Baltic Germans

Baltic Germans are a historical community of German speakers living in the Baltic Sea region, mostly modern Estonia and Latvia. After 1945, their numbers drastically declined, with many relocating to Germany or elsewhere.

Since the Late Middle Ages, native German-speakers formed the majority of merchants and clergy, and the large majority of the Baltic nobility who effectively constituted a ruling class over indigenous Latvian and Estonian non-nobles. By the time a distinct Baltic German ethnic identity began emerging in the 19th century, the majority of self-identifying Baltic Germans were non-nobles belonging mostly to the urban and professional middle class.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Catholic German traders and crusaders (see Ostsiedlung) began settling in the eastern Baltic territories. With the decline of Latin, Low German became the dominant language of official documents, commerce, education and government and later on High German. By the first half of the 20th century, the Baltic Germans were, until after World War II, along with the Transylvanian Saxons and the Zipser Germans (in Romania and Slovakia respectively), one of the three oldest continuously German-speaking and ethnic German groups of the German diaspora in Europe.

The majority of medieval Catholic settlers and their German-speaking descendants lived in the local towns of medieval Livonia. However, a small wealthy elite formed the Baltic nobility, acquiring large rural estates. When Sweden had ceded its Livonian territories to the Russian Empire after the Great Northern War (1700–1721), many of these German-speaking aristocrats began taking high positions in the military, political and civilian life of the Russian Empire, particularly in its capital city Saint Petersburg.