Baltic German Church Life in Tallinn during the Second World War
Baltic German Church Life in Tallinn during the Second World War

Summary/Abstract: Baltic Germans played a prominent role in the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church until the beginning of the Second World War. At that time, Hitler invited all Baltic Germans from each Baltic country to resettle in the Third Reich. Still, not all could or wanted to move from Estonia. There remained a small Baltic German community of a few hundred persons, most of them in Tallinn. They struggled through the Soviet occupation of 1940–1941. Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the German army arrived in Tallinn in August 1941. It was once again possible to ring the church bells and go to church. Among the troops that entered Tallinn, there were a few military chaplains who were former pastors of Estonian parishes. They began to hold regular services for the Baltic German community and organised other pastoral activities as well. Bishop Theodor Heckel of the Foreign Office of the German Evangelical Church was kept up to date concerning the situation in Tallinn. The Baltic Germans organised under the name Trinitatis-Gemeinde with the Consistory of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church.

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