Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originating from the Baltic countries Baltic Germans , historical ethnic German minority in Latvia and Estonia Baltic Finnic peoples , the Finnic peoples historically inhabiting the …

1917: Russia cedes the Baltic to Germany. In 1918 the Russian Bolsheviks ceded the Baltic areas to Germany under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.The Imperial German government established occupation governments in Estonia and Latvia and granted independence to a puppet government in Lithuania on March 25, 1918 [citation needed].The German Ober Ost occupation authorities …