Weaponizing Self-Determination in 1918: Crimea as "German Riviera" and Tatar National State

In November 1917, Der Neue Orient, the official organ of the German Intelligence Bureau for the East, published a piece in support of the national movements in revolutionary Russia. Along with the promotion of enfranchisement (Menschenrechte), the mobilization of the non-Russian peoples could, it hoped, engender geopolitical rearrangements altering for the better the course of events in the world and also Germany’s position in it. “The non-Russians [Fremdvölker] ... surround the actual area inhabited by the Great Russians as a mighty ring. Every attempt at expansion undertaken by the Russians would have to pass through the resistance of the people on the periphery of the federation.... The arm grabbing across the border will [thus] be permanently exposed to the risk of being severed from the Russian body.” Liberated, self-conscious, and politically empowered, the national autonomies and sovereignties (Verselbständigung) would absorb the shock of Russia’s imperial thrust before it acquired threatening proportions.1