German-Baltic Party in Estonia
The German-Baltic Party in Estonia ( DbPE , Estonian Saksa-Balti erakond ) was the party of the German minority in Estonia from 1918 to 1935.
history
After the collapse of the tsarist empire, the provisional government was formed in the Estonia governorate on February 24, 1918 , which relied on German troops until November 1918. After the capitulation of the German Reich, these troops were withdrawn. The Estonians war for freedom against Soviet Russia . This ended with the defeat of the Red Army and the Peace of Dorpat , in which the Soviet Union had to recognize the independence of Estonia.
In response to the withdrawal of German troops and in preparation for the election to the Asutav Kogu (the Constituent Assembly or Constituent Assembly ), the German Party in Estonia was formed on November 27, 1918 (Estonian Saksa Erakond Eestimaal ). After the Estonian War of Freedom , it renamed itself to the German-Baltic Party in Estonia ( Saksa-balti Erakond ).
The party was conceived as a gathering party of the Baltic German minority in the young Estonian democracy. It remained the only German party in the Republic of Estonia. For centuries the Germans had formed the educated and wealthy upper class in Estonia. This also shaped the party that represented the old landed gentry with their large estates and wealthy bourgeoisie. Conservative positions were taken in accordance with the nature of this clientele. Important politicians of the party included Axel de Vries , Werner Hasselblatt and Carl von Schilling .
The party's great success was the law on cultural autonomy adopted by the Riigikogu , the Estonian parliament, in 1925 . It was internationally one of the most liberal minority laws of the interwar period . In addition to the Baltic Germans, it also applied to Russians , Swedes and Jews . In 1926, the Germans who had been expropriated in the 1919 land reform also received compensation . Of course, it was below the real value of the land.
In 1929 the Baltic Germans and the Estonian Swedes formed an electoral alliance. In the parliamentary elections in 1929 and 1932 , two Baltic German and one Swedish MPs were elected to parliament.
In 1933 National Socialist groups tried to infiltrate the party. The Estonian government stepped in, declared the internal party elections to be invalid and issued a ban on political Nazi groups.
In 1934, President Konstantin Päts declared a state of emergency and dissolved the parliament ( Riigikogu ). On March 5, 1935, the parties in Estonia, including the German-Baltic Party in Estonia, were banned from operating and de facto dissolved.
After the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939, which placed Estonia in the Soviet sphere of interest, and the subsequent resettlement of the Baltic Germans " Home to the Reich ", as it was called in National Socialist propaganda, the political history of the Germans in Estonia ended.
Election results
| year | houses of Parliament | be right | Mandates | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1919 | Asutav Kogu | 11,462 | 3 | |
| 1920 | Riigikogu | 18,444 | 4th | |
| 1923 | Riigikogu | 15,950 | 3 | |
| 1926 | Riigikogu | 13,278 | 2 | |
| 1929 | Riigikogu | 16,235 | 3 | (2 Germans, 1 Swede) |
| 1932 | Riigikogu | 15,527 | 3 | (2 Germans, 1 Swede) |
From 1929 the German-Baltic party in Estonia formed a joint electoral bloc with the party of the Swedish minority , since in 1926 it had not reached a parliamentary group with 2 members.
MPs
| Surname | annotation |
|---|---|
| Asutav Kogu 1919-1920 | |
| Max Bock | Group leader |
| Hermann Koch | |
| Johannes Meyer | January 27, 1920 resignation from the mandate |
| Georg von Stackelberg | from January 27, 1920 |
| 1. Riigikogu 1920-1923 | |
| Max Bock | Group leader |
| Hermann Koch | |
| Walter von Petzold | |
| Georg von Stackelberg | |
| 2. Riigikogu 1923-1926 | |
| Werner Hasselblatt | Group leader |
| Carl von Schilling | |
| Martin Christian Luther | October 1, 1923 waiver of mandate |
| Gerhard Kress | From October 1, 1923 / April 9, 1924, he waived his mandate |
| Axel de Vries | from April 9, 1924 |
| 3. Riigikogu 1926-1929 | |
| Werner Hasselblatt | (Parliamentary group) chairman |
| Carl von Schilling | |
| 4. Riigikogu 1929-1932 | |
| Carl von Schilling | Group leader |
| Werner Hasselblatt | |
| Hans Pöhl | Swede, † January 22, 1930 |
| Mathias Westerblom | Swede, from January 22, 1930 |
| 5. Riigikogu 1932-1937 | |
| Carl von Schilling | Group leader |
| Hermann Koch | |
| Mathias Westerblom | Swede |
literature
- Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest. Statistical-biographical manual of the parliamentarians of the German minorities in East-Central and Southeastern Europe 1919–1945. Volume 1: Introduction, systematics, sources and methods; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia. 1st edition, 2nd edition. Documentation Verlag, Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , pp. 116-117.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sulev Vahtre (ed.): Eesti Ajalugu. Volume 6: Vabadussõjast Taasiseseisvumiseni. Ilmamaa, Tartu 2005, ISBN 9985-77-142-7 , p. 68.