1941: Estonia

Barely a year after its occupation by Soviet troops, Estonia was freed from Russian domination — but only to be merged with its neighbors in a vassal province of the German Reich. For a few days in June 1941, Estonian patriots entertained hopes that Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union would enable them to reestablish the independence of their country, but the Nazis proceeded to assume complete control of the Tallinn Government.

Russian Rule.

The Russians, during the first half of the year, carried on their Sovietization of the Baltic states and tried to eliminate all German influence. On Jan. 10, Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement providing that Germany was to have no direct commercial relations with Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania after Feb. 11. Formerly Germany had maintained heavy trade and investments in these countries, where many German citizens were employed. The agreement called for the resettlement of Baltic Germans in the Reich, although most of those in Estonia had left soon after Hitler announced his new ethnographic order for Europe in the fall of 1939. The first Communist Party Congresses in Estonia and Lithuania were held on Feb. 9, to choose delegates to the All-Union Conference at the Kremlin scheduled for Feb. 15. Another step to facilitate Sovietization was to redistribute the population by an internal passport system inaugurated in April. This system, as described in the newspaper Soviet Estonia, was designed to 'purge persons not engaged in production or socially useful labor' by removing them from cities, where industrial expansion had made living space scarce, and resettling them elsewhere. The number of people exiled to remote parts of the U.S.S.R. during the Russian occupation of Estonia was estimated at 100,000, most of whom were removed during June in anticipation of war with Germany.

The Russo-German War.

At first the Estonians were pleased with prospects of the Nazi invasion, and saw this new phase of the general European conflict as their opportunity for revolt. On June 22 the Stockholm representative of Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported an uprising against the Red Army in Estonia. When it became apparent that the Germans intended to take over the country, however, Johannes Kaiv, acting Consul General in charge of the Estonian Legation at Washington, stated on June 25 that he would refuse to recognize any German-dominated rule set up in Estonia. He explained that Estonians 'neither called on the Russian army for 'protection' nor asked the German armies to come to their rescue.'

Estonia was the last Baltic country to be conquered by the Germans. Heavy fighting continued during July and August, until Berlin officially announced the fall of Tallinn on Aug. 29. Nazi troops cut the Pleskov railroad at Walk on the Latvian-Estonian frontier the first week in July, and shortly afterward the Red Army began evacuating its Estonian forces through Narva, Tallinn, and Paldiski (Baltic Port). Official German communiqués for Aug. 4 claimed that the Nazis had captured 10,000 Russians in Estonia.

Before Germany's conquest of the Baltic states was complete, on July 17 Reichsführer Hitler appointed Heinrich Lohse, Gauleiter of Schleswig-Holstein Province since 1935, as Reichskommissar for 'Ostland Province' — a new German administrative division consisting of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. On Dec. 6, Berlin announced the appointment of Karl Sigmund Litzmann as German Civil Administrater of Estonia. Herr Litzmann had been a Storm Troop leader, a Reichstag member, chief of the German Horse-Breeding Association and a farmer in East Prussia. Alfred Rosenberg, leading Nazi ideologist and Jew-baiter, was put in charge of general supervision over all territory taken from the U.S.S.R. The Germans issued a new unit of currency called the 'Ostmark' to replace the kroon, lat, lit and ruble as legal tender in Ostland Province; it was given no value, however, in Germany proper or other German-controlled territory.

Practically all foodstuffs in Ostland Province were strictly rationed, but prices were fixed at 40 per cent below those of East Prussia, the lowest in the Reich; to cancel benefits of the low prices, wages were fixed at 50 per cent below those of East Prussia. In October diplomatic officials in Washington reported that butter, cheese, horses and rubber tires had been removed to Germany, that persons from 16 to 60 were ordered to register for labor conscription, and that Jews in the Baltic countries were treated as badly as those in Poland. Large collective farms and industrial organizations set up by the U.S.S.R. were taken over by the Nazis. Nazi theorist Rosenberg considered the Estonians — despite their Nordic ancestry — to be racially inferior to the Germans, and consequently closed the University of Tartu (Dorpat), substituting increased numbers of trade schools as the highest education for which Estonians were eligible. See also GERMANY; U.S.S.R.