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East Prussia was located along the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea . It enclosed the bulk of the ancestral lands of the now-extinct Baltic Prussians . Its capital was Königsberg, renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 by the Soviet Union . The former province of East Prussia is divided into Lithuania 's Klaipėda Region , Russia 's Kaliningrad Oblast , and Poland 's Warmian-Masurian Voivodship . Because of its exposed position at the Russian border, its front-line position in the First World War , the separation from Germany by the Treaty Of Versailles 1919 , the violent excesses during the occupation by the Red Army in 1945 , and the flight and expulsion of the population, East Prussia has become a symbol for nationalists in all involved parties for the horror of war and War Crime s against civilians in general. Especially looking at today’s situation one can get an impression of the fatal implications of systematically planned and executed Ethnic Cleansing s on Cultural Heritage as well as on long-term economic development. From Knights to Vassals From the latter half of the 13th Century to the 15th Century , the Teutonic Knights ruled over the lands of Prussia through their Monastic State . The Knights' expansionist policies (they had, for instance, purchased the province of Neumark in 1402) brought them into conflict with newly united Kingdom Of Poland and embroiled them in several wars, culminating in the Thirteen Years War , whereby the united armies of Poland and Lithuania , bolsted by Bohemia n mercenaries, defeated the Order. Its defeat was formalised in the Second Treaty Of Thorn in 1466 , leaving western Prussia under Polish control as the province of Royal Prussia and eastern Prussia remaining under the knights, but as a Polish feudal Fief . The Order lost eastern Prussia when, with the advance of Lutheranism , Grand Master Albert Of Brandenburg-Ansbach secularized the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order in 1525 , establishing himself as Duke Albert of Prussia as a Vassal of the Polish crown. Walther Von Cronberg , the next Grand Master, was enfeoffed with the title to Prussia after the Diet Of Augsburg in 1530 , but the Order never regained possession of the territory. Albert's line died out in 1618 , and Ducal Prussia passed to the Electors of Brandenburg , forming Brandenburg-Prussia . Through the Treaties of Wehlau , Labiau , and Oliva , Elector and Duke Frederick William succeeded in revoking Polish sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia, leaving the Holy Roman Emperor as his only liege. THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA Although Brandenburg remained theoretically subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor , the Prussian lands were not within the Holy Roman Empire and were outside the jurisdiction of the Emperor. In return for supporting Leopold I in the War Of The Spanish Succession , Elector Frederick III was allowed to crown himself " King In Prussia " in 1701 . The new kingdom ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty became known as the Kingdom Of Prussia . After the First Partition Of Poland in 1772 , Warmia , part of the former Polish province Royal Prussia , was merged with the Duchy of Prussia. On January 31 , 1773 King Frederick II announced that the newly annexed lands were to be known as the province of West Prussia , while Ducal Prussia (including Warmia) was to be known as the province of East Prussia. GERMAN EMPIRE Along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, East Prussia became part of the German Empire at its creation in 1871 . In 1875 the ethnic make-up of East Prussia was 73.48% German speaking, 18.39% Polish speaking, and 8.11% Lithuanian speaking (according to "Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego"). The population of the province in 1900 was 1,996,626 people, with a religious make up of 1,698,465 Protestants , 269,196 Roman Catholics , and 13,877 Jews . The numbers of Poles ( Masurians ) and Lithuanians ( Lietuvininks ) were decreasing over time due to the process of Germanization . The Polish-speaking Prussians concentrated in the south of the area ( Masuria , Warmia), while Lithuanian-speaking Prussians concentrated in the northeast ( Lithuania Minor ). The Baltic Prussian ethnic group completely Germanized over time and the Old Prussian Language died out in the 18th century. Population of East Prussia in 1890
The number for "non-German inhabitants" represents only people who were not German citizens, but excludes German citizens of non-German descent, since German law differentiates between inhabitants (''Einwohner''), i.e. all the people living in the territory, and citizens (''Bürger''), i.e. that portion of the population who have German Citizenship . 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 seeking work in the expanding industrial centres of the Ruhr Area and Berlin. WEIMAR REPUBLIC With the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II in 1918, Germany became a Republic . During the Interwar Period , East Prussia and parts of West Prussia were Exclave s of Germany , created as a result of the Treaty Of Versailles when parts of West Prussia and the former Prussian Province Of Posen were ceded to Poland to create the Polish Corridor and the Free City Of Danzig . In 1920 Plebiscite s in eastern West Prussia and southern East Prussia were held to determine if the areas should join the Second Polish Republic or remain in Prussia within Germany; 96.7 % of the people voted for remaining within Germany. The Klaipėda Region (Memel Area, Memelland) was occupied by Lithuania in 1923 without giving the inhabitants a choice on the ballot. NAZI REIGN In 1938 , the Nazis altered about 1/3 of the Toponymy of the area, eliminating or simplifying a number of original Prussian names, as well as those Polish or Lithuanian names originating from refugees to Prussia during and after the Reformation . Activist members of minorities with Polish roots (see Mazur s) who did not co-operate with the new rulers were sent to Concentration Camps . WORLD WAR II In 1939 , East Prussia had 2.49 million inhabitants, 85 % of them being ethnic Germans, the others describing themselves as culturally German and religiously Lutheran, but linguistically Masurian and to smalller part Lithuanian . The latter lived mostly in in the east and southeast of the province. During World War II , the province was extended (see Polish Areas Annexed By Nazi Germany ). Despite Nazi Propaganda presenting all the regions annexed as possessing significant German population that wanted reunification with Germany, the Reich's statistics in 1939 show that only 31,000 out of 994,092 people in annexed Polish western territories were German. Many German inhabitants of East Prussia were killed in the war, many of whom were young people conscripted into the Wehrmacht and killed in action. Catastrophe and doom of 1944/45 In 1944 the old city of Königsberg was nearly entirely destroyed by two Allied air raids on the night of 26 / 27 August and three nights later on the 29 / 30 August 1944. Winston Churchill Book XII erroneously considered it as "a modernised heavily defended Fortress ". Gauleiter Erich Koch protracted the evacuation of the German civilian population until the front approached the East Prussian border in 1944. The population of the province had been systematically disinformed by '' Endsieg '' Nazi propaganda about the real military state of affairs. As a result many civilians fleeing to the West were overtaken by the rapidly advancing Red Army and had to suffer from abuses and mistreatments by Red Army soldiers who had been indoctrinated and incited by Soviet War Propaganda to take revenge. It is estimated that over one million civilians died during the years 1944 and 1945 , mostly due to precipitous evacuations, hunger, illnesses, assaults and rapes by invading Red Army soldiers. Organized and systematic rapes were a particular "feature" of the Red Army occupation of Germany (in contrast to the Allied occupation of Germany where such excesses were an exception) and rapidly spread fear and desparation among the civilian population (especially after word spread of atrocities at Nemmersdorf ). Several thousands lost their lives with the sinking of the '' Wilhelm Gustloff '', the '' Goya '' and the '' General Von Steuben ''. The capital Königsberg surrendered on April 9 , 1945 , following the desperate four-day Battle Of Königsberg . Lew Kopelew , who took part in the invasion of east Prussia, sharply criticized the atrocities against the German civilian population and was arrested in 1945, then sentenced to a ten-year term in the Gulag for "fostering bourgeois humanism" and for "compassion towards the enemy". Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also served in East Prussia in 1945 and was arrested for criticising Joseph Stalin in private correspondence with a friend. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an eight-year term in a Labour Camp . After the war, some ethnic Germans who had fled in early 1945 tried to return to their homes in East Prussia. The remaining German population of East Prussia was Expelled by the Communist regime. During the war and shortly thereafter, many people were also deported as forced labourers to eastern parts of the Soviet Union, including the Gulag camp system. German place names were changed to either Russian or Polish names. In April 1946, northern East Prussia became an official province of the Russian SFSR , with the Memelland becoming part of the Lithuanian SSR . In July of that year, the capital city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad and the area renamed the Kaliningrad Oblast . After the expulsion of the German population beginning in late 1947 from the territory, ethnic Russians , Belarusians and Ukrainians were settled in the northern part, and Polish Expatriate s from Polish Lands Annexed By The Soviet Union were settled in the southern part of East Prussia, now the Polish Warmian-Masurian Voivodship . Especially in the Soviet part of the region a policy of eliminating all remnants of German history was pursued. In 1967 this resulted in the demolition of the remains of Königsberg Castle by order of Leonid Brezhnev to make way on the site for the new "House of Soviets". FURTHER READING Publications in German
Publications in Polish
Publications in English
External links See also
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