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From Wikipedia

 
Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by Germans (and to a lesser extent by Dutch, Danes and Scots) in the course of the Ostsiedlung.

The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans.

Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved.

In the 13th to 17th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe became the Hanseatic league, which used the Baltic Sea to establish trade routes between its member cities.
Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League.

 

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici ("Ruling over the Baltic Sea").

Eventually, it was the Swedish Empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum ("Our Baltic Sea").

 
Eerste fase van de Zeeslag in de Sont - First phase of the Battle of the Sound - November 8 1658 (Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten, 1660)
The naval Battle of the Sound took place on 8 November 1658 during the Dutch-Swedish War.
In due time many German, Scandinavian and Dutch families settled in the Baltic states and those families transformmed to a kind of upperclass in this area.

For many families ended this area with the end of the 2nd world war when they had to flee for the Russina army.

 
 
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