung, or mass resettlement.

The 1919 land reform expropriated the land formerly owned by the German gentry. In 1925, Estonia adopted a law of cultural autonomy, which gave Baltic Germans far-reaching opportunities to independently conduct their cultural, educational and social affairs alongside other ethnic minorities. At the time, when Estonian art and culture were considered a fringe phenomenon by Europe's older nations, the culture of the Estonian Baltic Germans constituted a charming but also rather conservative and tradition-oriented identity at home.

In the 1920s, the community was enlarged by numerous exiles of noble birth from Bolshevist Russia opting for Estonian citizenship. Among Baltic German art circles at that time, women were represented particularly well.

The busy cultural and social life of the community was cut short by the mass resettlement of the group to Germany and its occupied eastern territories in the fall of 1939.

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Comments (5)

  • knut albers

    08.09.2010 13:29

    The Baltic Germans were forced out of resettlement along the so called "Nazi-Soviet population transfers", which was a result of the "German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union" agreement, I'd like to add. That is also why some (some don't have a problem with that) of us are not so happy about the term "freedom fighters", where Estonians fought along with Nazi Germany against the Soviets. Literally, Nazi Germany sold the Baltic Germans to the Soviets at cut-rate price along the liquidation of our educational, cultural, and religious institutions. Liberators look different.

  • knut albers

    08.09.2010 14:33

    Not to forget to mention that a significant part of the Baltic Germans that did not follow the resettlement in 1939/1940, were treated with intense suspicion and considered traitors from Nazi Germany. Not every Baltic German was a Max Erwin Richter PhD or Victor von zur Muehlen or read "Der Aufstieg". In fact, mainly parts of the youth were indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology by the "Deutsche Klub" which was located in Tallin and had 128 members at best in the last. Also, not every Baltic German likes the ideology of a "freedom fighter" Peeter Laane. The situation of the Baltic Germans is vividly described in the book "Deutschbalten, Weimarer Repbulik, und Drittes Reich" by Michael Garleff.

  • knut albers

    08.09.2010 17:18

    The term "inner emigration" has been minted by Frank Thiess and describes the attitude of writers and artists who were in the era of National Socialism in opposition to the Nazi regime, but not from Germany. A Public character of Baltic Germans was Otto von Taube , for instance. Initially professing National Socialist in the beginning of the 20ies, from 1933 Otto von Taube undoubtedly belonged to the authors of the "inner emigration", which shows generally the cooperation with the journal "Eckart" and in its resistance poetry. The family of Taube hided a Jewish child in 1943 until they were able to save the child abroad through the Inner Mission, and helped with the reproduction and distribution of the sermons of Graf Galen to fight against the racial policies of the Nazis, meanwhiles "freedom fighters" were fighting along the Nazis not within the Wehrmacht, but in SS-uniforms against the so called Bolshevists. Otto von Taube was a descendant of the ancient Baltic noble family von Taube and grew up at the castle of his grandfather in Estonia. There are more examples. Gertrud von den Brincken (daughter of Maximilian Baron von Brincken and his wife Louise of an old Baltic German, Protestant-Lutheran, academically and musically educated landlord family coming from Kurland) distanced herself from the Nazis as she stated in 1933 "after which I assumed to be the oppressed [the Germans] become oppressors", meanwhile Herbert Volck (born April 4, 1894 in Tallinn [Dorpat]) was a fanatical nationalist with an anti-Semitic ideology, who felt not bound to any commands, but revolutionaries on one's own were hardly in the sense of the NSDAP. On 8th May 1931, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary: "Yesterday I met the bombman Herbert Volck. Seven years' imprisonment, but looks good. Clear eye. But a Balt. Caution!". In August 1944, Herbert Volck died as a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp. This to be said however, the attitude to Nazism of Baltic German authors ranged from agreement on different levels up to the opposition in the "internal emigration" and that German Balts were taken under suspicion by the Nazi regime. Since Christian attitude was widespread among Baltic Germans, especially under the authors, this lead to different forms of criticism of the system: while Otto von Taube did this more in spiritual poetry, the younger Werner Berggruen developed in internal exile to a master of the "camouflaged" notation, which also Frank Thiess was applied to, meanwhile Edzard Schaper from Estonia and Finland, expressed his opposition to National Socialism and especially Bolshevism. In contrast to the so called "noble fighters for the freedom of Estonia", the reversal against Nazism from Balitc Germans was based on a rejection of violence and demagoguery on the adherence to universal human rights and in particular Christian value standards.

  • knut albers

    09.09.2010 11:06

    One more thing I would like to add is that the German race lecturers declared 12.5% of Latvian-Germans as "foreign" or "ethnically mixed" with Estonians, Latvians, Russians and Jewish "blood". The head of the RuS service of the Commission I of the EWZ, SS Obersturmfuehrer Mueller was extremely dissatisfied with the 519 "ethnic Germans" from Latvia and wrote in his final report, this was "probably the worst material found for the last few weeks in Pomerania for investigation". According to him, this evidence may be also found in the opinions of Kolberger locals: "The opinion of the Kolberger population about the Baltic-Germans who are now for several months here, confirm also regarding their behavior in everyday life the negative findings of the investigation." If the Baltic Germans had already not the best position for the Nazis, imagine how it supposed to be with Estonians itself or what they considered as such. This makes it even more sad, when the "Vaps" movement is described as "freedom fighters" which party legally obtained absolute majority vote of the people in 1934, but which the government brought to its knees by means of a coup d'etat', which is completely silent or played down by advocates for this movement. Even the confindant of President Konstantin Paets, Eduard Laaman, described them as an interest group whose opportunist leadership fell under the influence of German Nazism. Anyway, these are distortions Estonians have to deal with and I am optimistic that future generations will be a bit more questioning about World War II and the involvment of (some) Estonians. What is much more devastating from a Baltic-German perspective is that certain Pomerania interest groups are currently taking the lead in supporting these ideas in the so called "Baltics" (under the "Prussian" term, by the way), first of all to be named the revionists Arnold Tölg and Hartmut Saenger. Let me state what Hartmut Saenger is for by an example what he stated in the Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung, by sharing the opinion that the Second World War had "many fathers" and bashing against the Poles and declaring them defacto as an aggressor by saying: "Poland particularly played belligerent". This all to be said under the fact, that Pomerania gave their biggest support in the last independent elections before Hitler came to power. On the other hand I am greatful that in Germany itself, this issue is not unknown and it is pleasent to me that the Zentralrat der Juden took the consequences by (temporary) shut down its membership in the foundation "Flucht, Vertreibung, Versoehnung". Furthermore, the Baltic Germans and the Estonian-Germans in particular were no "Prusssians" or part of Pomerania, where the vast majority of them were resettled and treated as second class people. Connections, relations and overlaps existed, but especially the Estonian Germans of Tallinn region were Hanseatic or inspired by that. That is why you can see in Old Town places described in Plattdeutsch (Low German) such as "Kiek in de Kook" and that is why Tallinn is a Hanseatic Town in the first place. This becomes even more clear when you consider the occupational classification of this group of people. What I do not understand is who Baltic-Germans should be angry at? Not to their host countries Estonia and Latvia, because as Hans von Rimscha stated: "In a representation of the resettlement of 1939 (...) should be not denied, that we Baltic Germans from our homeland states of Latvia and Estonia, have never been deported by the local population, the Latvians and Estonians". Which is true, because in fact the Balitc-Germans has been resettled, if not directly forced, but under pressure by Nazi Germany when Pomerania was part of it and even has been the major player to execute the resettlements. If there is any reason for Baltic-Germans to be angry to anyone, then it is Nazi Germany and Pomerania in particluar for poisioning our kids with Nazi ideology, (which was an quite easy task, since the Baltic-Germans were no friends of the Weimarer Republic because of the "Prussianism" history, but tendencially nationalistically idealised already) and because of the settlements. But this is all no reason to be in anger for today, the only thing what angers me are the opinion makers that do not reflect the history properly and celebrate them in quite distorted viewpoints. At veteran meetings, for instance. To relativate Nazi crimes.

  • knut albers

    09.09.2010 19:28

    What I totally forgot in my humble opinion to mention about, is the mentioned role of females among the Baltic-Germans. Well, according to Jaan Tõnisson, the place of the women was "Children, Church, Kitchen" and that, according to Sirje Kivimäe, is because "the position of the Estonian women tend to petty-bourgeois German and not the Scandinavian models, natural the result of the Baltic German influences. The Baltic Germans were not loved by us, but admired and imitated. (...) And proud we are still, if we may talk about the German influences in our cuisine, speaking about the Christmas traditions and of our 'German honesty'. (...) Of course, the 'German thing' is more European than the Finnish, Swedish or Norwegian one. Thus the Estonians are more European than the Skandinavians, even if be European means a stronger connection with the patriarchal values." Her comment meant to be ironically. However, the Baltic-German women had indeed some sort of independence as "Culture-carriers and beholder"and they took their job on their educational performance also as a "National vocation". In fact, Baltic German women in principle, where assigned and granted the role of culture bearers. That doesn't mean, that Baltic-German women were not stereotyped, but you do not see that in the cultural art because of stated above. But the existence of stereotypes and that the Baltic-German women were far from independency and emanzipation, can be verified. For example through the Baltic magazine "Die Frauenfrage im Allgemeinen und bei uns", issue 40 from 1893, where is stated: "But still, the Baltic Women are in their totality the winners of noble education and intellectual life, yet always true femininity is her most beautiful jewelry (...) The house is still, as always before, the real place of existence and creation." And, the Baltic-Germans were especially in the 20th century until World War II conservative traditionalists, as it may be reviewd in the monthly magazine "Baltische Frauen", issue 4 from 1924, where is stated that it is the Baltic-German female who "expanded the Baltic House to a place of intellectual life, the bastion of culture and tradition, and should continue to expanded". The females had also the role to keep up the "spirit of the people". A good review may be read in the document "Deutsche Frauen als Wissenstransporteure in Estland und Lettland Ende des 19. und Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts" by Anja Wilhelmi which is publicy available online on the website of the non-profit organization "Hanse-Parlament".