page_title: Baltic Germans
section_title: 1939–1940
hierarchical_section_title: Baltic Germans / Resettlement of all Baltic Germans (1939–1944) / 1939–1940
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Riga, Umsiedlung Baltendeutscher Riga, Baltenumsiedlung: Berge von Kisten für die balt. Rückwanderer auf dem Unionsplatz Quelle Mauritius (Geiges) 1939 [Riga.- Beladen von Lastwagen mit Kisten baltendeutscher Umsiedler.]
context_page_description: The Baltic Germans and остзейцы ostzeitsy 'Balters' in Russian are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group. The largest groups of present-day descendants of the Baltic Germans live in Germany and Canada. 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 non-German serfs. The emerging Baltic-German middle class was mostly urban and professional.
  In the 12th and 13th centuries Catholic Germans, both traders and crusaders, began settling in the eastern Baltic territories. After the 13th-century Livonian Crusade, they assumed control of government, politics, economics, education and culture of these lands, ruling for more than 700 years until 1918 — usually in alliance with Polish, Swedish or Russian overlords. With the decline of Latin, German became the language of all official documents, commerce, education and government.
context_section_description: As a result of the secret agreements of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the "Soviet sphere of influence". One of the main conditions posed by Hitler to Stalin in August 1939 was the prior transfer of all ethnic Germans living in Estonia and Latvia to areas under German military control. These became known as the Nazi–Soviet population transfers. Stalin proceeded to set up Soviet military bases in Estonia and Latvia in late 1939.
  In a speech to Reichstag on October 6, 1939 with was broadcast live on radio, Hitler announced that German minorities should be resettled in the Reich (Back home to Reich, heim ins Reich). Resettlement was overseen by Himmler who created a new Reich Commisariat for the Strengthening of Germandom for this purpose.
  Treaties were signed with Estonia and Latvia in 1939 and 1940 concerning the emigration of Baltic Germans and the liquidation of their educational, cultural, and religious institutions. Nazi Germany succeeded in getting the Baltic Germans to abandon their homes and homeland in haste. Due to the imposition of wartime rationing, Germans were banned from taking along any valuables, objects of historic value, fuels and even food. Massive sell-off of household items and small businesses followed. Larger properties, real estate and businesses were sold over a longer period of time by a special German commission to local governments.
  Some 13,700 Baltic Germans were resettled from Estonia by early 1940.
  Around 51,000 Baltic Germans were resettled from Latvia by early 1940.
  The Estonian and Latvian governments published books containing alphabetical lists of the names of resettled Baltic German adults together with their birthdate, birthplace and last address in the Baltics.
  Baltic Germans left by ships from the port cities of Estonia and Latvia to ports of Gotenhafen and Stettin and then were transported to Posen and Lodz in Reichsgau Wartheland (sometimes called Warthegau) and other Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. The "new" homes and farms they were given to live in had been owned and inhabited by Poles and Jews just a few months earlier who were executed or deported eastwards when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The new arrivals fulfilled Nazi plans for ethnic Germanization of these lands.
caption: Boxed goods of leaving Germans, Riga 1939
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