Housden Martyn. Forgotten Pages in Baltic History: Diversity and Inclusion. (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics) (ENG)

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approaching contempt—as, for instance, Schiemann mocked the primacy of

race for the state and the policies pursued in its name:

―Germany for the Germans! What a well-known sound for

every politician in the East! Latvia for the Latvians! Poland for

the Poles! Romania for the Romanians! Greater Serbia for the

Serbs! It is the call to arms of ‗national‘ economic policy

across the whole of East and South East Europe! Economic

autarky and nation state thinking are the foundations of this

policy. A policy which threatens to bring a series of new states

to the edge of economic breakdown through corruption and

lack of productivity…. A policy against which especially the

German minorities at the Geneva nationalities congress have

protested particularly forcibly and with good reason.‖

This refusal to see either novel or genuinely-believed principles in the

NSDAP‘s programme anticipated historical interpretations that became

particularly popular during especially the 1980s—although one element of

National Socialism always stood out. To cite Schiemann again: ―The only

unambiguous programmatic point of National Socialism is anti-Semitism.

But you can only destroy a state with pogroms, certainly not construct one.‖

On this basis he identified Nazism as form of brutal nationalism without

precedent in world history, something which appealed to the very worst

elements of society─as the Black Hundreds had done.

Unswerving opposition to political alignment from Berlin, admittedly

coupled with ill health, lost Schiemann the editorship of Rigasche Rundschau

in 1933 and saw him sidelined from the heart of German minorities affairs. In

1939 he refused anything at all to do with the grubby deal that saw Baltic

Germans ―resettled‖ from their homeland. Schiemann‘s moral convictions

made it quite impossible for him to countenance relocation to a home stolen

from an unlucky Polish family in the Warthegau. Instead, he ended up

enduring Soviet dominion followed by house arrest under Nazism. Perhaps

his increasing isolation was symbolic of Schiemann‘s very personality;

maybe intellectually he was always isolated from those he encountered on a

daily basis. Yet even under these most trying of conditions, he managed to

save the life of a Jewish girl whom he employed as a servant. Her statement

that Schiemann fostered an ―ethical microclimate‖ serves as unique testimony

to a life transcending whatever the world threw at it. At a time when the

stakes were particularly high, his personal principles and practical

achievements still moved in harmony.

The irresponsible Bürger from Pärnu: Ewald Ammende’s early career

How could other minorities activists from the Baltic region compare? Talking

in even the most general of terms, there was rarely any danger of Schiemann

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being confused with Ewald Ammende (1892–1936). A generation younger,

those who knew the latter described him in terms which could never be

applied to the man he recognised as, in a number of ways, his mentor. A

German diplomat described Ammende as the ―very industrious, but

irresponsible and fanciful Bürger from Pärnu.‖

Max Hildebert Boehm saw

him as ―the perpetual motor‖ of the national minorities movement, but also as

a ―racing Roland‖ dashing from pillar to post as he fought against injustice.

He was a ―passionate‖, ―tendentiously optimistic soul‖ who was competitive

by nature and likely to be dressed bizarrely. Boehm also called him ―doctor

fatso‖, yet recognised that his sheer energy—perhaps workaholism—led

Ammende to understand more about Europe‘s nationalities affairs than

anyone else alive.

In other words, Ammende presented a frenzy of energy at

work on behalf of Europe‘s national minorities. He was constantly on a train

or a boat, travelling the length and breadth of the continent and beyond, yet

he alienated people and invited humorous but barbed jibes in a way that did

not apply to Schiemann. He lacked the elder man‘s gravitas and, ultimately,

his rigour.

Born into a successful trading family, the young Ammende travelled

on business around southern Russia and Ukraine. He attended university in

Riga, Moscow and several German centres. Researching for his doctorate, he

developed an interest in the ethnic German communities strewn across

Eastern Europe and into heart of the Russian Empire. As the First World War

ended, he travelled among them extensively, making valuable contacts with

Transylvanian Germans in particular. His connections helped provide the

foundations for the Association of German Minorities in Europe which was

set up by, amongst others, himself and Schiemann in 1922.

At this early point there were comparabilities between the two men

intellectually. The memorandum drafted by Ammende and used as the basis

for establishing the Association was basically progressive.

The organisation

of specifically German national minorities was not presented solely as a

means to promoting the German nation. Instead, Ammende proposed the

project was the first step on the way towards organising all Europe‘s national

minorities. He went out of his way to stress that the venture should not lead

to irredenta movements, but had to be carried out on the basis of loyalty to

the states in which the groups lived, as well as to the majority populations

surrounding them. To this end, minorities should assert their rights using only

legal means. Critical was the commitment to campaigning for independent

cultural lives and for the creation of cultural associations between the

various minority groups and their home states. Political relationships,

however, had to be left to one side, since they would open the way to

allegations of national minorities becoming separate units within foreign

bodies politic—in effect ―fifth columns‖, to use an anachronistic phrase. This

suspicion would be counter-productive. Hence Ammende specified that ―no

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political connection‖ could exist between German minorities and the German

state.

Nor was his position limited to public statements. In private letters

Ammende re-iterated the need to maintain a ―loyal and upright minorities

policy‖.

Moreover he was committed to addressing national minorities

affairs within a democratic framework, a position underscored by his attitude

to the competing political systems of the time. Although Ammende was

sympathetic towards the Russian people and believed that Russia had an

important role to play in the reconstruction of Europe‘s economy after the

First World War, he was horrified by the chaos and lawlessness consequent

upon the Russian revolution. He helped Gorky publicise the dreadful

conditions afflicting St. Petersburg in 1921 and denounced the arbitrariness

of the Bolshevik secret police.

In due course he publicised the Ukrainian

famine (especially as it impacted on ethnic German communities located

around the Volga), also the conviction that Moscow was trying to foment

revolution in the states along its western borders.

Among its revolutionary

strategies, Ammende believed Bolshevism was trying to exploit the

dissatisfaction of national minorities in order to destabilising countries such

as Poland, Romania and his own Estonia. The belief increased Ammende‘s

desperation to find a liberal solution to Europe‘s minorities question. In no

way, however, did his profound anti-Communism lead Ammende to

sympathise with Italian Fascism. A trip to the South Tyrol allied to research

into assimilationist policies practiced against the region‘s ethnic Germans

(including the closure of German-language schools), convinced him that

Fascism was outrageous.

It was logical that Ammende would play an important part inside

Estonia promoting cultural autonomy. Although not himself a parliamentary

deputy, he organised and participated in formative meetings between ethnic

German deputies and Estonian politicians which helped steer the law through

the democratic minefield. He met with nationalist politician Tõnisson in

March 1924 and January 1925, as well as State President Jaakson in January

1925.

To maximise support for the legislation, Ammende wrote article after

article for Revaler Bote listing everything the project had to offer Estonia‘s

Germans. As soon as the law was passed by the legislature, he published an

article addressing the main enduring points of opposition among Baltic

Germans and dismissed them decisively. Far from a strategy producing ―a

state within a state‖, it would promote conditions conducive to confident co-

operation between different nationalities. Was the law compelling people to

belong to one nationality rather than another? No, it allowed anyone to leave

a minority national group any time they wanted; in other words, national

affiliation was a matter of personal choice. Would the system be too costly

for minorities, since they would have to pay for their own cultural lives—

including their schooling? Well, they would just have to organise their

finances effectively, raise their cultural taxes appropriately and at least would

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have the freedom to prioritise things for themselves.

In other words, he

made a compelling, coherent case supportive of a project he considered

ethically correct.

It was characteristic of Ammende that as soon as one thing had been

achieved, he threw himself totally into another initiative. In fact, the next

project was to be his most famous one. It built logically on his prior work

with both the Association of German Minorities in Europe and cultural

autonomy, and involved the construction of the European Nationalities

Congress. Now wanting to create a forum bringing together the full spectrum

of national minorities from across Europe, he travelled the length and breadth

of the continent meeting community leaders. From Vilnius to Trieste,

Kishinev to Barcelona, he spent the early summer of 1925 meeting with

Germans from Poland, Jews from Austria, Hungarians from Romania and

Slovenians from Yugoslavia. Having discussed the possibility of a general

minorities congress with people like Paul Schiemann, Josip Wilfan (a

Slovene from Italy) and Géza Szüllö (an Hungarian from Czechoslovakia)

who gathered at Dresden in August 1925, Ammende sent out a memorandum

both inviting participation and outlining its terms of reference.

The event

would be held in Switzerland, since the country was said to welcome

oppressed minorities and offered a model of organising multiple nationalities

under one roof. Furthermore, the location would facilitate lobbying of the

League of Nations which was mandated to supervise the treatment of national

minorities in the new and extended states of Central and Eastern Europe.

Very clearly indeed the memorandum stated that the congress would enshrine

entirely peaceful, lawful principles. It would not discuss the possibility of

border changes and would not be used as a platform for polemics or

incitements to aggression between national groups. Taking Estonia‘s cultural

autonomy law as a model of what minorities could achieve, it would concern

itself with the individual‘s right to practice his or her own culture freely, on

this foundation seeking the participation of minorities in the civic life of

states and reconciliation between formerly hostile national groups. The

memorandum also spelled out that Jewish groups should participate in the

congress—at least in so far as they constituted national minorities.

expected to assemble Jewish groups from Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia,

Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

The European Nationalities Congress first met in Geneva in October

1925 and was a remarkable achievement. It comprised 50 delegates from 34

national groups representing 17 nations distributed among 14 states.

The

meeting, which elected Ammende General Secretary, endorsed the key

principles outlined in the memorandum. It also made plain that, in order to

promote a dignified and objective atmosphere, there would be no discussion

of specific cases of discrimination, only of principles relevant to minorities

protection in general.

Although initially some spectators and participants

alike were concerned that the organisation was a front for German nationalist

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interests, the worries were soon dispelled. One report sent to the German

Consul in Geneva said the congress‘s leaders, including Ammende, were not

Pan-Germans. It added that the sheer diversity of national groups in

attendance militated decisively against a biased agenda.

In the end, German

government figures, such as the ambassador to Latvia, decided the initiative

was worth supporting since it originated from the minorities themselves and

their satisfaction was a prime element in securing Europe‘s peace.

At this time, Ammende was committed to a rational minorities

politics. When the Italian government once again attempted the forcible

assimilation of German and Slovene minorities, he not only rejected the

action on principle, but pointed out its illogic. Concurrently with denying

national freedom to these groups, Rome was demanding full rights to national

cultural development for Italian minorities abroad—for instance in France,

Malta and Yugoslavia. Quite rightly Ammende described the position as

showing a ―contradictory mentality‖. It amounted to the principle ―What is

permitted for me, is not allowed for others.‖ He said exactly this style of

thinking had typified pre-1914 imperialism and had poisoned relations

between European states. He quoted Sir Willoughby Dickinson, Vice

President of the League of Nations Union, that it could only generate war and

revolution. Ammende feared that such ways of thinking remained too

common in the 1920s and could only be challenged by the principles of the

Geneva congress.

Trying to ride two horses: Ammende in the 1930s

In the post-war decade, Ammende achieved much laudable work in minority

politics, but his legacy was seriously tarnished by his actions in the 1930s.

What happened and why? In the first place there is a suspicion that, for all his

endeavours to promote the welfare of Europe‘s national minorities as a

whole, he was always susceptible to bias favouring German qualities and

interests. His memorandum establishing the Association of German

Minorities in Europe recognised, for example, that Germans were not just the

most widely-spread of national communities, but also ―in many cases

culturally the most developed element‖.

This was not an isolated comment.

Elsewhere he mentioned that national cultures could be organised

hierarchically, the obvious implication being that he considered German

characteristics superior to others.

Maybe this point is unsurprising. Had Ammende not valued his

personal national identity highly, he would hardly have become involved so

keenly in nationality politics. This pride at membership of the extended

German nation remained unproblematic so long as it stayed within limits.

Unfortunately, as the 1920s turned into the 1930s, the checks and balances on

it were eroded gradually. As was the case with other minorities activists such

as Paul Schiemann, Ammende became disillusioned with the League of

Nations. Frustrated by its failure to generalise nationality rights to all

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countries, alienated by an obscure way of working based on diplomatic

pressure and behind the scenes deals rather than public and legally-based

interventions, angered by the feeling that some countries—such as Poland

and Italy—were getting away with murder in their treatment of minorities,

Ammende attacked the League with increasing frequency and vitriol. His

outpouring of spleen reached a high point during the 1932 congress.

But if

Geneva would not offer minorities, and especially German ones, the

protection they needed, to whom should Ammende look for assistance?

The mood among especially German minorities was affected by two

important deaths. Stresemann‘s demise in 1929 removed a balancing figure

from German foreign policy discussions. Next was the central organiser of

the Association of German Minorities in Europe, Carl Georg Bruns, who died

in February 1931.

He had been a traditional conservative and was replaced

by more of a man for the times emerging in Germany since the NDSAP‘s

electoral success in September 1930. Ewald Ammende knew Werner

Hasselblatt well, since both originated in Estonia and had long co-operated

over cultural autonomy and international minorities affairs. Despite

Schiemann‘s objections to Hasselblatt as Bruns‘s replacement, Ammende

supported him as a strong leader required by difficult times.

Hasselblatt

henceforth acted as a go-between linking the Association of German National

Groups in Europe (the name had been changed no longer to use the word

―Minorities‖) and Berlin‘s Foreign Office. The post was critical because

funding was transmitted from the German government to the Association

and, through its medium, helped support the European Nationalities

Congress. The point was recognised by the German Foreign Office and a

memorandum of August 1930 noted the practice was acceptable so long as

the congress‘s organisers took account of the German state‘s interests,

sounding out policy-makers before embarking on important policies.

But

with Hasselblatt settled in Berlin and Hitler‘s star on the rise, how long could

political independence last for the minorities relying on this money—

particularly given that Ammende used Foreign Office funds to run a small

minorities office in Vienna?

Against this background, one issue above all emerged as vital for the

minorities movement─and it would have particular importance for German

groups. It was anti-Semitism. Leo Motzkin was a long standing Jewish

member of the European Nationalities Congress who belonged to its

managing committee.

In June 1932 he wrote to Ammende as follows:

―As you know perhaps better than I, an outrageous and brutal

anti-Semitism is raging in a series of countries in Eastern and

Central Europe; ever since Hitler has collected such large

crowds around himself, it cannot be denied that the sedition has

assumed the very worst of pogrom forms even in Central

Europe. Not only in Eastern Europe, therefore, but also in

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Central Europe the Jewish population is facing the greatest

danger. In my opinion the European Nationalities Congress

cannot let such a phenomenon pass by in silence if it wants to

stay true to its basic principles.‖

The depth of Motzkin‘s concern was patent in a speech he gave to the

World Jewish Congress that August. In a fashion as prescient as it was

pessimistic, he likened events in Germany to what he witnessed in Ukraine

prior to the pogroms of the 1880s and prophesied the onset of mass physical

persecution. In this context, Motzkin went out of his way to criticise the

response of Germany‘s Central Association of Citizens of Jewish Belief

which fought discrimination on the grounds of assimilation. While Motzkin

recognised it was hard for hundreds of thousands of German Jews to give up

the feeling of belonging to the German nation, he thought assimilation

encouraged them to forget thousands of years of Jewish culture and

experiences. He also accepted that you could not belong to a national group if

the majority did not want you, and thought that insisting on assimilation gave

anti-Semites the opportunity to point out lots of ways in which German Jews

were different, so justifying persecution.

But the European Nationalities Congress which met in September

1932 did not really respond to these concerns. When it dealt with persecution

and religion, it addressed specifically matters to do with Christian churches.

It was as if the management group had deliberately chosen to sideline Jewish

issues, while those present seemed to be operating with a set of intellectual

blinkers. A Jewish representative from Latvia called Nurock hinted at as

much in an intervention stating that Jews had to keep quiet in debate because

religion and persecution raised a set of different issues for them.

although Motzkin did give a speech to the congress emphasising that anti-

Semitic persecution should be of concern to the whole nationalities

movement, General Secretary Ammende did not take up the issue.

Concern among Jewish representatives to the congress accelerated in

November 1932 following the publication of an anti-Semitic article in the

German national minorities journal, Nation und Staat.

Motzkin wrote letters

to the congress‘s leading figures, including Ammende, spelling out this was

unacceptable. The minorities movement, he said, was incompatible with anti-

Semitism since allegations against Jews could be levelled against any other

minority. He asked whether Jewish groups could participate in a minorities

movement that took such prejudice seriously.

Ammende and the President of the European Nationalities Congress,

Josip Wilfan, did respond to events in Germany following Hitler becoming

chancellor, most notably the boycott of Jewish shops and the gradual removal

of civil rights from Jews. That summer, Wilfan gave a speech to a minorities

conference in Montreaux premised on the desirability of German Jews

leaving—or ―dissimilating‖ from—the German nation, setting up their own

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national group and claiming the rights due to any national minority.

Ammende took the same line in a rare article discussing the Jewish question

in published form.

Given the congruence between this idea and Motkin‘s

criticism of the assimilationist response of the Central Association of Citizens

of Jewish Belief, we have to be careful about how we criticise Ammende for

representing the idea, nonetheless the line must strike contemporary readers

immediately as feeble. Too much was left unaddressed.

With this said, there is no question that Ammende had genuine

difficulty conceptualising a proper relationship between the European

Nationalities Congress and assimilated groups, indeed he experienced some

confusion about the precise relationship between ―national minorities‖

―traditionally-conceived‖ (such as Germans in Poland or Russians in Estonia)

and Jewish minorities as such (which did not necessarily use their own

language, or which might be divided between use of Hebrew or Yiddish).

private letters he also represented the view that, having spoken to German

Jews, he had been told that it would be disastrous for them to claim the status

of a foreign national minority.

Still, this did not stop him, at a later date

wishing that ―a few courageous Jewish men‖ would turn events inside

Germany into a fight over the rights of a Jewish national minority. Less

fortunately, however, the same letter also commented that a fight about

Jewish nationality rights would not involve a fight to maintain the position of

assimilated Jewry.

There was a definite problem about Ammende‘s attitude to Germany‘s

assimilated Jews and the wider context of his actions clearly showed the man

guilty of failing to deal with the Jewish question properly. This was most

striking when the European Nationalities Congress met at Bern in September

1933 and did not discuss Hitler‘s government. Mealy-mouthed statements

from Wilfan, hopelessly inappropriate declarations by the German deputies,

and an unexpected focus on the emerging Ukrainian famine forced the Jewish

groups to leave the proceedings. At this time Ammende certainly was

troubled and experienced deep personal conflicts. He said very little during

the Bern congress and was recognised to be under considerable stress for fear

that his life‘s work would explode apart. After the event he had to go to a

clinic for a cure for his already parlous health.

But nothing could deflect the

realisation that he was now standing too close to Nazism‘s agenda.

Ammende was trying to ride two horses. He needed the German

minorities inside the congress to keep necessary funding alive; but he needed

the Jewish groups to lend the forum credibility. Particularly after Polish

groups left the congress in the late 1920s, the presence of Jewish groups had

emphasised that the European Nationalities Congress was not just a platform

for German interests. As someone who had helped bring Jewish groups to the

congress from the outset, Ammende faced a terrible dilemma, but still

responded to it inadequately. His obvious deficiency led to razor-sharp

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criticism by Emil Margulies, another long-time Jewish representative to the

congress who was based in Czechoslovakia.

Writing to congress president Wilfan, Margulies stated clearly that

Ammende had become a representative of Germany‘s politics.

Noting that

Schiemann had already lost the editorship of Rigasche Rundschau, Margulies

maintained that since Ammende drew significant funding from Berlin, it was

impossible for him to be a free man. He emphasised his opposition to

Ammende‘s readiness to deal with the Ukrainian famine at Bern, stating that

anti-Soviet views had nothing to do with the work of the congress and that it

was inappropriate for the General Secretary of the organisation to use his post

to promote such an agenda. Margulies identified Ammende as a ―paid tool of

the Hitler-Rosenberg policy directed against Soviet Russia‖ and spelled out

―I do not have trust in Dr. Ammende‖. Margulies continued to make telling

points as he emphasised that Ammende‘s readiness to equate Germany‘s

treatment of Jews as comparable to a persecution of any other national

minority was wholly misguided. Italy, for instance, might try to assimilate

Germans minorities by force, but the ―whole nationality is not defamed, they

are not ejected from the ranks of nations and national minorities into a

despicable, shameless exceptional existence.‖

He went on saying the

ultimate issue was ―not about nationality rights. It‘s about being human!‖

This was an absolutely blistering attack. Ill at the time, Ammende did

not respond to it for several weeks, although eventually he denied all charges

on the grounds that he had been interested in humanitarian action in Russia

for many years and pointed out differences between his personal views and

those of National Socialism.

His words only provoked Margulies to hit

back, maybe even harder. He stated that, by this point, Ammende‘s ignoring

of the Jewish problem could only be deliberate, that under the circumstances

Jews could have no confidence in him, that it was time for them to go their

separate ways.

The very existence of letters like these highlights the difference

between Schiemann and Ammende. We might feel some pity for Ammende

as an initially and basically well-meaning man trapped by circumstances—a

feeling underlined by Schiemann‘s enduring respect for Ammende‘s work

despite its obvious flaws—but no one could ever have attacked Schiemann‘s

moral character as Magulies did Ammende‘s.

And when Schiemann

addressed the ―dissimilation‖ of Germany‘s Jews, it was with greater

sensitivity than Ammende could achieve. A text still exists called

―Dissimilation and the Rights of Nationalities‖ which was prepared by

Schiemann either for the Bern congress (which he did not attend on account

of ill health) or sometime soon afterwards. Although Schiemann accepted

that a nation had the right to stipulate the boundaries of its own community,

he was sensitive to the consequences of the view. After all, the congress

stood for the principle of an individual‘s freedom to choose his or her

nationality and so had to reject either compulsory assimilation or the forcible

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ejection of people from a national body.

If anyone should have their

national membership removed, it could only be on the grounds of their

personal statement of identity being fraudulent. The psychological reality of

group membership was what mattered, certainly not ―objective characteristics

of descent‖—and Schiemann questioned how easily any government

institution could rule on psychological issues. Acknowledging the horrendous

impact that forced removal from a national group could have on individuals,

he spelled out that victims had ―their emotional and rational foundations of

their mental existence pulled from under their feet‖. He re-iterated that the

congress had the duty to campaign consistently against the denial of civic

rights to anyone on the grounds of nationality.

In at least one private letter Ammende recognised that ―properly

assimilated elements among the Jews‖ (―wirklich assimilierten Elemente

unter den Juden‖) should not be removed from the majority population in

Germany.

As General Secretary of the European Nationalities Congress—a

body which, by its very nature, could only provide a forum for ethical

argument about all issues of importance and relevance to the rights of

national minorities—his tragically unfulfilled duty had been to make this

point loudly and in public.

“Russia will remain”: Mikhail Kurchinskii and the European

Nationalities Congress 1927─39

Due to Ammende‘s actions not least, the Nazi regime was spared any direct

criticism at the 1933 nationalities congress meeting in Geneva. The closest

the gathering came to condemning the persecution of Germany‘s Jews was a

declaration put forward by Mikhail Kurchinskii in the name of the non-

German minorities within the congress. This stated that ―the surge of

expressly anti-semitic measures currently to be seen in certain countries we

regard as infringing general human rights and contradicting the ideals of our

congress.‖

How should one interpret Kurchinskii‘s intervention? In the

absence of additional evidence it is difficult to formulate a definite view. On

the one hand, the declaration suggests a genuine distaste for Nazism and a

principled commitment to upholding the rights of all minorities. Set against

this, however, is the fact that at the same meeting Kurchinskii was quite

content to stand up and deliver a speech on the Ukrainian famine that

explicitly attacked the actions of the Soviet regime. Why not, one might ask,

issue an equally unequivocal condemnation of events in Nazi Germany? Also

on the minus side is the fact that Kurchinskii, unlike Paul Schiemann, did not

leave the congress after the decisive turn of 1933. He attended five more

meetings before his death in June 1939, even though the other minority

groups represented had by this time clearly fallen under the dominance of the

Nazi-directed German caucus within the organisation. Seen in this light, the

1933 declaration might equally seem a piece of tokenism adopted by