The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik

A study of German economic influence in the Baltic states after World War I.

John Hiden (Author)

9780521893251, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 May 2002

292 pages
21.5 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.409 kg

'A study, which with its clear and at the same time carefully balanced argument, attracts the reader and leaves hardly any openings for the critic.' Jahrbücher für die Geschichte Osteuropas

The historical and geographical significance of the Baltic Sea as a Russian gateway to the West has sometimes overshadowed its reciprocal significance as a German window on the East, but in the period after the First World War the Baltic was to become of critical importance to a German state then shorn of much international authority. This study shows in detail how the Weimar Republic sought to develop its economic influence in the newly independent Baltic states, to ensure the retention of a vital 'springboard' into Russia after 1918. At one level this book therefore presents a fresh chapter in the chronicle of Weimar–Soviet relations. In addition, however, Germany's highly successful trade policy involved competition with other Western powers, notably Britain, and necessarily had important implications for inter-war international politics: analysis of Polish and French diplomatic intentions in the region leads Dr Hiden to a wider evaluation of the whole relationship between trade and foreign policy in Weimar Ostpolitik.

Introduction
Part I. The Politics of Peacemaking 1919–20: 1. German–Russian perspectives
2. The Baltic German as Auslandsdeutsche
Part II. Trade and Foreign Policy 1920–3: 3. The springboard concept
4. The politics of provisional trade treaties
Part III. Weimar Revisionism and Baltic Security 1923–33: 5. Randstaatenpolitik
6. The politics of arbitration: Locarno and the Baltic
Conclusions
7. Trade, minorities and Ostpolitik
Map
Tables
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]