The Baltic Trade 205
over the gdr and the Soviet Union, and others lay suddenly behind the other
side of the iron curtain like the one in Gdańsk or Reval/Tallinn (at that time
in Göttingen/Germany), while yet others were disputed between states, like
that of Stettin, or destroyed, like that of Wismar. Opportunities for research
were greatly reduced during this time, and communication between col-
leagues was affected by ideological and political conditions and the ideolo-
gization of historical events (for example, whether the city of Danzig/Gdańsk
had belonged to the German or Polish nationality), or the different valuation
of the bourgeoisie.
It is apparent that research on Baltic trade was regionalized in the decades
between the Second World War and the fall of the iron curtain.27 There was
no common discourse about this in the Baltic, and the dogma of the German/
Hanseatic monopoly in trade dominated the research unquestioned and still
encumbers the discussion today.
After the fall of the iron curtain, the situation of the archives improved,
especially in towns such as Lübeck. A new generation of researchers started
to examine some of the old items again. In 1997 Dieter Seifert picked up the
relationship between the Hanse and the Netherlands,28 in 1995/1998 it fol-
lowed the colloquium of the 625th anniversary of the peace of Stralsund,29 in
1999 Detlef Kattinger published his analysis about the German merchants
of Gotland,30 2000 saw the publication of Carsten Jahnke’s book about the
Scanian markets,31 2002 Milja van Tielhof ’s substantial work about the Baltic
27 One of the few exceptions are Walter Starks book Lübeck und Danzig in der zweiten Hälfte
des 15. Jahrhunderts. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis der wendischen und preußischen
Hansestädte in der Zeit des Niedergangs der Hanse, Abhandlungen zur Wirtschafts- und
Sozialgeschichte, xi (Weimar: Böhlau, 1973).
28 Dieter Seifert, Kompagnions und Konkurrenten. Holland und die Hanse im späten, Quellen
und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, N.F., Vol. 43 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997).
29 Nils Jörn, Ralf-Gunnar Werlich, Horst Wernike eds., Der Stralsunder Frieden von 1370,
Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, N.F., Vol. 46 (Cologne: Böhlau,
1998).
30 Detlef Kattinger, Die gotländische Genossenschaft. Der frühhansisch-gotländische Handel
in Nord- und Westeuropa, Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, N.F.,
Vol. 48 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1999).
31 Carsten Jahnke, Das Silber des Meeres. Fang und Vertrieb von Ostseehering zwischen
Norwegen und Italien (12.–16. Jh.), Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte,
N.F., Vol. 49 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2000).