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Should the Baltic Germans be compensated by Russia?

Vixen

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Vixen
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Stalin stripped the nobility in the Baltic states of their privileges, causing Hitler to relocate them to Prussia in secret readiness to attack Russia.

These Baltic Germans received the most desultory price for the confiscation of their splendid estates and buildings and zero compensation.

Those who stayed behind, found they couldn't even expect recompense for the compulsory state purchase of their land.

During the war, many of these dispossessed Baltic Germans moved back to the area we now know as Estonia, Latvia and part East Prussia and Lithuania (Livonia, Courland, Ugania, Lettland, etc). This era was known as the White Terror as the returning Germans tried to suppress the communist regime now in place under Stalin.

On Nazi German losing the war, the Baltic Germans were subjected to Red Terror, with summary executions and being forced to flee, all of their land now in the hands of the gloating victorious Soviets, as part of the Allied defeat of the Nazis.

With Russia now thrown off its communist shackles, could it be time to reinstate the old ancient Baltic German nobility back in the lands were they belong, going back centuries, and or proper compensation to be paid for the theft of their property by the State?

Pictured: The Baltic States in their Swedish era.

The 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 expulsion from Estonia and Latvia and resettlement during the upheavals and aftermath of the Second World War, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group.[3] The largest groups of present-day descendants of the Baltic Germans are found in Germany and Canada.[citation needed] It is estimated that several thousand still reside in Latvia and Estonia.

For centuries Baltic Germans and the Baltic nobility constituted a ruling class over native non-German serfs. The emerging Baltic-German middle class was mostly urban and professional.
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Baltic German history and presence in the Baltics came to an end in late 1939, following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent Nazi–Soviet population transfers. Almost all the Baltic Germans were resettled by Nazi Germany 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 by the Soviet army. Resettlement was planned for the territory remaining to Germany under terms of the border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference, i.e. west of the Oder–Neisse line, or elsewhere in the world.

Ethnic Germans from East Prussia and Lithuania are sometimes incorrectly considered Baltic Germans for reasons of cultural, linguistic, and historical affinities. But the Germans of East Prussia held Prussian, and after 1871, German citizenship, because the territory they lived in was part of Kingdom of Prussia.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans


What do the panel think?
 

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Vixen said:
What do the panel think?
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That you didn't read the wiki page properly:

The Baltic Germans' rule and class privileges came to the end with the demise of the Russian Empire (due to the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917) and the independence of Estonia and Latvia in 1918–1919.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Independent_Baltic_states

The ethnic Germans had lost their privileged status long before WWII and their land was taken by the independent Baltic states prior to 1939:

On October 10, 1919 Estonian parliament expropriated 1,065 estates (96.6% of all estates). March 1, 1926 law set the compensation to the former owners of arable land at about 3% of its market value and no compensation at all for the forests. This almost instantly bankrupted German noble class, even if they were allowed to keep some 50 ha of their lands.

On September 16, 1920 Constitutional Assembly of Latvia nationalized 1,300 estates with 3.7 million hectares of land. Former German owners were allowed to keep 50 ha of land and farm equipment. In 1924, Saeima decided that no compensation will be paid to former owners. In 1929, Saeima voted that veterans of the Baltische Landeswehr cannot receive any land.
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Vixen said:
Pictured: The Baltic States in their Swedish era.

What do the panel think?
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Apart from Garrison's remark which completely undermines the whole premise of your OP, the above is also false. Your map shows that nowadays Estonia and roughly half of nowadays Latvia (Livonia) were Swedish. The southern half of Latvia, Courland, and Lithuania, were not. Courland was part of Lithuania, and the latter was one of the two constituents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
 
ddt said:
They were originally Teutonic knights, who went on "crusade" to "christianize" (read: enslave and genocide) the local population.
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Old Prussian = Dead Prussian.

New Prussian = Failed Crusader that spoke German.
 
Garrison said:
That you didn't read the wiki page properly:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Independent_Baltic_states

The ethnic Germans had lost their privileged status long before WWII and their land was taken by the independent Baltic states prior to 1939:
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I saw all that. It doesn't change the thrust of the OP.

You did realise the Swedish possession came to an end in 1721 by the Treaty of Nystad, and WWII was some >200 years later? In the interim, Russia did restore the privileges Charles X of Sweden had taken away. These privileges lasted until Stalin came along.
 
What of the Volga Deutsche? Or the Black Sea Germans? Silesia, Prussia, Pomerania, Danzig, Konigsburg? My great-great grandfather's farm, which was north of Odessa? My wife's grandfather's village in Silesia?

The thing is, Germany renounced all claims - West Germany tacitly accepted all post-war borders and resettlement of ethnic Germans. Once reunified, Germany explicitly accepted it all.

It's done, has been for a few generations now.
 
kookbreaker said:
Who did the Prussian nobles steal it from in the first place?
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We are not talking about Prussians, strictly speaking, as they were German nationals from 1871. We are discussing the Baltic states.

However, why should you assume the nobility 'stole it' from anyone?

A large portion were knighted thanks to their gallantry on the battlefield, by grateful kings and queens.

Others were heirs to the kings (ditto) handed down by inheritance laws, as we know them today.
 
ddt said:
Apart from Garrison's remark which completely undermines the whole premise of your OP, the above is also false. Your map shows that nowadays Estonia and roughly half of nowadays Latvia (Livonia) were Swedish. The southern half of Latvia, Courland, and Lithuania, were not. Courland was part of Lithuania, and the latter was one of the two constituents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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Part of modern day Lithuania as we know it was included in the Swedish empire. The boundaries are not fixed.
 
crescent said:
What of the Volga Deutsche? Or the Black Sea Germans? Silesia, Prussia, Pomerania, Danzig, Konigsburg? My great-great grandfather's farm, which was north of Odessa? My wife's grandfather's village in Silesia?

The thing is, Germany renounced all claims - West Germany tacitly accepted all post-war borders and resettlement of ethnic Germans. Once reunified, Germany explicitly accepted it all.

It's done, has been for a few generations now.
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Ah, but we are not talking about Germany, per se. We are talking about the Baltic States.

During WWII they were largely under the heel of Stalin, so they have nothing to reparate. Whilst the nobility might be descended from German stock, they did not have German nationality.
 
Doubt said:
Old Prussian = Dead Prussian.

New Prussian = Failed Crusader that spoke German.
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Wrong. Erik the Holy brought Christianity to the Swedish empire and is now the patron saint of Stockholm.

Anyway we are not talking about the West Prussians, but the east ones.
 
Last edited:
I note I omitted to mention the following in my original post.

"Re the Baltic states, whilst, yes they were under Russian rule having been ceded by Sweden,they were enjoying enormous privileges with serfs paying them tithes, etc. The Baltic ruling classes pre-Stalin had had all of their privileges restored, removed by Charles X of Sweden in the 'Great Reduction' throughout the Swedish kingdom (this was the removal of the privileges of the nobility, or, 'free men', who were now expected to pay taxes like everybody else. Some had their estates confiscated to the Crown).

These people enjoyed large tracts of land and beautiful sprawling manors pre-Stalin, despite being under Russia.

Stalin stripping this 'bourgeois' class of landowners of their privileges, with the minimum of compensation and zero compensation, and caused a great deal of resentment." (from another thread)
 
Vixen said:
Stalin stripped the nobility in the Baltic states of their privileges, causing Hitler to relocate them to Prussia in secret readiness to attack Russia.

These Baltic Germans received the most desultory price for the confiscation of their splendid estates and buildings and zero compensation.

Those who stayed behind, found they couldn't even expect recompense for the compulsory state purchase of their land.

During the war, many of these dispossessed Baltic Germans moved back to the area we now know as Estonia, Latvia and part East Prussia and Lithuania (Livonia, Courland, Ugania, Lettland, etc). This era was known as the White Terror as the returning Germans tried to suppress the communist regime now in place under Stalin.

On Nazi German losing the war, the Baltic Germans were subjected to Red Terror, with summary executions and being forced to flee, all of their land now in the hands of the gloating victorious Soviets, as part of the Allied defeat of the Nazis.

With Russia now thrown off its communist shackles, could it be time to reinstate the old ancient Baltic German nobility back in the lands were they belong, going back centuries, and or proper compensation to be paid for the theft of their property by the State?

Pictured: The Baltic States in their Swedish era.



<snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans


What do the panel think?
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No.
 
crescent said:
What of the Volga Deutsche? Or the Black Sea Germans? Silesia, Prussia, Pomerania, Danzig, Konigsburg? My great-great grandfather's farm, which was north of Odessa? My wife's grandfather's village in Silesia?

The thing is, Germany renounced all claims - West Germany tacitly accepted all post-war borders and resettlement of ethnic Germans. Once reunified, Germany explicitly accepted it all.

It's done, has been for a few generations now.
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It's like suggesting that everybody in the US of European descent move back to Europe and give the country back to the Native Americans. No one with any sense denys the Native Americans got a very raw deal and were screwed over royally but what is done is done.
 
dudalb said:
It's like suggesting that everybody in the US of European descent move back to Europe and give the country back to the Native Americans. No one with any sense denys the Native Americans got a very raw deal and were screwed over royally but what is done is done.
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This is still in living memory.
 
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