Estonian prime minister who concluded the Treaty of Tartu, publisher of Postimees
As Soviet forces occupied Estonia in June 1940, he urged President Päts to offer at least symbolic armed resistance.
Leader of Estonia's liberal national movement through the newspaper Postimees, he was prime minister in 1919 and 1920 and concluded the Treaty of Tartu. Pushed out for opposing Päts's authoritarian regime in 1934, he was arrested after the Soviet occupation of 1940 and disappeared.
Career timeline
- 1896Editor and publisher of Postimees, turning it into the organ of the national movement
- 1906Member of the First Russian State Duma; signed the Vyborg Appeal
- 1917Member of the Estonian Provincial Assembly (Maapäev)
- 1919–1920Prime Minister; concluded the Treaty of Tartu
- 1923–1925Speaker (President) of the Riigikogu
- 1927–1928State Elder
- 1931–1932Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1933State Elder (final government)
Law professor and Estonia’s last constitutional prime minister who, acting as president, formed the Tief government in 1944
Born in Kirbla Parish in the Governorate of Estonia, he studied law at St Petersburg University and taught Roman and Estonian law at the University of Tartu until 1944. Editor-in-chief of Postimees and speaker of the lower chamber, he was prime minister from 1939 until Soviet troops entered Estonia in June 1940; after President Konstantin Päts was arrested by the Soviets he became, under the constitution, prime minister in the duties of the president. On 29 July 1941 he asked the Germans to let him form an independent government and was refused, and he declined to head the Self-Administration. On 7 February 1944 he appealed by radio for men to answer the call-up, and 38,000 registered. In June he appointed Otto Tief deputy prime minister, and in September, as the Germans withdrew, formed the Tief government. He then reached Sweden, where he died of gastric cancer in January 1945.
Career timeline
- 1938–1939Speaker of the lower chamber
- 1939–1940Prime minister of Estonia
- 1940–1945Prime minister in the duties of the president
- 1944Backed the call-up; formed the Tief government
Estonian Vaps politician who headed the collaborationist Estonian Self-Administration under German occupation in 1941–1944
Born at Tuhala in Harju County, he studied in Berlin, Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz and took doctorates in geophysics (1927) and constitutional law (1930). After standing twice for parliament he joined the Vaps movement as its propaganda chief; sentenced in 1935 to twenty years’ hard labour, he was amnestied in 1938, went to Germany and took German citizenship. In May 1941 he founded the Estonian Liberation Committee in Helsinki, and returning with the German army that year he headed the Estonian Self-Administration from 1941 to 1944. In 1944 he fled to Austria, where the Western Allies cleared him of Nazi crimes and he later advised the Austrian government. In the 1990s Estonia’s International Commission named him among the Estonians chiefly responsible for crimes committed by Estonian police and SS units.
Career timeline
- 1927–1930Doctorates in geophysics (Innsbruck) and constitutional law (Graz)
- 1935Sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour as a Vaps leader
- 1941Founded the Estonian Liberation Committee in Helsinki
- 1941–1944Head of the Estonian Self-Administration
- 1944Fled to Austria
