The Relations Between Transylvanian Saxons and Baltic Germans During the 1920s

Abstract

The relationship between the Saxons and the German Balts has been already investigated, but the available archival material, however, allows me to deepen the problem of cultural relations between the two German minorities. This relationship has taken both an institutional and a personal form. The first form involved cooperation between clubs, societies and editors of publications, while the second consisted of direct contact between cultured people. The two kinds of cooperation have created in the 1920s a network of mental relations based on the solidarity of all Germans living abroad. A special contribution in the establishment of these relations was brought forth by the Cultural Office of the Germans in Greater Romania, founded in 1922 in Sibiu by Richard Csaki, and by the “Ostland” magazine, which was also published in Sibiu starting with 1926. Csaki and others worked in the field of cultural policy together with representatives of the German Balts such as Ewal Ammende, Werner Hasselblatt, Axel de Vries or Max von Ravick. This article investigates these bonds as part of the wider frame of German cultural networks operating in-between the Baltic and the Black sea.