The Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten or Deutschbalten, later Baltendeutsche) are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Catholic Germans, both traders and crusaders, began settling in the eastern Baltic territories.

For centuries Baltic Germans and the Baltic nobility constitute a ruling class over native non-German serfs.

After the Livonian Crusade, they assume control of government, politics, economics, education and culture of these lands, ruling for more than seven hundred years until 1918— often in alliance with the Polish, Swedish or Russian crowns.

With the decline of Latin, German becomes the language of all official documents, commerce, education and government.

At first the majority of German settlers live in small cities and military castles.

Their elite form the Baltic nobility, acquiring large rural estates and comprising the social, commercial, political and cultural elite of Latvia and Estonia for several centuries.

After 1710 many of these men increasingly take high positions in the military, political and civilian life of the Russian Empire, particularly in Saint Petersburg.

Baltic Germans hold citizenship in the Russian Empire until the Revolution of 1918.

They then hold Estonian or Latvian citizenship until the invasion of these areas by Nazi German forces in 1939–1940.

The emerging Baltic-German middle class is mostly urban and professional.

The Baltic Germanpopulation never surpasses more than ten percent of the total population.

In 1881 there are one hundred and eighty thousand Baltic Germans in Russia's Baltic provinces, but by 1914 this number has declined to one hundred and sixty-two thousand.

In 1881 there are approximately forty-six thousand seven hundred Germans in Estonia (5.3% of the population).

According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, there are 120,191 Germans in Latvia, or 6.2% of the population.

Baltic German history and presence in the Baltics comes to an end in late 1939, following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent Nazi-Soviet population transfers.

Almost all the Baltic Germans are resettled by Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich program into the newly formed Reichsgaue Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia (on the territory of the occupied Second Polish Republic).

In 1945, most ethnic Germans are expelled from these lands by the Soviet army.

Resettlement is planned for the territory remaining to Germany under terms of the border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference, i.e. west of the Oder–Neisse line, or elsewhere in the world.

Ethnic Germans from East Prussia and Lithuania are sometimes incorrectly considered Baltic Germans for reasons of cultural, linguistic, and historical affinities, but the Germans of East Prussia hold Prussian, and after 1871, German citizenship, because the territory they live in is part of Kingdom of Prussia.

Since their expulsion from Estonia and Latvia and resettlement during the upheavals and aftermath of the Second World War, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group.

It is estimated that several thousand still reside in Latvia and Estonia.