Der Erste Weltkrieg in den autobiographischen Texten deutschbaltischer Autoren

The aim of this article is to examine how Baltic Germans who left their homes during the Umsiedlung of 1939–40 look back on their lives in Estonia and Latvia. The analysis centers on descriptions of World War I, because of the significant changes which this brought to the political situation in the Baltic lands: after the war the Baltic Germans had to give up their leading position in society, and also lost a large part of their land. Every author who writes his/her autobiography is influenced by a knowledge of the time which follows the period being described. In writing about certain historical events, an author therefore not only describes the emotions and values connected with those events, but also adds more general perspectives. This may be the reason why the beginning of World War I is described as a disaster and as the beginning of the end, even though it did not actually bring significant changes into the lives of Baltic Germans. The changes did come, but only much later. We can see how loyalty towards the Russian Czar decreases, while sympathy for the German state and for German policies grows during the War. The majority of the Baltic German autobiographies chosen for the purposes of this article have not been published. These texts can be found in different libraries and archives in Germany, Latvia and Estonia. Referring to unpublished texts made it possible to widen the social background of the authors, since the published texts are mostly written by aristocrats.