East Prussia

Napoleonic Wars

After the disastrous defeat of the Royal Prussian Army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, Napoleon occupied Berlin and had the officials of the Prussian General Directorate swear an oath of allegiance to him, while King Frederick William III and his consort Louise fled via Königsberg and the Curonian Spit to Memel. The French Grande Armée troops immediately took up pursuit but were delayed in the Battle of Eylau on 9 February 1807 by an East Prussian contingent under General Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq. Napoleon had to stay at the Finckenstein Palace, but in May, after a siege of 75 days, his troops led by Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre were able to capture the city of Danzig, which had been tenaciously defended by General Count Friedrich Adolf von Kalkreuth. On 14 June, Napoleon ended the War of the Fourth Coalition with his victory at the Battle of Friedland. Frederick William and Queen Louise met with Napoleon for peace negotiations, and on 9 July the Prussian king signed the Treaty of Tilsit.

The succeeding Prussian reforms instigated by Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg included the implementation of an Oberlandesgericht appellation court at Königsberg, a municipal corporation, economic freedom as well as emancipation of the serfs and Jews. In the course of the Prussian restoration by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the East Prussian territories were re-arranged in the Regierungsbezirke of Gumbinnen and Königsberg. From 1905, the southern districts of East Prussia formed the separate Regierungsbezirk of Allenstein. East and West Prussia were first united in personal union in 1824 and then merged in a real union in 1829 to form the Province of Prussia. The united province was again split into separate East and West Prussian provinces in 1878.

German Empire

From 1824 to 1878, East Prussia was combined with West Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, after which they were reestablished as separate provinces. Along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, East Prussia became part of the German Empire during the unification of Germany in 1871.

From 1885 to 1890 Berlin's population grew by 20%, Brandenburg and the Rhineland gained 8.5%, Westphalia 10%, while East Prussia lost 0.07% and West Prussia 0.86%. This stagnancy in population despite a high birth surplus in eastern Germany was because many people from the East Prussian countryside moved westward to seek work in the expanding industrial centres of the Ruhr Area and Berlin (see Ostflucht).

The population of the province in 1900 was 1,996,626 people, with a religious makeup of 1,698,465 Protestants, 269,196 Roman Catholics, and 13,877 Jews. The Low Prussian dialect predominated in East Prussia, although High Prussian was spoken in Warmia. The numbers of Masurians, Kursenieki and Prussian Lithuanians decreased over time due to the process of Germanization. The Polish-speaking population concentrated in the south of the province (Masuria and Warmia) and all German geographic atlases at the start of 20th century showed the southern part of East Prussia as Polish with the number of Polish-speakers estimated at the time to be 300,000.^[15] Kursenieki inhabited the areas around the Curonian lagoon, while Lithuanian-speaking Prussians concentrated in the northeast in (Lithuania Minor). The Old Prussian ethnic group became completely Germanized over time and the Old Prussian language died out in the 18th century.

World War I

At the German entry into World War I, East Prussia became a theatre of war when the Russian Empire invaded the country. The Imperial Russian Army encountered at first little resistance because the bulk of the Imperial German Army had been directed towards the Western Front according to the Schlieffen Plan. Despite early success and the capture of the towns of Rastenburg and Gumbinnen, in the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914 and the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes in 1915, the Russians were decisively defeated and forced to retreat. The Russians were followed by the German Army advancing into Russian territory.

After the Russian army's first invasion the majority of the civilian population fled westwards, while several thousand remaining civilians were deported to Russia. Treatment of civilians by both armies was mostly disciplined, although 74 civilians were killed by Russian troops in the Abschwangen massacre. The region had to be rebuilt because of damage caused by the war.

Division after 1918

Weimar Republic

With the forced abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Germany became a republic. Most of the former Prussian provinces of West Prussia and Posen, territories annexed by Prussia in the 18th century Partitions of Poland, were ceded to the Second Polish Republic according to the Treaty of Versailles. East Prussia became an exclave, being separated from mainland Germany. The Klaipėda Region was also separated from the province. Because most of West Prussia became part of the Second Polish Republic as the Polish Corridor, the formerly West Prussian Marienwerder region became part of East Prussia as the administrative district (Regierungsbezirk) of West Prussia. Also, the Działdowo district in the Allenstein region became part of the Second Polish Republic. The Seedienst Ostpreußen (Sea Service East Prussia) was established to provide an independent transport service to East Prussia.

On 11 July 1920, amidst the backdrop of the Polish-Soviet War in which the Second Polish Republic appeared to be on the brink of defeat, the East Prussian plebiscite in eastern West Prussia and southern East Prussia was held under Allied supervision to determine if the areas should join Poland or remain in the Weimar Germany Province of East Prussia. 96.7% of the people voted to remain within Germany (97.89% in the East Prussian plebiscite district).

The Klaipėda Territory (Memelland), a League of Nations mandate since 1920, was occupied by the Lithuanian Armed Forces in 1923 and annexed without giving the inhabitants a choice by ballot.

Nazi Germany

After Adolf Hitler's rise to power, opposition politicians were persecuted and newspapers banned. Erich Koch, who headed the East Prussian Nazi party from 1928, led the district from 1932. The Otto-Braun-House was requisitioned to become the headquarters of the SA, which used the house to imprison and torture its opponents. Walter Schütz, a communist member of the Reichstag, was murdered here.^[20] This period was characterized by efforts to collectivize the local agriculture and ruthlessness in dealing with his ^{[clarification needed]} critics inside and outside the Nazi Party.^[21] He also had long-term plans for mass-scale industrialization of the largely agricultural province. These actions made him unpopular among the local peasants.^[21] In 1932 the local paramilitary SA had already started to terrorise their political opponents. On the night of 31 July 1932 there was a bomb attack on the headquarters of the Social Democrats in Königsberg, the Otto-Braun-House. The Communist politician Gustav Sauf was killed; the executive editor of the Social Democratic newspaper "Königsberger Volkszeitung", Otto Wyrgatsch; and the German People's Party politician Max von Bahrfeldt were all severely injured. Members of the Reichsbanner were assaulted while the local Reichsbanner Chairman of Lötzen, Kurt Kotzan, was murdered on 6 August 1932.^[22][23]

In the March 1933 German federal election, the last contested pre-war German election, the local population of East Prussia voted overwhelmingly for the Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party.

Through publicly funded emergency relief programs concentrating on agricultural land-improvement projects and road construction, the "Erich Koch Plan" for East Prussia allegedly made the province free of unemployment: on 16 August 1933 Koch reported to Hitler that unemployment had been banished entirely from the province, a feat that gained admiration throughout the Reich.^[24] In actuality, the Erich Koch Plan had been a staged propaganda event organized by Walther Funk and the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda to promote the Nazi Party's work creation policies, with East Prussia chosen because it already had relatively low unemployment due to its agrarian economy.^[25] Koch's industrialization plans provoked conflict with Richard Walther Darré, who held the office of the Reich Peasant Leader (Reichsbauernführer) and Minister of Agriculture. Darré, a neopaganist rural romantic, wanted to enforce his vision of an agricultural East Prussia. When his "Land" representatives challenged Koch's plans, Koch arrested them.^[26]

In 1938 the Nazis changed about one-third of the toponyms of the area, eliminating, Germanizing, or simplifying a number of Old Prussian, as well as those Polish or Lithuanian names originating from colonists and refugees to Prussia during and after the Protestant Reformation. More than 1,500 places were ordered to be renamed by 16 July 1938 following a decree issued by Gauleiter and Oberpräsident Erich Koch and initiated by Adolf Hitler.^[27] Many who would not cooperate with the rulers of Nazi Germany were sent to concentration camps and held prisoner there until their death or liberation.

After the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, the Klaipėda region was integrated again into East Prussia.

World War II

After the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany opening World War II, the borders of East Prussia were revised. Regierungsbezirk Westpreußen became part of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, while Regierungsbezirk Zichenau (Ciechanów) was added to East Prussia. Originally part of the Zichenau region, the Sudauen (Suwałki) district in Sudovia was later transferred to the Gumbinnen region. In 1939 East Prussia had 2.49 million inhabitants, 85% of them ethnic Germans, the others Poles in the south who, according to Polish estimates numbered in the interwar period around 300,000–350,000,^[28] the Latvian speaking Kursenieki, and Lietuvininkai who spoke Lithuanian in the northeast. Most German East Prussians, Masurians, Kursieniki, and Lietuvininkai were Lutheran, while the population of Warmia was mainly Roman Catholic due to the history of its bishopric. The East Prussian Jewish Congregation declined from about 9,000 in 1933 to 3,000 in 1939, as most fled from Nazi rule.

During World War II, the Polish ethnic minorities of Catholic Warmians and Lutheran Masurians were persecuted by the Nazi German government, which wanted to erase all aspects of Polish culture and Polish language in Warmia and Masuria.^[29][30] The Jews who remained in East Prussia in 1942 were shipped to concentration camps, including Theresienstadt in occupied Czechoslovakia, Kaiserwald in occupied Latvia, and camps in Minsk in occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.^[31][32] Those who remained were later deported and killed in the Holocaust.

In 1939 the Regierungsbezirk Zichenau was annexed by Germany and incorporated into East Prussia. Parts of it were transferred to other regions, e.g. Suwałki Region to Regierungsbezirk Gumbinnen and Soldau (Działdowo) to Regierungsbezirk Allenstein. Despite Nazi propaganda presenting all of the regions annexed as possessing significant German populations that wanted reunification with Germany, the Reich's statistics of late 1939 show that only 31,000 out of 994,092 people in this territory were ethnic Germans.^{[citation needed]}

In the annexed pre-war Polish territory, the Polish population was subjected to various crimes, including mass arrests, roundups, deportations to forced labour and concentration camps (including teenagers),^[33][34] executions, massacres (also as part of the Intelligenzaktion and Aktion T4) and expulsions.^{[35][36][37][38]} The Jews were confined in ghettos and afterwards deported either deported to extermination camps or massacred in the region.

Germany operated the Soldau and Hohenbruch [de] concentration camps, mostly for Poles, multiple subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp and several prisoner-of-war camps, including Stalag I-A, Stalag I-B, Stalag I-C, Stalag I-D, Stalag I-E, Stalag I-F, Stalag Luft VI, Oflag 52, Oflag 53, Oflag 60, Oflag 63 and Oflag 68 with multiple subcamps, for Polish, Belgian, French, British, Serbian, Soviet, Italian, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Czech and other Allied POWs in the province.^[39] Pre-war Polish citizens made up the majority of forced laborers in the province, with their numbers gradually increasing, but due to the influx of forced laborers of other nationalities, their overall percentage declined from 90% in 1940 to 62% in 1944.^[40] Most Polish forced laborers in the province were deported from the pre-war Polish territories annexed into the province by Germany, with German labor offices recruiting forced laborers established in the cities of Ciechanów, Ostrołęka, Płock and Suwałki.^[40]

Hitler's top-secret Eastern front headquarters during the war, the Wolf's Lair, was located in the village of Gierłoż.

The Polish resistance was active in the province, both in the annexed pre-war territory of Poland, and in the pre-war territory of East Prussia, with activities in the latter including distribution of Polish underground press,^[41] sabotage actions, executions of Nazis, theft of German weapons, ammunition and equipment,^[42] and organization of transports of POWs who escaped German POW camps via the ports of Gdańsk and Gdynia to neutral Sweden.^[43]

East Prussia was only slightly affected by the war until January 1945, when it was devastated during the East Prussian Offensive. Most of its inhabitants became refugees in bitterly cold weather during the Evacuation of East Prussia.

Evacuation of East Prussia

Main article: Evacuation of East Prussia

In 1944 the medieval city of Königsberg, which had never been severely damaged by warfare in its 700 years of existence, was almost completely destroyed by two RAF Bomber Command raids – the first on the night of 26/27 August 1944, with the second one three nights later, overnight on 29/30 August 1944. Winston Churchill (The Second World War, Book XII) had erroneously believed it to be "a modernized heavily defended fortress" and ordered its destruction.

Gauleiter Erich Koch delayed the evacuation of the German civilian population until the Eastern Front approached the East Prussian border in 1944. The population had been systematically misinformed by Endsieg Nazi propaganda about the real state of military affairs. As a result, many civilians fleeing westward were overtaken by retreating Wehrmacht units and the rapidly advancing Red Army.

Reports of Soviet atrocities in the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944 and organized rape spread fear and desperation among the civilians. Thousands lost their lives during the sinkings (by Soviet submarine) of the evacuation ships Wilhelm Gustloff, the Goya, and the General von Steuben. Königsberg surrendered on 9 April 1945, following the desperate four-day Battle of Königsberg. An estimated 300,000 died either in wartime bombing raids, in the battles to defend the province, or through mistreatment by the Red Army or from hunger, cold and disease.^[5]

However, most of the German inhabitants, which then consisted primarily of women, children and old men, did manage to escape the Red Army as part of the largest exodus of people in human history: "A population which had stood at 2.2 million in 1940 was reduced to 193,000 at the end of May 1945."^[44][45]

Expulsion of Germans from East Prussia after World War II

Shortly after the end of the war in May 1945, Germans who had fled in early 1945 tried to return to their homes in East Prussia. An estimated number of 800,000 Germans were living in East Prussia during the summer of 1945.^[47] Many more were prevented from returning,^{[citation needed]} and the German population of East Prussia was almost completely expelled by the communist regimes. During the war and for some time thereafter 45 camps were established for about 200,000–250,000 forced labourers, the vast majority of whom were deported to the Soviet Union, including the Gulag camp system.^[48] The largest camp with about 48,000 inmates was established at Deutsch Eylau (Iława).^[48] Orphaned children who were left behind in the zone occupied by the Soviet Union were referred to as Wolf children.

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  An illustration of the changing borders in Eastern Europe before, during, and after World War II (Map is written in German.)
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  Changes in Germany's borders as a result of both World Wars, with the partition of East Prussia

Southern East Prussia to Poland

Representatives of the Polish government officially took over the civilian administration of the southern part of East Prussia on 23 May 1945.^[48] Subsequently, Polish expatriates from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union as well as Ukrainians and Lemkos from southern Poland, expelled in Operation Vistula, were settled in the area, initially organised as the Masurian District, later replaced by the Olsztyn Voivodeship in 1947, with a few counties incorporated into Białystok Voivodeship and to Gdańsk Voivodeship. The latter counted in 1950 689,000 inhabitants, 22.6% of them coming from areas annexed by the Soviet Union, 10% Ukrainians, and 18.5% of them pre-war inhabitants. It was dissolved in 1975 to form three smaller units: a much smaller homonymous Olsztyn Voivodeship, the bulk of Elbląg Voivodeship and a significant part of the Suwałki Voivodeship.

The remaining pre-war population was treated as Germanized Poles and a policy of re-Polonization was pursued throughout the country^[49] Most of these "Autochthons" chose to emigrate to West Germany from the 1950s through 1980s (between 1970 and 1988 55,227 persons from Warmia and Masuria moved to Western Germany).^[50] Local toponyms were Polonised by the Polish Commission for the Determination of Place Names,^[51] though in most cases it was a restoration of historic Polish names.

Northern part to the Soviet Union

In April 1946, northern East Prussia became an official province of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as the "Kyonigsbergskaya Oblast", with the Klaipėda Region becoming part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. In June 1946 114,070 German and 41,029 Soviet citizens were registered in the Oblast, with an unknown number of disregarded unregistered persons. In July of that year, the historic city of Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad to honour Mikhail Kalinin and the area named the Kaliningrad Oblast. Between 24 August and 26 October 1948 21 transports with in total 42,094 Germans left the Oblast to the Soviet Occupation Zone (which became East Germany). The last remaining Germans left in November 1949 (1,401 persons) and January 1950 (7 persons).^[53]

The Prussian Lithuanians also experienced the same fate.

A similar fate befell the Curonians who lived in the area around the Curonian Lagoon. While many fled from the Red Army during the evacuation of East Prussia, Curonians that remained behind were subsequently expelled by the Soviet Union. Only 219 lived along the Curonian Spit in 1955. Many had German names such as Fritz or Hans, a cause for anti-German discrimination. The Soviet authorities considered the Curonians fascists. Because of this discrimination, many immigrated to West Germany in 1958, where the majority of Curonians now live.

After the expulsion of the German population ethnic Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians were settled in the northern part. In the Soviet part of the region, a policy of eliminating all remnants of German history was pursued. All German place names were replaced by new Russian names, with only a few instances of use of historical names, such as Domnovo and Talpaki, based on historical Polish names. The exclave was a military zone, which was closed to foreigners; Soviet citizens could only enter with special permission. In 1967 the remnants of Königsberg Castle were demolished on the orders of Leonid Brezhnev to make way for a new "House of the Soviets".

Modern status

Although the 1945–1949 expulsion of Germans from the northern part of former East Prussia was often conducted in a violent and aggressive way by Soviet officials, the present Russian inhabitants of the Kaliningrad Oblast have much less animosity towards Germans. German names have been revived in commercial Russian trade and there is sometimes talk of reverting Kaliningrad's name to its historical name of Königsberg. The city centre of Kaliningrad was completely rebuilt, as Royal Air Force bombs in 1944 and the Soviet siege in 1945 had left it in ruins.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, some German groups have tried to help settle the Volga Germans from eastern parts of European Russia in the Kaliningrad Oblast. This effort was only a minor success, however, as most impoverished Volga Germans preferred to emigrate to the richer Federal Republic of Germany, where they could become German citizens through the right of return.

The Polish part of the region, divided in 1975 to form three units: the Olsztyn Voivodeship, the Elbląg Voivodeship, and the Suwałki Voivodeship, has been reestablished as a single entity in 1999 under the name of Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, whose borders correspond closely to those of southern East Prussia. Since 2004, Poland and Lithuania have become European Union member states, and both the Polish part of the region as well as the Lithuanian Klaipėda Region, has thereafter become freely accessible by Germans, in line with the free movement of people policy.

Historical ethnic and religious structure

In year 1824, shortly before its merger with West Prussia, the population of East Prussia was 1,080,000 people.^[54] Of that number, according to Karl Andree, ethnic Germans were slightly more than half, while 280,000 (≈26%) were ethnically Polish and 200,000 (≈19%) were ethnically Lithuanian.^[55] As of year 1819, there were also 20,000 strong ethnic Curonian and Latvian minorities as well as 2,400 Jews, according to Georg Hassel.^[56] Similar numbers are given by August von Haxthausen in his 1839 book, with a breakdown by county.^[57] However, the majority of East Prussian Polish and Lithuanian inhabitants were Lutherans, not Roman Catholics like their ethnic kinsmen across the border in the Russian Empire. Only in southern Warmia Catholic Poles – so called Warmiaks (not to be confused with predominantly Protestant Masurians) – comprised the majority of population, numbering 26,067 people (≈81%) in county Allenstein (Polish: Olsztyn) in 1837.^[57] Another minority in pre-war East Prussia were ethnically Russian Old Believers, also known as Philipponnen – their main town was Eckertsdorf (Wojnowo), in Sensburg district.^[58][59][60]

In year 1817, East Prussia had 796,204 Evangelical Christians, 120,123 Roman Catholics, 864 Mennonites and 2,389 Jews.^[61]

Ethnolinguistic composition by district

As of 1905, the province of East Prussia was divided into three government regions, known as Regierungsbezirke. These were the regions of Königsberg, Gumbinnen and Allenstein.

Upper presidents of East Prussia and Prussia

1765–1791: Johann Friedrich von Domhardt, president of the Gumbinnen and Königsberg War and Demesnes Chambers

1791–1808: Friedrich Leopold von Schrötter, president of the Gumbinnen and Königsberg War and Demesnes Chambers, as of 1795 Minister for East and New East Prussia

1808–1814: vacancy?

1814–1824: Hans Jakob von Auerswald, upper president of East Prussia

1824–1842: Heinrich Theodor von Schön, upper president of Prussia, merged from East and West Prussia, since 1816 already upper president of West Prussia

1842–1848: Carl Wilhelm von Bötticher, upper president of Prussia

1848–1849: Rudolf von Auerswald, upper president of Prussia

1849–1850: Eduard Heinrich von Flottwell (1786–1865), upper president of Prussia

1850–1868: Franz August Eichmann, upper president of Prussia

1868–1869: vacancy

1869–1882: Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Georg von Horn, upper president of Prussia, after 1878 of East Prussia

1882–1891: Albrecht Heinrich von Schlieckmann, upper president of East Prussia

1891–1895: Count Udo zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, upper president of East Prussia

1895–1901: Count Wilhelm von Bismarck-Schönhausen, upper president of East Prussia

1901–1903: Hugo Samuel von Richthofen, upper president of East Prussia

1903–1907: Count Friedrich von Moltke, upper president of East Prussia

1907–1914: Ludwig von Windheim, upper president of East Prussia

1914–1916: Adolf Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe, upper president of East Prussia

1916–1918: Friedrich von Berg, upper president of East Prussia

1918–1919: Adolf Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe, upper president of East Prussia

1919–1920: August Winnig (SPD), upper president of East Prussia

1920–1932: Ernst Siehr (DDP), upper president of East Prussia

1932–1933: Wilhelm Kutscher (DNVP), upper president of East Prussia

1933–1945: Erich Koch (NSDAP), upper president of East Prussia

Elections to the provincial diets

Land Directors and Land Captains of East Prussia

1876–1878: Heinrich Edwin Rickert (NLP, later DFP), titled land director

1878–1884: Kurt von Saucken-Tarputschen (Fortschritt, later DFP), titled land director

1884–1888: Alfred von Gramatzki (DKP), titled land director

1888–1896: Klemens von Stockhausen, titled land director

1896–1909: Rudolf von Brandt, titled land captain

1909–1916: Friedrich von Berg, titled land captain

1916–1928: Manfred Graf von Brünneck-Bellschwitz, titled land captain

1928–1936: Paul Blunk, titled land captain

1936–1941: Helmuth von Wedelstädt (NSDAP), titled land captain

1941–1945: vacancy

1941–1945: Reinhard Bezzenberger, first land councillor, per pro

Cities and towns