Chapter 2 Montreal to Riga. September 2019.
This is the first leg of our voyage. I chose to take a 3-day stopover in Riga to visit the country where my mother was born. My mother was a born Baronesse von der Recke. The family had substantial landholdings in Latvia and I hope we can visit some of them.
Both my father's family and my mother's family had settled in this region around the 12th and 13th centuries. These families came from northern Germany and de facto occupied these countries. Except in the first few centuries, there was very little intermarriage between the German Balts and the local people (Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians). As a matter of fact, looking at my own family tree going back 20 odd generations, I find no marriages between the Germans and the local populations. You can see this on our family website located at:
After the Knights of the Teutonic Order had established a crusading colony in the areas covering modern-day Estonia and Latvia in the 13th century (the Lithuanians successfully resisted), they were constantly being invaded by different countries including Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Russia. But the noble families - descendants of the Teutonic Knights - managed to retain for themselves the right to rule regardless which country was occupying at those different times. As a matter of fact, at one point, the heads of my mother's and father's families were leading political persons. The two of them were often at loggerheads, with the result that these two families were not on friendly terms for many years. The marriage of my mother and father was frowned on by both families. To have an idea of how these noble families prospered see the following websites:
As you look at these opulent residences, bear in mind that these were 2 small countries with a combined area of about 109,000 km. This compares to 357,000 sq km for Germany and 634,000 for France. These Baltic countries trading with the world using their extensive merchant navies.
The situation in the Baltics changed drastically when these countries were swept up into the Russian Communist revolutions in 1905 and 1917. The uprisings resulted in the violence of the local populations against the German Baltic nobility. The pent-up hatred resulted in many families being decimated by firing squads and other random violence. This marked the end of the domination by the German noble families who saw their properties expropriated and often ransacked. After the land reform of the newly independent Baltic states in 1920/21, families who stayed were only allowed to retain their stately homes and small plots of land around them, effectively ending their economic viability, if it was still based on farming. Many of the families left and settled in Germany. The stately homes of those who left were often transformed into schools or public residences.
When Hitler signed the non-aggression Pact with the Soviet Union in 1939 (which included the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocol on spheres of influence), Germany called on all German Balts to leave their countries (as this "sphere of influence" had been ceded to the Soviet Union). Germany undertook to remove them from an occupied part of Poland (inside their "sphere of influence"). The vast majority of the remaining Balts were thus settled in the "Warthegau". Some 250,000 German Balts were forcefully relocated between 1939 and 1941 to parts of Poland which Germany had invaded. Land belonging to the Poles who were deported was allocated to these German Balts.
In 1944, as the Soviet troops were moving west through Poland, many thousands of Germans who had been living for generations in Western Poland as well as the more recently settled Balts fled to Germany, as did many Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians The family of my first wife, Brigitte, walked 400 km to Berlin with 4 small children from Glatz (today Kłodzko).
After the war, many of these displaced people left Germany and settled around the world but many in North and South America. As a result, I have family members living in 23 countries around the world. It has been my privilege to meet many of them during my world travels.
We leave this evening from Montreal. More when we get to Latvia.
Montreal, September 10, 2019.
Very cool
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