Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE POLITICS OF PEACEMAKING 1919–20
- 1 German–Russian perspectives
- 2 The Baltic Germans as Auslandsdeutsche
- PART II TRADE AND FOREIGN POLICY 1921–3
- PART III WEIMAR REVISIONISM AND BALTIC SECURITY 1923–33
- CONCLUSIONS
- Map
- Tables
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Baltic Germans as Auslandsdeutsche
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE POLITICS OF PEACEMAKING 1919–20
- 1 German–Russian perspectives
- 2 The Baltic Germans as Auslandsdeutsche
- PART II TRADE AND FOREIGN POLICY 1921–3
- PART III WEIMAR REVISIONISM AND BALTIC SECURITY 1923–33
- CONCLUSIONS
- Map
- Tables
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The physical removal of the last German troops from the Baltic countries in December 1919 marked the opening of the New Year as the beginning of another chapter in German–Baltic relations, an obvious point of departure for implementing the policy of active friendship proclaimed by the Auswärtiges Amt in January 1920 during its peace negotiations with Latvia. History recognizes no clean breaks, however, and the retreating German troops could not take away in their kitbags the legacy of bitter resentment at German occupation. It was never far below the surface in the post-war years; predictably so, for to take issue with their recent conquerors was also for the Latvians and Estonians to define and legitimize their own still vulnerable state forms. In March 1923, when the Latvian Prime Minister, Kārlis Ulmanis, was still probing sore spots in a markedly anti-German lecture on Latvia's recent past, the then German ambassador to Riga, Adolf Köster, was forcefully reminded that it would take years for the Latvians to forget what had happened to them in 1919. Against whom above all was this resentment most obviously, logically and conveniently directed if not against the once dominant Baltic Germans? A glance at the overall scale of the changes imposed on the German element in the Baltic States can make this point most effectively.
Nothing had more obviously symbolized the social and economic dominion of the Baltic German ruling caste than its landholdings, the basis too of its political power in the provincial administration.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik , pp. 36 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987