HistoryMinistry of the Interior 1918 - 1940 Establishment of the Ministry and development of its structure In the First Estonian Temporary Government established on 24 February 1918 the Prime Minister Konstantin Päts fulfilled the tasks of Minister of the Interior. The German occupation hampered the actual establishment of the state apparatus, and the first Minister of the Interior was in a prison camp until Germany surrendered on 11 November 1918. The Second Temporary Government where Päts was still both the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior was formed on 12 November after the collapse of the German rule. The first written acts of the Ministry of the Interior are dated from 13 November 1918 and contain orders for mayors and the chairmen of county councils to launch local government and militia on the basis of the legislation of 1917, that is after the revolution and before the Bolsheviks came to power. The work of the Ministry of the Interior in its first days consisted primarily in launching the local authorities of the new state and directing appropriate activities.
By 2 December 1918 the initial structure of the Ministry of the Interior was completed. The Ministry consisted of the Minister's Office and the Administrative, Local Government, Technical, Health, Police, Religion and Statistics Departments, which later were called Major Directorates. In addition, the Ministry involved Temporary Government commissars, the Horses Mobilisation Commission, Requisition and War Damage Assessment Commission, Commission on Fighting against Speculation and Usury, Insurance Committee, Immobile Commission and Commission on Combat against Illegal Alcohol. The need for the named commissions and commissars came from the wartime situation, and these institutions were liquidated when peace was established. After the setting up of the Constituent Assembly, the Temporary Government resigned on 9 May 1919 and the first Government of the Republic was established where the Minister of Internal Affairs was Aleksander Oinas, on 18 November the same year followed by firm-handed Aleksander Hellat. The latter rearranged the Ministry's work in peacetime. The next minister who started working on 30 July 1920 was Kaarel Eenpalu whose nickname was the Father of Estonian Police, Border Guards and Firemen. His first period in office was short as in the meantime Lui Olesk (25.10.20-24.01.21) was Minister but then Eenpalu stayed in office for more than three years, which in Estonian conditions is a notable achievement (25.01.21-23.03.24). The touchstone of the Ministry's work was the communist uprising on 1 December 1924 which was successfully suppressed by our internal defence apparatus. Order was soon restored, and the Defence League was recreated under the guidance of the Minister of the Interior Theodor Rõuk. In connection with the state of emergency the Minister of the Interior got the responsibilities of the Governor General on 7 January 1925 (some former Russian laws were still in force in Estonia at the time). On 26 March 1925 Eenpalu was again summoned to become Minister of the Interior and he remained in office until 22 July 1926. The Governor General was renamed the Head of Internal Defence. The late 1920s were quiet in Estonia. Heinrich Laretei who is better known as a diplomat (22.07-12.11.1926) and Jaan Hunerson who had a degree in agronomy were the subsequent Ministers of the Interior. During the world crisis, the state apparatus was reduced. The Ministry of the Interior joined the Court Ministry on 1 July 1929 and a joint Minister's Office was set up. The joint ministry was headed by:
On 1 April 1934 the Ministries were separated again. On the one hand, the economic crisis was coming to an end and on the other hand, the Ministry of the Interior in the new situation where state intervention in all areas of life significantly increased became much more important. Quite expectedly, Kaarel Eenpalu was again appointed Minister of the Interior and stayed in office until he became Prime Minister on 9 May 1938. His successors were Richard Veermaa (until 12.10.1939) and last before the war August Jürima. After the separation of the Ministries the Ministry of the Interior consisted of the Administrative Department, Police Directorate and Border Directorate. On 23 November 1934 the Administrative Department was divided in two: the General Department and Local Government Department. The reason was that the state's role in controlling local government significantly increased. On 1 October 1934 the Information and Propaganda Service headed by a Deputy Minister was set up at the Ministry. Since the media were very important at the time, the Service became directly subordinate to the Prime Minister already on 20 September 1935. There were no more organisational reforms before the war. Thus the Ministry got its final shape by the mid1930s after 15 years of experimenting, reform and restructuring. The early 1920s was the time of experimenting in the police. External police subordinated to local government was established during the Independence War but from 2 December 1918 the Police Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior co-ordinated the work of the police. On 17 December 1919 communal police was abolished and national police subordinated to the above Directorate was set up. Independent criminal police subordinate to the Ministry of Courts was established on 5 January 1920. Defence police subordinate to the appropriate Directorate was set up on 12 April 1920. On the basis of the law passed by the Riigikogu (Parliament) on 20 May 1924, the individual polices were liquidated on 13 June 1924 and replaced by common police subordinate to the Police Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior on 16 June 1924. The common police was divided into external, criminal and defence (later political) police. The police structure was determined for the following 15 years by the Government's Regulation issued on 4 November 1925. In the course of the unification of institutions' names, all former directorates including the highest police organ became "services". Among the men who headed Estonian police, we should first of all name Nigul Reimot who was Director General in 1924-1934, Richard Veermaa who became Minister of the Internal Affairs in 1938 and Juhan Soomann who headed the political police for quite a long time. The training of professional staff was extremely important as only few came over from the Russian police. A two-grade Police School was opened in 1925. The higher grade educated constables and the lower course trained common policemen. The image of the profession can be characterised by the fact that there were 350-400 applicants for 40 places on both courses in the late 1930s. The School trained 500 constables and 530 policemen during 15 years, and respectively 165 and 50 of them did further training courses. By the end of the decade, Estonian police became a selected group, which in terms of the physical characteristics of its members competed with the London City Police that was considered to be the best in the world. In 1937 the average height of British policemen was 177.8 cm and Tallinn-Harju Prefecture cops were 177.5 cm tall. Among the Police School graduates of 1939 the shortest man was 179 cm and the tallest 191 cm tall, while the average height of our men at the time was 172 cm. The significant improvement of professional skills enabled the number of policemen to be reduced from 2,500 in 1921 to 1,800 in 1938. The police structure was put to the proof by the communist revolt of 1 December 1924 and the extremist right-wing Independence War movement in the early 1930s. The police coped with its tasks perfectly well. In connection with the growth of military threat in the world in the late 1930s, the need for a national civil defence system was high on the agenda. The High Commander of the military forces and the Minister of the Interior agreed that this task should be given to the Police Service which set up the office of a civil air defence inspector on 10 November 1934. The Inspectorate was responsible for fire safety arrangements throughout Estonia as the Inspector headed the Fire Corps. On 29 January 1937 the Inspectorate was extended and named the Civil Air Defence and Fire Department. With the growth of its tasks, the fire service became an organisation increasingly similar to the Rescue Service where the share of professional firemen and various specialised units was quite high. Similarly to many other institutions, the Border Guards went through a period of experimenting. On 30 May 1922 the Riigikogu made the Border Service subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. The Government's Regulation of 20 November 1922 established a Border Directorate later renamed a service. Administratively, the Border Guards were subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs who gave them tasks but the staff consisted only of professional military men. The Head of the Border Service (Major General Ants Kurvits in 1922-1939) was subordinate to the High Commander of the military forces and had the rights of a division commander. During the early years of its existence the Border Service did a tremendous job to build up the Estonian border. Wire obstacles protected with trenches from both sides were put up along the 130 km long border with the Soviet Union. 40 out of 180 cordons got new buildings. More than 100 km of patrol routes were made. The Border Service getting NCOs and officers from the military had to provide special training for them. Nearly 50 cordon leaders, 600 guards and more than 70 dog guides were trained before the war. The men's ammunition and equipment significantly improved, particularly in the way of vehicles. This enabled the number of border guards to be reduced from 2,000 men to approximately 1,000. Administrative Department, from 1934 General Department Citizenship-related matters were most important in the work of this extremely diversified department during the first years of the Republic. In accordance with the Tartu Peace, Estonians were allowed to repatriate and Russians could of course go to Soviet Russia. In 1920-1923 nearly 38,000 people opting for Estonian nationality arrived in the country. The opposite process was insignificant: less than 800 people quitted Estonian citizenship in the same period. The real problem was not the repatriating Estonians who arrived in an organised manner but refugees coming from north-eastern Russia together with our troops at the end of the Independence War. Refugees were arriving across the border until the NKVD hermetically shut the border in the mid1920s. There are no accurate data about the refugees who arrived immediately after the Independence War as some of them went to other countries. People said there were about 100,000 refugees. After the war foreigners could easily become Estonian citizens in the process of naturalisation (approximately 10,000 people became Estonian nationals in 1920-1924). The revolt of 1 December 1924 showed the risks of such practice and from 1924 foreigners started getting so-called Nansen passports. About 18,000 such passports were issued. In 1934 there were still about 8,000 people with Nansen passports in Estonia since only 7,000 people were naturalised in 1924-1934. In 1934 the citizenship law was made stricter to minimise the number of non-citizens who enjoyed all public benefits but had no obligations. More than 7,000 people became Estonian citizens on the basis of the new law within five years. The law on the determination of ethnic origin passed in 1934 was closely related to nationality issues. Ethnic groups represented by more than 3,000 people were defined as ethnic minorities and got the right to cultural self-determination. In actual fact, only Germans, Jews and Swedes enjoyed this right since the Russian community was incapable of realising it. The Ministry of the Interior supervised over the execution of the Language Law passed in 1934, which gave priority to the Estonian language. The same trend was represented by the name changing campaign technically carried out by the Ministry. Nearly 160,000 people estonified their names in 1934-1938. All vital statistics issues also were the Ministry's responsibility. All public organisations had to be registered in the Ministry. The numerous tasks of the General Department included supervision over religious groups and film imports (including censorship) on the basis of the Cinema Law passed on 1 April 1935. The Ministry managed all public properties. The Ministry's grip was strong throughout Estonia during the Independence War. The first Estonian Constitution established a regime where the state little interfered with the activities of cities, counties and rural municipalities. The second and third Constitutions notably changed the situation, which resulted in the setting up of a special department at the Ministry. In 1934-1937 local government only had nominal freedom: the Ministry in fact appointed officials and directly controlled their work. The situation started going back to normal after the passage of the law on rural municipalities on 1 May 1937. There was no return to former freedom but the rights of rural municipalities grew significantly. The state also set the goal of ensuring the survival of rural municipalities. On 1 April 1939 a reform leaving 248 rural municipalities out of 365 was carried out on the basis of the law passed on 8 April 1938. In other words, small municipalities with a poor economic basis were liquidated. The next step was the new county law passed on 1 May 1938. It restored counties as local government units, which had been liquidated in 1933 on the basis of the Constitution. And last but not least, the new law on cities and towns came into force on the same day. It divided cities into four categories: the capital, cities with a population of more than 50,000, cities/towns with a population of 10,000 to 50,000 and towns with a population of less than 10,000. Some boroughs became towns and the total number of cities and towns grew from 19 to 33. The Ministry also had to train local government officials with appropriate qualifications. The first 20 years of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior were not easy. There never was too much money and in the first years there was not enough knowledge and skills. After nearly five years the Ministry managed to quit the stage of experimenting and constant rearrangements and even during the hard economic crisis it could develop consistently. In the mid1930s the Ministry's role in Estonia's public life was overemphasised due to the authoritarian regime but the adoption of a new Constitution in 1937 and return on its basis to a normal government regime in 1938 refer to the maturity of society. Unfortunately, our wisdom and common sense could not stop the tragic events of the time in which the staff of the Ministry suffered most severely. Hannes Walter, Chairman of the Estonian Academic Society of Military History Ministers during the years of independence
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