Baltic baron

A Baltic baron () was generally someone of noble ethnic German ancestry who resided in the Baltic States of Estonia, Livonia, and Kurland. Most were descendants of the Teutonic Knights who had 'stayed on'. Baltic Germans were similar but tended to be of the merchant classes.

Service

This nobility was a source of officers and other servants to Swedish kings in the 16th and particularly 17th centuries, when the Duchy of Estonia (1561–1721), Duchy of Livonia and the Oeselian lands belonged to them. Subsequently, following Peter the Great's conquests of these provinces Russian Tsars used the Baltic nobles in all parts of local and national government as well as in the army and navy.

Treaty of Nystad

During the northern wars Peter the Great had occupied all Swedish possessions on the eastern Baltic coast. In the Treaty Nystad, King Frederick I of Sweden formally recognized the transfer of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and southeast Finland and part of the Karelian Isthmus to Russia in exchange for two million silver thaler, while Russia returned the bulk of Finland to Swedish rule.

Importantly, the Treaty enshrined the rights of the German Baltic nobility within Estonia and Livonia to maintain their financial system, their existing customs border, their self-government, their Lutheran religion, and the German language; this special position in the Russian Empire was reconfirmed by all Russian Tsars and Emperors from Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725) onwards..

Independence

Latvia (Letts) in particular was noted for its followers of Bolshevism and the latter were bitterly engaged throughout 1919 in a war against the aristocracy and Landed Estates, as well as the German Freikorps. With independence the government was firmly Left. In 1918 in Estonia 90% of the large landed estates had been owned by Baltic Barons and Germans and about 58% of all agricultural estates had been in the hands of these big landowners. In Latvia approximately 57% of agricultural land was under Baltic German ownership. The Baltic Germans bore the brunt of left-wing and fascist agrarian reform (as in the new Czechoslovakia). The severity of the agrarian legislation introduced in Estonia on 10 October 1919 and in Latvia on 16 September 1920 reflected above all a determination to break the disproportionate political and economic power of the German element. In Estonia 96.6% of all the estates belonging to the Baltic Germans were taken over, together with other farms and villas. The question of fair compensation was left open. In Latvia, in contrast to the implied promise in Estonia, nominal remainders usually made up of about 50 hectares and in a few cases 100 hectares, were left to the dispossessed estate owners, as well as an appropriate amount of stock and equipment. These concessions were rightly seen by most Baltic Germans as offering little more than the life-style of a peasant farmer. Again, fair compensation was to be considered later. The Baltic Germans lost at a stroke most of their inherited wealth built up over 700 years.

Apart from the landed estate owners the rural Mittelstand dependent upon the old estates was severely affected. The expropriation of agrarian banks by the State also hit the Baltic Germans, who controlled/owned them. Paul Schiemann's later polemic against the Bank of Latvia came to the conclusion that 90% of Baltic Germans wealth had gone into the coffers of the Latvian State. Nothing could prevent the Estonian and Latvian political parties from pressing home the attack on Baltic German wealth. The USA Commissioner to the Baltic in 1919 wrote of the Estonians: "German Balts are their pet aversion, more so really than the Bolsheviks". His comment conveys the extreme position of the Baltic peoples on the subject of the Baltic Barons. The ruined and the dispossessed drifted to the cities and towns. The new left-wing government in Berlin was unsympathetic to their kin in the Baltic States and were bitterly attacked by Baron Wrangel, who from March 1919 had increasingly assumed the role of spokesman for the German Balts at the German Foreign Ministry (Auswartiges Amt) and argued that the internationally recognised Treaty of Nystad guaranteed the position of the German minority in the Baltic.

The Baltic Barons and the Baltic Germans in general were given the new and lasting label of Auslandsdeutsch by the Auswärtiges Amt who now grudgingly entered into negotiations with the Baltic governments on their behalf, especially in relation to compensation for their ruination. Of the 84,000 German Balts twenty thousand or so emigrated to Germany during the course of 1920-21. More followed during the inter-war years.

Notables

• Paul Georg Edler von Rennenkampf (1854-1918), General in the Russian Army notable for his defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg. He was born in the manor of Konofer (now Konuvere, Märjamaa parish, Estonia) in the then Governorate of Estonia.
• Friedrich Philipp Johann Freiherr (Baron) von Freytag-Loringhoven (1855–1924), was born at Gut Overlack (Patkula) near Helme, Estonia, and was a professional highly-decorated army officer and author.
• Pyotr Nikolayevich Freiherr [Baron] Wrangel (1878-1928) was born in Novalexandrovsk, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire (now Zarasai, Lithuania). The Baltic noble Wrangel family was part of the old German nobility, appearing in old "Livland" (Livonia) with the Teutonic Order. An officer in the Imperial Russian Army, during the later stages of the Russian Civil War Baron Wrangel was the last commanding General of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.
• Count Johann (Ivan) Alexandrovich von Benckendorff (1882–1919), a member of the Baltic German nobility, Second Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, and a Gentleman of the Russian Court. He owned a large country house and estate in the Governorate of Estonia, Jendel (Jäneda), where he was shot dead on 19 April 1919 by a local peasant.
• Nikolai Robert Maximilian Freiherr [Baron] von Ungern-Sternberg (1886-1921) from the Governorate of Estonia. He was an anti-Bolshevik General in the Russian Civil War and then an independent warlord who intervened in Mongolia against China. He was an ultra-conservative monarchist.