East Prussia 1939. East Prussia: history and modernity. Map, borders, castles and cities, culture of East Prussia. The history of the origin of possessions
One of the most significant operations carried out by the Red Army in 1945 was the assault on Königsberg and the liberation of East Prussia.
Fortifications of the Grolman upper front, the Oberteich bastion after the surrender /
Fortifications of the Grolman upper front, Oberteich bastion. Courtyard.
Troops of the 10th Tank Corps of the 5th Guards Tank Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front occupy the city of Mühlhausen (now the Polish city of Mlynary) during the Mlavsko-Elbing operation.
German soldiers and officers taken prisoner during the assault on Koenigsberg.
A column of German prisoners is walking along the Hindenburg-Strasse in the city of Insterburg (East Prussia), towards the Lutheran Church (now the city of Chernyakhovsk, Lenin Street).
Soviet soldiers carry the weapons of their dead comrades after the battle in East Prussia.
Soviet soldiers are learning to overcome the barbed wire.
Soviet officers visiting one of the forts in the occupied Koenigsberg.
Machine-gun crew MG-42 firing near the railway station of the city of Goldap in battles with Soviet troops. 
Ships in the frozen harbor of Pillau (now Baltiysk, Kaliningrad region of Russia), late January 1945.
Koenigsberg, Tragheim district after the assault, damaged building.
German grenadiers are moving towards the last Soviet positions near the railway station of the city of Goldap.
Koenigsberg. Barracks Kronprinz, tower.
Koenigsberg, one of the fortifications.
The air support ship "Hans Albrecht Wedel" receives refugees in the harbor of Pillau.
Advanced German detachments enter the city of Goldap in East Prussia, which was previously occupied by Soviet troops.
Koenigsberg, panorama of the ruins of the city.
The corpse of a German woman killed by an explosion in Metgethen in East Prussia.
The Pz.Kpfw. belonging to the 5th Panzer Division. V Ausf. G "Panther" on the street of the town of Goldap.
A German soldier hanged on the outskirts of Königsberg for looting. The inscription in German "Plündern wird mit-dem Tode bestraft!" translates as "Whoever robs will be executed!"
A Soviet soldier in a German Sdkfz 250 armored personnel carrier on a street in Koenigsberg.
Units of the German 5th Panzer Division are moving forward for a counterattack against the Soviet troops. District Kattenau, East Prussia. Tank Pz.Kpfw ahead. V Panther.
Koenigsberg, barricade on the street.
A battery of 88-mm anti-aircraft guns is preparing to repel a Soviet tank attack. East Prussia, mid-February 1945.
German positions on the outskirts of Koenigsberg. The inscription reads: "We will defend Koenigsberg." Propaganda photo.
Soviet self-propelled guns ISU-122S is fighting in Koenigsberg. 3rd Belorussian Front, April 1945.
German sentry on the bridge in the center of Koenigsberg.
A Soviet motorcyclist passes German self-propelled guns StuG IV and 105-mm howitzers abandoned on the road.
A German landing craft evacuating troops from the Heiligenbeil pocket enters the harbor of Pillau.
Koenigsberg, blown up pillbox.
Destroyed German self-propelled gun StuG III Ausf. G against the background of the Kronprinz tower, Königsberg.
Koenigsberg, panorama from the Don tower.
Kenisberg, April 1945. View of the Royal Castle
German StuG III assault gun shot down in Koenigsberg. In the foreground is a dead German soldier.
German vehicles on Mitteltragheim street in Koenigsberg after the assault. To the right and left are StuG III assault guns, in the background is a JgdPz IV tank destroyer.
Grolman upper front, Grolman bastion. Before the surrender of the fortress, it housed the headquarters of the 367th Wehrmacht Infantry Division.
On the street of the port of Pillau. German soldiers being evacuated leave their weapons and equipment before being loaded onto ships.
A German 88 mm FlaK 36/37 anti-aircraft gun abandoned on the outskirts of Koenigsberg.
Koenigsberg, panorama. Don Tower, Rossgarten Gate.
Königsberg, German bunker in the Horst Wessel Park area.
Unfinished barricade on Duke Albrecht Alley in Königsberg (now Telman Street).
Koenigsberg, destroyed German artillery battery.
German prisoners at the Sackheim Gate of Koenigsberg.
Koenigsberg, German trenches.
German machine-gun crew in position in Koenigsberg near the Don tower.
German refugees on Pillau Street pass by a column of Soviet self-propelled guns SU-76M.
Konigsberg, Friedrichsburg Gate after the assault.
Koenigsberg, Wrangel tower, moat.
View from the Don Tower to the Oberteich (Upper Pond), Koenigsberg.
On the street of Koenigsberg after the assault.
Koenigsberg, Wrangel tower after the surrender.
Corporal I.A. Gureev at the post at the border marker in East Prussia.
Soviet unit in a street fight in Koenigsberg.
Traffic controller sergeant Anya Karavaeva on the way to Koenigsberg.
Soviet soldiers in the city of Allenstein (now the city of Olsztyn in Poland) in East Prussia.
Artillerymen of Lieutenant Sofronov's Guards are fighting on Avaider Alley in Koenigsberg (now - Alley of the Brave).
The result of an air strike on German positions in East Prussia.
Soviet soldiers are fighting on the outskirts of Koenigsberg. 3rd Belorussian Front.
Soviet armored boat No. 214 in the Konigsberg Canal after the battle with a German tank.
German collection point for defective captured armored vehicles in the Königsberg area.
Evacuation of the remnants of the division "Grossdeutschland" in the area of Pillau.
Abandoned in Koenigsberg German technology. In the foreground is a 150 mm sFH 18 howitzer.
Koenigsberg. Bridge across the moat to Rossgarten Gate. Don tower in the background
Abandoned German 105-mm howitzer le.F.H.18/40 in position in Königsberg.
A German soldier lights a cigarette at a StuG IV self-propelled gun.
A destroyed German tank Pz.Kpfw is on fire. V Ausf. G "Panther". 3rd Belorussian Front.
Soldiers of the Grossdeutschland division are loaded onto makeshift rafts to cross the Frisches Haff Bay (now the Kaliningrad Bay). Balga Peninsula, Cape Kalholz.
Soldiers of the division "Grossdeutschland" in positions on the Balga Peninsula.
Meeting of Soviet soldiers on the border with East Prussia. 3rd Belorussian Front.
The bow of a German transport sinking as a result of an attack by Baltic Fleet aircraft off the coast of East Prussia.
The pilot-observer of the reconnaissance aircraft Henschel Hs.126 takes pictures of the area during a training flight.
Destroyed German assault gun StuG IV. East Prussia, February 1945.
Seeing Soviet soldiers from Koenigsberg.
The Germans inspect a wrecked Soviet T-34-85 tank in the village of Nemmersdorf.
Tank "Panther" from the 5th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht in Goldap.
German soldiers armed with Panzerfaust grenade launchers next to the MG 151/20 aircraft gun in the infantry version.
Column German tanks"Panther" is moving to the front in East Prussia.
Broken cars on the street taken by storm Koenigsberg. Soviet soldiers are in the background.
Troops of the Soviet 10th Panzer Corps and the bodies of German soldiers on Mühlhausen Street.
Soviet sappers walk down the street of the burning Insterburg in East Prussia.
A column of Soviet IS-2 tanks on a road in East Prussia. 1st Belorussian Front.
A Soviet officer inspects a German self-propelled gun "Jagdpanther" shot down in East Prussia.
Soviet soldiers are sleeping, resting after the battles, right on the street of Koenigsberg, taken by storm.
Koenigsberg, anti-tank barriers.
German refugees with a baby in Königsberg.
A short rally in the 8th company after reaching the state border of the USSR.
A group of pilots of the Normandy-Neman air regiment near the Yak-3 fighter in East Prussia.
A sixteen-year-old Volkssturm soldier armed with an MP 40 submachine gun. East Prussia.
Building defensive structures, East Prussia, mid-July 1944.
Refugees from Königsberg moving towards Pillau, mid-February 1945.
German soldiers at a halt near Pillau.
German quad anti-aircraft gun FlaK 38, mounted on a tractor. Fischhausen (now Primorsk), East Prussia.
Civilians and a captured German soldier on Pillau Street during garbage collection after the end of the fighting for the city.
Boats of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet under repair in Pillau (now the city of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region of Russia).
German auxiliary ship "Franken" after the attack of Il-2 attack aircraft of the KBF Air Force.
Explosion of bombs on the German ship "Franken" as a result of the attack of Il-2 attack aircraft of the KBF Air Force
A breach from a heavy shell in the wall of the Oberteich bastion of the fortifications of the Grolman Upper Front of Koenigsberg.
The bodies of two German women and three children allegedly killed by Soviet soldiers in the town of Metgeten in East Prussia in January-February 1945. Propaganda German photo.
Transportation of the Soviet 280-mm mortar Br-5 in East Prussia.
Distribution of food to Soviet soldiers in Pillau after the end of the fighting for the city.
Soviet soldiers pass through a German settlement on the outskirts of Koenigsberg.
Broken German assault gun StuG IV on the streets of the city of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland.)
Soviet infantry, supported by self-propelled guns SU-76, attacked German positions in the area of Koenigsberg.
A column of self-propelled guns SU-85 on the march in East Prussia.
Sign "Autoroute to Berlin" on one of the roads of East Prussia.
Explosion on the tanker "Sassnitz". The tanker with a cargo of fuel was sunk on March 26, 1945, 30 miles from Liepaja by aircraft of the 51st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment and the 11th Assault Air Division of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet.
Air Force KBF aircraft bombardment of German transports and port facilities of Pillau.
The German ship-floating base of hydroaviation "Bölke" ("Boelcke"), attacked by the Il-2 squadron of the 7th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet, 7.5 km southeast of Cape Hel.
I think that many residents of the Kaliningrad region, however, like many Poles, have repeatedly asked themselves the question - why does the border between Poland and the Kaliningrad region pass in this way and not otherwise? In this note, we will try to figure out how the border between Poland and the Soviet Union was formed on the territory of the former East Prussia.
Those who are at least a little versed in history know and remember that before the start of the First World War, Russian and German Empire had, and partially it passed in much the same way as the current border of the Russian Federation with the Republic of Lithuania.
Then, as a result of the events connected with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and the separate peace with Germany in 1918, the Russian Empire collapsed, its borders changed significantly, and certain territories that were once part of it received their statehood. This is exactly what happened, in particular, with Poland, which regained its independence in 1918. In the same 1918, the Lithuanians also founded their own state.
Fragment of a map of the administrative division of the Russian Empire. 1914.
The results of the First World War, including the territorial losses of Germany, were secured by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. In particular, significant territorial changes took place in Pomerania and West Prussia (the formation of the so-called “Polish corridor” and Danzig with its environs receiving the status of a “free city”) and East Prussia (the transfer of the Memel region (Memelland) under the control of the League of Nations).
Territorial losses of Germany after the end of the First World War. Source: Wikipedia. The following (very minor) changes in the borders in the southern part of East Prussia were associated with the results carried out in Warmia and Mazury in July 1921. At the end of it, the population of most of the territories that Poland, counting on the fact that they are home to a significant number of ethnic Poles, would not mind annexing to itself, into the young Polish Republic. In 1923, the borders in the East Prussian region changed again: in the Memel region, the Union of Lithuanian Riflemen raised an armed uprising, the result of which was the entry of Memelland into Lithuania on the basis of autonomy and the renaming of Memel to Klaipeda. Fifteen years later, at the end of 1938, elections to the city council were held in Klaipeda, as a result of which the pro-German parties won with an overwhelming advantage. After Lithuania was forced to accept Germany's ultimatum on the return of Memelland to the Third Reich on March 22, 1939, Hitler arrived in Klaipeda-Memel on March 23 on the Deutschland cruiser, who then spoke to the residents from the balcony of the local theater and accepted the parade of Wehrmacht units. Thus, the last peaceful territorial acquisition of Germany before the outbreak of World War II was formalized.
The annexation of the Memel Territory to Germany did not end the redistribution of borders in 1939. On September 1, the Polish campaign of the Wehrmacht began (the same date is considered by many historians as the date of the start of World War II), and two and a half weeks later, on September 17, units of the Red Army entered Poland. By the end of September 1939, the Polish government in exile was formed, and Poland, as an independent territorial entity, again ceased to exist.
Fragment of the map of the administrative division of the Soviet Union. 1933. The borders in East Prussia again underwent significant changes. Germany, represented by the Third Reich, having occupied a significant part of the territory of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, again received a common border with the heir to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union.
The next, but not the last, change of borders in the region we are considering took place after the end of the Second World War. It was based on the decisions taken by the leaders of the Allies in 1943 in Tehran, and then at the Yalta Conference in 1945. In accordance with these decisions, first of all, the future borders of Poland in the east, common with the USSR, were determined. Later, by the Potsdam Agreement of 1945, it was finally determined that defeated Germany would lose the entire territory of East Prussia, part of which (about a third) would become Soviet, and most of it would become part of Poland.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 7, 1946, on the territory of the Königsberg Special Military District, created after the victory over Germany, the Königsberg Region was formed, which became part of the RSFSR. Three months later, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 4, 1946, Koenigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad, and the Koenigsberg region was renamed Kaliningrad.
Below we offer the reader a translation of the article (with slight abbreviations) by Wieslaw Kaliszuk, author and owner of the site "History of the Elblag Upland" (Historija Wysoczyzny Elbląskiej), about how the process of border formation took placebetween Poland and the USSR within the territory of former East Prussia.
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The current Polish-Russian border begins near the town of Vizhajny ( Wizajny) in the Suvalshchyna at the junction of three borders (Poland, Lithuania and Russia) and ends in the west, at the town of Nowa Karczma on the Vistula (Baltic) Spit. The border was formed by the Polish-Soviet agreement signed in Moscow on August 16, 1945 by the chairman of the Provisional Government of National Unity Polish Republic Edward Osubka-Moravsky and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov. The length of this section of the border is 210 km, which is approximately 5.8% of the total length of the borders of Poland.
The decision on the post-war border of Poland was made by the allies already in 1943 at a conference in Tehran (11/28/1943 - 12/01/1943). It was confirmed in 1945 by the Potsdam Agreement (07/17/1945 - 08/02/1945). In accordance with them, East Prussia was to be divided into the southern Polish part (Warmia and Mazury), and the northern Soviet part (about a third of the former territory of East Prussia), which received the name "Königsberg Special Military District" (KOVO) from June 10, 1945. From 07/09/1945 to 02/04/1946, the leadership of the KOVO was entrusted to Colonel General K.N. Galitsky. Prior to this, the leadership of this part of East Prussia, captured by Soviet troops, was carried out by the Military Council of the 3rd Belorussian Front. The military commandant of this territory, Major General M.A. Pronin, who was appointed to this position on 06/13/1945, already on 07/09/1945 transferred all administrative, economic and military powers to General Galitsky. Major General B.P. Trofimov, who from 05/24/1946 to 07/05/1947 served as head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Königsberg / Kaliningrad region. Prior to that, Colonel-General V.S. Abakumov.
At the end of 1945, the Soviet part of East Prussia was divided into 15 administrative regions. Formally, the Königsberg region was formed on April 7, 1946 as part of the RSFSR, and on July 4, 1946, with the renaming of Königsberg to Kaliningrad, the region was also renamed Kaliningrad. September 7, 1946 issued a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the administrative-territorial structure of the Kaliningrad region.
"Curzon Line" and the borders of Poland after the end of World War II. Source: Wikipedia. The decision to move the eastern border to the west (approximately to the “Curzon Line”) and “territorial compensation” (Poland was losing 175,667 square kilometers of its territory in the east as of September 1, 1939) was made without the participation of the Poles by the leaders of the “Big Three” - Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin during the conference in Tehran, which took place from November 28 to December 1, 1943. Churchill had to convey to the Polish government in exile all the "advantages" of this decision. During the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945), Joseph Stalin made a proposal to establish the western border of Poland along the Oder-Neisse line. Poland's "friend" Winston Churchill refused to recognize the new western borders of Poland, believing that "under the rule of the Soviets" it would become too strong due to the weakening of Germany, while not objecting to the loss of Poland's eastern territories.
Variants of the border between Poland and the Kaliningrad region. Even before the conquest of East Prussia, the Moscow authorities (read "Stalin") determined the political boundaries in this region. Already on July 27, 1944, the future Polish border was discussed at a secret meeting with the Polish Committee of People's Liberation (PKNO). The first draft of the borders on the territory of East Prussia was presented to the PKNO by the USSR State Defense Committee (GKO USSR) on February 20, 1945. In Tehran, Stalin drew before his allies the contours of the future borders in the territory of East Prussia. The border with Poland was to run from west to east immediately south of Königsberg along the rivers Pregel and Pissa (about 30 km north of the current border of Poland). The project was much more profitable for Poland. At the same time, she would receive the entire territory of the Vistula (Baltic) Spit and the cities of Heiligenbeil (Heiligenbeil, now Mamonovo), Ludwigsort (Ludwigsort, now Ladushkin), Preußisch Eylau (Preußisch Eylau, now Bagrationovsk), Friedland (Friedland, now Pravdinsk), Darkemen (Darkehmen, after 1938 - Angerapp, now Ozersk), Gerdauen (Gerdauen, now Zheleznodorozhny), Nordenburg (Nordenburg, now Krylovo). However, all cities, regardless of which of the banks of the Pregel or Pissa they are, will then be included in the USSR. Despite the fact that Königsberg was supposed to go to the USSR, its location near the future border would not prevent Poland from using the exit from Frisches Haf Bay (now the Vistula / Kaliningrad Bay) to the Baltic Sea together with the USSR. Stalin wrote to Churchill in a letter dated 4 February 1944 that Soviet Union plans to annex the northeastern part of East Prussia, including Königsberg, since the USSR would like to get an ice-free port on the Baltic Sea. Stalin in the same year mentioned this more than once in his conversations with both Churchill and British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, as well as during a Moscow meeting (10/12/1944) with Stanislav Mikolajczyk, Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile. The same issue was also raised during meetings (from September 28 to October 3, 1944) with the delegation of the Craiova Rada of the People (KRN, Krajowa Rada Narodowa - a political organization created during the Second World War from various Polish parties and which was planned to be subsequently transformed into parliament. — admin) and the PCWP, organizations in opposition to the London-based Polish government-in-exile. The Polish government in exile reacted negatively to Stalin's claims, pointing to the possible negative consequences of incorporating Königsberg into the USSR. November 22, 1944 in London at a meeting of the Coordinating Committee, consisting of representatives of the four parties that make up the government in exile, it was decided not to accept the dictates of the allies, including the recognition of the borders along the "Curzon Line".
Map with variants of the "Curzon Line" drawn up for the 1943 Tehran Allied Conference. The border project, proposed in February 1945, was known only to the State Defense Committee of the USSR and the Provisional Government of the Polish Republic (VPPR), which was transformed from the PKNO, which ceased its activities on December 31, 1944. At the Potsdam Conference, it was decided that East Prussia would be divided between Poland and the Soviet Union, but the final demarcation of the border was postponed until the next conference, already in peacetime. The future border was only outlined, which was to begin at the junction of Poland, the Lithuanian SSR and East Prussia, and pass 4 km north of Goldap, 7 km north of Braunsberg (Brausberg, now Braniewo / Braniewo) and end on the Vistula (Baltic) Spit about 3 km north of the current village of Nova Karchma. The position of the future border on the same terms was also discussed at a meeting in Moscow on August 16, 1945. There were no other agreements on the passage of the future border in the way it is laid now.
By the way, Poland has a historical right to the entire territory of the former East Prussia. Royal Prussia and Warmia were ceded to Prussia as a result of the First Partition of Poland (1772), and the Polish crown lost its fief rights to the Duchy of Prussia according to the Velau-Bydgoszcz treatises (and the political short-sightedness of King Jan Casimir), agreed in Velau on September 19, 1657, and ratified in Bydgoszcz November 5-6. In accordance with them, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I (1620 - 1688) and all his descendants in the male line received sovereignty from Poland. In the event that the male line of the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns was interrupted, the Duchy again had to go under the Polish crown.
The Soviet Union, supporting the interests of Poland in the west (east of the Oder-Neisse line), created a new Polish satellite state. It should be noted that Stalin acted primarily in his own interests. The desire to push the borders of Poland under his control as far west as possible was the result of a simple calculation: the western border of Poland would be at the same time the border of the sphere of influence of the USSR, at least until the fate of Germany became clear. Nevertheless, violations of the agreements on the future border between Poland and the USSR were the result of the subordinate position of the Polish People's Republic.
The agreement on the Polish-Soviet state border was signed in Moscow on August 16, 1945. The change in the preliminary agreements on the border in the territory of the former East Prussia in favor of the USSR and the consent of Great Britain and the United States to these actions undoubtedly indicate their unwillingness to strengthen the territorial strength of Poland, doomed to Sovietization.
After the adjustment, the border between Poland and the USSR was supposed to run along the northern borders of the former administrative regions of East Prussia (Kreiss. - admin) Heiligenbeil, Preussisch-Eylau, Bartenstein (Bartenstein, now Bartoszyce), Gerdauen, Darkemen and Goldap, about 20 km north of the current border. But already in September-October 1945, the situation changed dramatically. In some sections, the border moved without permission by the decision of the commanders of individual units of the Soviet Army. Allegedly, Stalin himself controlled the passage of the border in this region. For the Polish side, the eviction of the local Polish administration and population from cities and villages already settled and taken under Polish control was a complete surprise. Since many settlements were already inhabited by Polish settlers, it came to the point that a Pole, leaving for work in the morning, could find out upon his return that his house was already on the territory of the USSR.
Władysław Gomulka, at that time the Polish Minister for the Returned Lands (Returned Lands (Ziemie Odzyskane) - the general name for the territories that until 1939 belonged to the Third Reich, and transferred after the end of World War II to Poland according to the decisions of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, as well as results of the bilateral agreement between Poland and the USSR. admin), noted:
“In the first days of September (1945), the facts of unauthorized violation of the northern border of the Masurian district by the Soviet army authorities in the territories of the regions of Gerdauen, Bartenstein and Darkemen were recorded. The border line, determined at that time, was moved deep into the Polish territory at a distance of 12-14 km.
A striking example of a unilateral and unauthorized change of the border (12-14 km south of the agreed line) by the Soviet army authorities is the Gerdauen region, where the border was changed after the delimitation act signed by the two parties on July 15, 1945. Plenipotentiary for the Masurian District (Colonel Jakub Pravin - Jakub Prawin, 1901-1957 - member of the Communist Party of Poland, Brigadier General of the Polish Army, statesman; was the plenipotentiary representative of the Polish government at the headquarters of the 3rd Belorussian Front, then the government representative in the Warmian-Masurian district, the head of the administration of this district, and from May 23 to November 1945 the first governor of the Olsztyn Voivodeship. — admin) was informed in writing on 4 September that Soviet authorities An order was given to the headman of Gerdauen, Jan Kaszyński, to immediately leave the local administration and resettle the Polish civilian population. The next day (September 5), representatives of J. Pravin (Zygmunt Valevich, Tadeusz Smolik and Tadeusz Lewandowski) verbally protested against such orders to representatives of the Soviet military administration in Gerdauen, Lieutenant Colonel Shadrin and Captain Zakroev. In response, they were told that the Polish side would be notified in advance of any changes to the border. In this area, the Soviet military leadership began to evict the German civilian population, while denying access to these territories to Polish settlers. In this regard, on September 11, a protest was sent from Nordenburg to the District Attorney's Office in Olsztyn (Allenstein). This indicates that as early as September 1945 this territory was Polish.
A similar situation was in the Bartenstein (Bartoszyce) district, the headman of which on July 7, 1945 received all the acceptance documents, and already on September 14, the Soviet military authorities ordered the territories around the villages of Schönbruch and Klingenberg to be liberated from the Polish population ( Klingenberg). Despite the protests of the Polish side (09/16/1945), both territories were ceded to the USSR.
In the Preussisch-Eylau area, the military commandant, Major Malakhov, on June 27, 1945, transferred all powers to the headman Peter Gagatko, but already on October 16, the head of the Soviet border troops in this area, Colonel Golovkin, informed the headman about the transfer of the border a kilometer south of Preussisch-Eylau. Despite the protests of the Poles (10/17/1945), the border was pushed back. On December 12, 1945, on behalf of Pravin's deputy Jerzy Burski, Mayor Preussisch-Eylau liberated the city administration and handed it over to the Soviet authorities.
In connection with the unauthorized actions of the Soviet side to move the border, Yakub Pravin repeatedly (September 13, October 7, 17, 30, November 6, 1945) appealed to the central authorities in Warsaw with a request to influence the leadership of the Northern Group of Forces of the Soviet Army. The protest was also sent to the representative of the Server Group of Forces in the Masurian District, Major Yolkin. But all Pravin's appeals had no effect.
The result of arbitrary border adjustments not in favor of the Polish side in the northern part of the Masurian district was that the borders of almost all northern poviats (powiat - district. - admin) were changed.
Bronisław Saluda, a researcher of this problem from Olsztyn, noted:
“... subsequent adjustments to the border line could lead to the fact that some of the villages already occupied by the population could end up on Soviet territory and the work of settlers on its arrangement was wasted. In addition, it happened that the border separated a residential building from the outbuildings or land allotment assigned to it. In Shchurkovo, it so happened that the border passed through a cattle shed. The Soviet military administration responded to the complaints of the population that the loss of land here would be compensated by land on the Polish-German border.
The exit to the Baltic Sea from the Vistula Lagoon was blocked by the Soviet Union, and the final demarcation of the border on the Vistula (Baltic) Spit was carried out only in 1958.
According to some historians, in exchange for the consent of the Allied leaders (Roosevelt and Churchill) to the inclusion of the northern part of East Prussia with Königsberg into the Soviet Union, Stalin offered to transfer Bialystok, Podlasie, Chelm and Przemysl to Poland.
In April 1946, the official demarcation of the Polish-Soviet border on the territory of the former East Prussia took place. But she did not put an end to changing the border in this region. Until February 15, 1956, there were 16 more border adjustments in favor of the Kaliningrad region. From the initial draft of the border crossing, presented in Moscow by the State Defense Committee of the USSR for consideration by the PKNO, in reality the borders were moved 30 km to the south. Even in 1956, when the influence of Stalinism on Poland weakened, the Soviet side “threatened” the Poles with “adjustment” of the borders.
On April 29, 1956, the USSR proposed to the Polish People's Republic (PNR) to resolve the issue of the temporary state of the border within the Kaliningrad region, which has been in place since 1945. The border treaty was concluded in Moscow on March 5, 1957. The PPR ratified this treaty on April 18, 1957, and on May 4 of the same year an exchange of ratified documents took place. After a few more minor adjustments, in 1958 the border was defined on the ground and with the installation of boundary pillars.
The Vistula (Kaliningrad) Bay (838 sq. km) was divided between Poland (328 sq. km) and the Soviet Union. Poland, contrary to the original plans, was cut off from the exit from the bay to the Baltic Sea, which led to the disruption of the once established shipping routes: the Polish part of the Vistula Lagoon became the "Dead Sea". The "sea blockade" of Elbląg, Tolkmicko, Frombork and Braniewo also affected the development of these cities. Despite the fact that an additional protocol was attached to the agreement of July 27, 1944, which stated that peaceful ships would be allowed free access through the Pilau Strait to the Baltic Sea.
The final border passed through the iron and car roads, canals, settlements and even subsidiary plots. For centuries, the emerging single geographical, political and economic territory was arbitrarily divided. The border passed through the territory of six former krays.
Polish-Soviet border in East Prussia. The yellow color indicates the variant of the border for February 1945;, blue - for August 1945, red - the real border between Poland and the Kaliningrad region. It is believed that as a result of numerous border adjustments, Poland received less than 1125 sq. km. km of territory. The border drawn “along the line” led to numerous negative consequences. For example, between Branevo and Goldap, out of 13 roads that once existed, 10 were cut by the border, between Sempopol and Kaliningrad, 30 out of 32 roads were violated. The unfinished Masurian Canal was also divided in half. Numerous power lines and telephone communications were also cut. All this could not but lead to a deterioration in the economic situation in the settlements adjacent to the border: who wants to live in a settlement whose ownership is not defined? There was a fear that the Soviet side might once again move the border to the south. Some more or less serious settlement of these places by settlers began only in the summer of 1947, during the forcible resettlement of thousands of Ukrainians to these parts during the Vistula operation.
The border, practically drawn from west to east along the latitude, led to the fact that throughout the entire territory from Goldap to Elbląg economic situation never recovered, although once Elbing, which went to Poland, was the largest and most economically developed city (after Königsberg) in East Prussia. Olsztyn became the new capital of the region, although until the end of the 1960s it was less populated and economically less developed than Elbląg. The negative role of the final division of East Prussia also affected the indigenous population of this region - the Masurians. All this significantly delayed economic development throughout this region.
Fragment of the map of the administrative division of Poland. 1945 Source: Elblaska Biblioteka Cyfrowa. 
Legend to the above map. The dotted line is the border between Poland and the Kaliningrad region under the agreement of 08/16/1945; solid line — borders of voivodeships; dot-dotted line - borders of poviats. The option of drawing the border with a ruler (a rare case for Europe) was subsequently often used for African countries gaining independence.
The current length of the border between Poland and the Kaliningrad region (since 1991 the border with the Russian Federation) is 232.4 km. This, including 9.5 km of the water border and 835 m of the land border on the Baltic Spit.
Two voivodeships have a common border with the Kaliningrad region: Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian, and six powiats: Novodvorsky (on the Vistula Spit), Braniewski, Bartoszycki, Kenshinsky, Vengozhevsky and Goldapsky.
Border crossings operate on the border: 6 land border crossings (automobile Gronovo - Mamonovo, Grzechotki - Mamonovoi II, Bezledy - Bagrationovsk, Goldap - Gusev; railway Branievo - Mamonovo, Skandava - Zheleznodorozhny) and 2 sea.
On July 17, 1985, an agreement was signed in Moscow between Poland and the Soviet Union on the delimitation of territorial waters, economic zones, maritime fishing zones and the continental shelf of the Baltic Sea.
The western border of Poland was recognized by the German Democratic Republic by an agreement of July 6, 1950, the Federal Republic of Germany recognized the border of Poland by an agreement of December 7, 1970 (paragraph 3 of article I of this agreement states that the parties do not have any territorial claims to each other, and renounce However, until the reunification of Germany and the signing of the Polish-German border treaty on November 14, 1990, it was officially declared in the FRG that the German lands that had ceded to Poland after the Second World War were in the “temporary possession of the Polish administration ".
The Russian enclave on the territory of the former East Prussia - the Kaliningrad region - still does not have an international legal status. After the Second World War, the victorious powers agreed to transfer Königsberg to the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union, but only until an agreement was signed in accordance with international law, which, ultimately, would determine the status of this territory. An international treaty with Germany was signed only in 1990. The Cold War and Germany divided into two states prevented signing it earlier. And although Germany has officially renounced its claims to the Kaliningrad region, however, formal sovereignty over this territory has not been formalized by Russia.
Already in November 1939, the Polish government in exile was considering the inclusion of all of East Prussia into Poland after the end of the war. Also in November 1943, the Polish ambassador Edward Raczynski, in a memorandum handed over to the British authorities, among other things, mentioned the desire to include all of East Prussia in Poland.
Schonbruch (Schönbruch, now Szczurkowo/Schurkovo) is a Polish settlement located on the very border with the Kaliningrad region. During the formation of the border, part of Schönbruch ended up on Soviet territory, part on Polish territory. The settlement on Soviet maps was designated as Shirokoye (now does not exist). It was not possible to find out whether Shirokoe was inhabited.
Klingenberg (Klingenberg, now Ostre Bardo / Ostre Bardo) is a Polish settlement a few kilometers east of Shchurkovo. It is located near the border with the Kaliningrad region. ( admin)
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It seems to us that it would be appropriate to cite the texts of some official documents that formed the basis of the process of dividing East Prussia and delimiting the territories ceded to the Soviet Union and Poland, and which were mentioned in the above article by V. Kaliszuk.
Excerpts from the Proceedings of the Crimean (Yalta) Conference of the Leaders of the Three Allied Powers - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain
We have gathered for the Crimean Conference to resolve our differences on the Polish question. We have fully discussed all aspects of the Polish question. We reaffirmed our common wish to see a strong, free, independent and democratic Poland established, and as a result of our negotiations we agreed on the terms on which a new Provisional Polish Government of National Unity would be formed in such a way as to be recognized by the three major powers.
The following agreement has been reached:
“A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of full release her Red Army. This requires the creation of a Provisional Polish Government, which would have a broader base than was possible before, until the recent liberation of Western Poland. The Provisional Government now operating in Poland must therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis, with the inclusion of democratic figures from Poland itself and Poles from abroad. This new government should then be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.
V. M. Molotov, Mr. W. A. Harriman and Sir Archibald C. Kerr are authorized to consult in Moscow, as a Commission, primarily with members of the present Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders both from Poland itself and from abroad. borders, bearing in mind the reorganization of the present Government on the basis indicated above. This Polish Provisional Government of National Unity must undertake to hold free and unhindered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage by secret ballot. In these elections, all anti-Nazi and democratic parties must have the right to participate and nominate candidates.
When the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity is duly formed in accordance with (270) above, the Government of the USSR, which currently maintains diplomatic relations with the current Provisional Government of Poland, the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States, will establish diplomatic relations with the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity and they will exchange ambassadors, according to whose reports the respective governments will be informed of the situation in Poland.
The Heads of the Three Governments believe that Poland's eastern frontier should run along the Curzon line, with deviations from it in some areas from five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. The Heads of the Three Governments recognize that Poland must receive substantial increases in territory in the North and in the West. They consider that the opinion of the new Polish Government of National Unity will be sought in due course on the question of the amount of these increments, and that thereafter the final determination of Poland's western frontier will be postponed until a peace conference."
Winston S. Churchill
Franklin D. Roosevelt
On the introductory frame - the former North Station of Königsberg and the German tunnel leading to it directly under main square. Despite all the horrors of the war, the Kaliningrad region amazes with its perfectly preserved German infrastructure: here it is not only railways, stations, canals, ports and airfields - it is even power lines! Which, however, is quite logical: churches and castles - pr about the damned ruins of a defeated enemy, and the people need train stations and substations.
And one more thing: yes, it is clearly seen that Germany a hundred years ago was significantly ahead of Russia in development ... but not as much as you might think from this post, because the history of these lands was broken into "before" and "after" not in 1917 , and 1945, that is, to compare all this with the early Soviet Union, and not with Russian Empire.
...To begin with, already by tradition - a review of the comments. Firstly, Albertina in Germany was far from the second and hardly even the tenth. Secondly, photographs No. 37 (now it really is an example of the Bauhaus) and 48 (now it has something more similar to the architecture of the Third Reich, although a little earlier) have been replaced. In addition, as they pointed out to me, I understood the “new materiality” in a completely non-canonical way - in general, very little is known about this style in Russia, an sensible selection of photographs was found in the English Wikipedia, and there you can appreciate that it is very diverse. So my characterization of this style is only a subjective, emotional perception of its samples seen in the Kaliningrad region. Well, now - further:
In Königsberg there were two large stations (North and South) and many small stations such as Rathof or Hollenderbaum. However, I will have a separate post about the transport attractions of Kaliningrad, but here I will show only the most important thing - the landing stage. This is the rarest thing in former USSR- there are still such in Moscow (Kyiv and Kazan stations), St. Petersburg (Vitebsky station), and more recently, in Germany, there were such in many cities. Under the landing stage - high platforms, underground passages ... in general, the level is not at all for the Russian regional center. The station itself, on the contrary, is small and cramped, in Russia such ones were sometimes built even in cities that were inferior to Königsberg by a population of 5 times: there was simply a different railway school, unlike either Russian or. The inscription on three spans - "Welcome Kaliningrad Welcome", also somehow not in Russian, but in a completely different sense.
I think it's no secret to anyone that small Germany is one of the main railway powers in the world ... but like Russia, it did not gain momentum right away. Interestingly, at the same time, it was not Prussia at the forefront of railway construction here, but Bavaria, in 1835, the 5th in the world (after England, the USA, France and - with a difference of six months - Belgium) opened a locomotive line. The steam locomotive "Adler" ("Eagle") was bought in England, and the Nuremberg-Fürth line itself was even more suburban than Tsarskoye Selo: 6 kilometers, and nowadays you can travel by metro between the two cities. In 1837-39, the Leipzig-Dresden line (117 kilometers) was built, in 1838-41 - Berlin-Potsdam (26 km), and then ... The rate of development of the Deutschbahn in the 1840-60s is amazing, and finally in 1852-57 years, the line Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz) - Königsberg was also being built, which reached the farthest from the center of the German city. Within the current borders of Russia, Kaliningrad is the third (after St. Petersburg and Moscow) large city with a railway. However, after 5 years the German railways, but over these five years, the whole of East Prussia managed to sprout them.
To be honest, I don’t know anything about the age of German railway stations, and I didn’t see too many of them. Let me just say that in their arrangement at small stations they differ from Russian much less than the Austro-Hungarian ones. It's easy to imagine such a station ... yes, in general, at any station all the way to Vladivostok.
Much more interesting is that so many stations (offhand Chernyakhovsk, Sovetsk, Nesterov) are equipped here with such canopies over the tracks - again, this is our prerogative big cities and their suburbs. However, here it must be understood that in Russia, for most of the year, the main discomfort for passengers was created by frost, so a large heated station was more expedient, and it was even colder on the platform under a canopy; here the rains and winds were the most relevant.
Many stations nevertheless died in the war and were replaced by Stalins:
But something else is interesting here: after the war, the length of the railway network on the territory of the Kaliningrad region was reduced by a factor of three - from 1820 to 620 kilometers, that is, there are probably hundreds of stations without rails scattered around the region. Alas, I did not notice any of them, but something close:
This is Otradnoye, a suburb of Svetlogorsk. From the latter, a railway, abandoned since the 1990s, leads to Primorsk, and by some miracle its rusty rails still lie. The house is closely adjacent to the embankment, towards which beams stick out of it. The second entrance leads to the door to nowhere. That is, apparently, it was a residential or office building of the early twentieth century, part of which was occupied by the station:
Or here is the abandoned Yantarny station on the same line - if not for the rails, who would guess that this is a station?
However, if you believe the map of existing and dismantled lines, then the network has decreased by about a third, a maximum of half, but not three times. But the fact is that in Germany a hundred years ago there was a dense network of narrow gauge railways (the gauge, like ours, is 750 mm), and apparently, it was also included in these 1823 kilometers. Be that as it may, in Germany at the end of the 19th century, almost any village could be reached by public transport. Often, narrow-gauge railways had their own stations, even the old-timers usually do not remember the station essence of which - after all, trains have not been running from them for almost 70 years. For example, at Gvardeysk station, opposite the main station:
Or here is a suspicious building in Chernyakhovsk. The Insterburg narrow-gauge railway existed, it had its own station, this building is facing the tracks with its backyards ... in general, it looks like:
In addition, in the Kaliningrad region there are rare for Russia sections of the Stephenson gauge (1435 mm) on the lines leading from Kaliningrad and Chernyakhovsk to the south - only about 60 kilometers. Let's say the Znamenka station, from where I went to Balga - the left path seemed to me a little narrower than the right one; If I'm not mistaken, there is one "Stephenson" track at the South Station. More recently, the Kaliningrad-Berlin train ran through Gdynia:
In addition to the stations, all sorts of auxiliary buildings are well preserved. At most stations on the other side of the tracks there are such cargo terminals ... however, they are not rare in Russia either.
In places, hydrants for refueling steam locomotives have been preserved - however, I don’t know if they were pre- or post-war:
But the most valuable of these monuments is the circular depot of the 1870s in Chernyakhovsk, now turned into a parking lot. The archaic buildings that replaced the "locomotive sheds" and subsequently gave way to the fan depot with turning circles, for their time, however, were very perfect. Six of them survived along the Eastern Highway: two in Berlin, as well as in the cities of Pila (Schneidemühl), Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Tczew (Dirschau) and here.
There are similar structures (or have they already been broken?) in Russia on the Nikolaevskaya highway, we (were?) Even larger and older (1849), but the pride of the Insterburg depot is considered the only "Schwedler dome" in Russia, exceptionally light for its time and as shown by subsequent times - very durable: Unlike the capital, no one is going to break it. There are similar facilities in Germany and Poland.
Finally, bridges ... But there are somehow few bridges here - after all, the rivers in the region are narrow, even the Pregol is noticeably smaller than the Moscow River, and the railway bridge across the Neman in Sovetsk was restored after the war. Here is the only "small" bridge I have seen on the Chernyakhovsk-Zheleznodorozhny line, and it seems like one of its threads - the "Stephenson" gauge. Under the bridge is not a river, but another interesting object - the Masurian Canal, which will be discussed below. And concrete German "hedgehogs", which are unmeasured in the region:
Much better things are with bridges above railways. I don’t know exactly when they were built (perhaps before the First World War), but their most characteristic detail is such concrete trusses that I have never come across in other places:
But the 7-arch bridge across the Pregolya in Znamensk (1880) is completely metal:
And now under us there are no longer rails, but asphalt. Or - paving stones: here it is found not only in rural areas, but even outside settlements. This is how you drive on asphalt, and suddenly - trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... It gives a disgusting vibration, but it's not slippery on it. Cities, including Kaliningrad itself, are paved with paving stones to this day, and some people told me that stones from all over the world lie in it, since in the old days cargo ships carried them as ballast and sold them at loading ports. In a damp climate, there was simply no other choice - it was in Russia that the roads periodically "delivered", and even slippery snow fell in winter, but here porridge was constantly on them. I already showed this frame - the road to. Almost all of it is asphalted, and only a section of paving stones remains on the hill.
Another feature of the Prussian roads is "the last soldiers of the Wehrmacht". Trees with their roots hold the ground under the road, and with their crowns they mask them from the air, and when they were planted, the speeds were not the same and crashing into a tree was no more dangerous than crashing into a ditch. Now there is no one to mask the roads from, but driving on them - I say as a convinced non-driver - is really STUNNING! A man on the train told me that these trees are somehow charmed: it’s a common thing when in such an alley several wreaths hang on a single tree, “they attract to themselves!” - this is about the question of the fascist curse ... In fact, there are few such "avenues" left, and mostly in remote areas, but the asphalt on them is really not bad.
And in general, the roads here are surprisingly decent, especially the recently reconstructed Kaliningrad-Vilnius-Moscow highway (Chernyakhovsk, Gusev and Nesterov are strung on it in the region). For the first fifty kilometers it is completely in two lanes with a physical separation, potholes and pits are noticeable only on bridges.
But the trouble is with bus stations - in fact, they are only in largest cities areas such as Sovetsk or Chernyakhovsk, and for example, even in Zelenogradsk or Baltiysk are simply absent. There is a platform from which buses depart, a billboard with a timetable to Kaliningrad, and pieces of paper with suburban traffic nailed to poles and trees. Here it is, say, in Baltiysk, one of the main cities in the region:
Although in fairness, the bus route system itself is perfectly organized here. Yes, all of it is tied to Kaliningrad, but ... Let's say there are several dozen flights a day on the Kaliningrad-Baltiysk route, and 4 on the Baltiysk-Zelenogradsk route (via Yantarny and Svetlogorsk), which, in general, is also quite a lot. Buses are not a problem to move even along the almost deserted Curonian Spit, if you know their schedule in advance. The cars are mostly quite new, you won’t meet the killed Ikarus. And despite the fact that the region is quite densely populated, they travel quickly through it - to Chernyakhovsk and Sovetsk (this is 120-130 kilometers), an express bus takes an hour and a half from Kaliningrad.
But back to german times. I don’t remember any Soviet-built pre-war bus stations; Finnish bus stations have been preserved in Vyborg and the county Sortavala; in general, I already thought that the Germans have a bus station in every town. As a result, I came across the only sample again in Chernyakhovsk:
UPD: as it turned out, this is a Soviet building. That is, apparently the pioneers of bus station construction in Europe were the Finns.
But several times there were much more funny things - German gas stations. Compared to modern ones, they are very small, and therefore they are mainly occupied by shops.
Germany is the birthplace of not only diesel, but also electric transport, the inventor of which can be considered Wernher von Simmens: in the Berlin suburbs in 1881 he created the world's first tram line, and in 1882 - an experimental trolleybus (after trolleybus networks appeared and disappeared in dozens of European cities , but took root in few places). Urban electric transport in the future Kaliningrad region was available in three cities. Of course, the Koenigsberg tram is narrow gauge (1000 mm, it's like in Lviv + Vinnitsa, Zhytomyr, Evpatoria and Pyatigorsk), the oldest in Russia (1895, but we had older ones throughout the empire) and regularly operating to this day. Another tram network has operated since 1901 in Tilsit (Sovetsk), in memory of which a rare trailer was installed on its central square a few years ago:
But again, Insterburg distinguished itself: in 1936, not a tram was launched here, but a trolley bus. It is worth saying that in the entire former USSR before the war, trolleybuses appeared only in Moscow (1933), Kyiv (1935), St. Petersburg (1936) and then Romanian Chernivtsi (1939). The depot survived from the Insterburg system:
Both the tram and the trolley bus were never revived in district centers after the war. In Germany, trolleybuses almost disappeared in a purely peaceful way. In the former Königsberg, this transport appeared in 1975.
Well, now let's go down from the asphalt to the water:
Europe has always been the edge of dams - its rivers are fast, but poor in water and periodically overflow their banks. In the Kaliningrad region, shortly before my arrival, there was a storm with heavy rain that washed away the snow, and as a result, fields and meadows were flooded with a thin layer of water for kilometers. Many dams and ponds were founded here by the crusaders, and they have been continuously existing for the eighth century. In fact, the oldest man-made object in Kaliningrad itself is the Castle Pond (1255). Dams and mills, of course, have been updated many times, but for example, in Svetlogorsk, the Mill Pond has existed since about the 1250s:
Especially in this sense, he distinguished himself ... no, not Insterburg, but the neighboring Darkemen (now Ozyorsk), somewhere in 1880, or in 1886 (I still didn’t figure it out), instead of an ordinary dam, a mini-hydroelectric power station was built. It was the very dawn of hydropower, and it turns out that the oldest operating power plant (and hydroelectric power station in general) in Russia is located here, and thanks to it, Darkemen was one of the first in Europe to acquire electric street lighting (some even write that "the very first", but to me I don't really believe this.)
But especially among the hydraulic structures, 5 concrete locks of the Masurian Canal stand out, dug back in the 1760s from the Masurian Lakes to Pregolya. The current locks were built in 1938-42, becoming, perhaps, the largest monuments of the Third Reich era in the region. But it did not work out: after the war, the canal, divided by the border, was abandoned and is now overgrown.
However, we visited three of the five locks:
The Pregolya, which began at the confluence of the Instruch and Angrappa on the territory of present-day Chernyakhovsk, is such a "little Rhine" or "little Nile", the core river of the Kaliningrad region, which for a long time was its main road. There are enough locks on it itself, and Königsberg grew on the islands of its delta. And this is where it leads: from the center of Kaliningrad, the operating two-tier drawbridge across the Pregolya (1916-26) is perfectly visible, behind which the port is located:
And although the residential part of Kaliningrad is separated from the sea by industrial zones and suburbs, and the sea is only the Kaliningrad Bay, separated from the real sea by the Baltic Spit, there is still a lot of sea in the atmosphere of Königsberg. The proximity of the sea is reminiscent of the taste of the air and the cries of hefty gulls; romance adds the Museum of the World Ocean with the "Vityaz". The pre-war photographs show that the channels of the Pregolya were simply clogged with ships of various sizes, and in Soviet time AtlantNIRO worked here (it still exists, but it breathes its last), engaged in marine research throughout the Atlantic to Antarctica itself; since 1959, one of the four whaling fleets of the USSR "Yuri Dolgoruky" was based here ... however, I went aside. And the main attraction of the Koenigsberg port is two elevators from the 1920s and 30s, Red and Yellow:
Here it is worth remembering that East Prussia was the breadbasket of Germany, and grain was transported through it from Russia. Its transformation into an exclave after the First World War could have turned into a disaster, and Poland then was not as accommodating as Lithuania is today. In general, this situation has greatly affected the local infrastructure. The yellow elevator at the time of construction was almost the largest in the world, and it is still grandiose:
The second "reserve" of the port infrastructure is located on the spit, that is, between the bay and the open sea, Baltiysk (Pillau) - the westernmost city of Russia. Actually, its special role began in 1510, when a storm made a breach in the sandy spit almost opposite Königsberg. Baltiysk was both a fortress, a trading port, and a military base, and the piers near the strait were built in 1887. Here they are - the Western Gates of Russia:
And I was also puzzled by this leading sign. I have not seen such people in Russia. Maybe I didn’t see my problems, or maybe German:
In Baltiysk, I happened to visit a functioning ship. According to the sailor who met us there, this crane - captured, German, worked even before the war. I can't judge, but it looks very archaic:
However, the Baltic seaside is not only ports, but also resorts. The Baltic here is shallower and warmer than near the German coast, therefore both monarchs and writers (for example, Thomas Mann, whose house has been preserved on the Lithuanian part of the Curonian Spit) came to Kranz, Rauschen, Neukuren and others to improve their health. The Russian nobility also rested here. The peculiarity of these resorts is the promenades, or rather the promenade decks above the beaches. In Svetlogorsk, there is already no beach - recently it was literally washed away by a storm, since the German breakwaters had long since fallen into disrepair. Above the promenade is a mega-elevator (1973) that has not been working since 2010, built to replace the German funicular that did not survive the war:
Things are better in Zelenogradsk. Pay attention to the windmills near the horizon - this is already ours. Vorobyovskaya wind farm is considered the largest in Russia, although it is tiny by world standards. There are also German lighthouses on the coast, primarily at Cape Taran, but I didn’t get there.
But in general, Königsberg was turned not so much into the sea as into the sky, it is no coincidence that all the roads here led to the 100-meter tower of the Castle. I was told "We have a cult of pilots here!". However, by the beginning of the 20th century, Germany was the European, if not the world, leader in aeronautics - it is not entirely obvious that the Zeppellin is not a synonym for "airship", but its specific brand. Germany had 6 combat zeppelins, one of which was based in Königsberg. There was also a school of aeronautics. The zepelin hangar (unlike many others in Germany itself) did not survive, but looked like this:
And in 1919, the isolation of Prussia gave rise to another landmark object - the Devau airfield, which became the first civilian airport in Europe. In 1922, the world's first air terminal was built here (it has not been preserved), at the same time the first international Aeroflot line Moscow-Riga-Königsberg was opened, and many people flew along it - for example, Mayakovsky, who dedicated a poem to this phenomenon. Now Devau, located within the city, belongs to DOSAAF, and there are ideas (so far at the level of enthusiasts) of recreating the air terminal, organizing a museum and even - ideally - an international airport for small aircraft.
East Prussia and under the Third Reich became the fiefdom of the Luftwaffe with numerous airfields. The school in Neukuren (now Pioneer) produced many enemy aces, including Eric "Bubby" Hartman, the best military pilot in history: it is officially believed that he shot down 352 aircraft, of which 2/3 were Soviet.
Under the Baltic - the ruins of the Neutif air base:
And under the Soviets, the local pilots escaped into space: out of 115 Soviet cosmonauts, four were connected with Kaliningrad, including Alexei Leonov and Viktor Patsaev.
But back to earth. Here, the urban infrastructure is of particular interest - I don’t know how much more developed than in the early USSR, but very unusual. The most notable are, of course, the water towers, the "collection" of which he collects in his magazine soullaway . If we built water towers in large series, the Germans in Prussia did not find two identical ones. True, for the same reason, our water pumps still seem to me average more beautiful. Here are a couple of samples from Baltiysk (before and after the First World War) - in my opinion the most interesting things I saw here:
But the largest in the region - in Sovetsk:
Continuation of water pressure - hydrants. Here they are almost the same throughout the region, in its different cities:
However, Koenigsberg is also the birthplace of the electric power industry, or rather, Gustav Kirchhoff, and this cannot be overlooked here. The most common promarch here, after industrial mills, is power plants:
And also substations:
Countless transformer boxes:
And even pillars "with horns" - their lines stretch throughout the area:
There are also some other pillars here. Supports of electrified narrow-gauge railways? Lanterns in the villages wiped off the face of the earth? War, everything here ends in war.
The Germans built for centuries, but it played a cruel joke on us. Communications in other parts of the USSR wore out faster - they were repaired faster. Here, many pipes and wires have not known repair since the 1940s, and their resource has finally expired. According to and taiohara , and soullaway , accidents with turning off water or electricity are regular here. In Baltiysk, for example, the water is turned off at night. In many houses, house boilers, completely uncharacteristic of the Soviet Union, remained, and in winter the Prussian towns are shrouded in smoke.
In the next part... I thought of three "general" posts, but in the end I realized that a fourth was needed. In the next part - about the main symbol of the current Kaliningrad region: amber.
FAR WEST
. Sketches, thanks, disclaimer.
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East Prussia
. Outpost of the Crusaders.
.
German infrastructure.
Amber edge.
Foreign Russia. Modern color.
Kaliningrad/Königsberg.
City that exists.
Ghosts of Koenigsberg. Kneiphof.
Ghosts of Koenigsberg. Altstadt and Lobenicht.
Ghosts of Koenigsberg. Rossgarten, Tragheim and Haberberg.
Victory Square, or simply Square.
Koenigsberg transport. Stations, trams, Devau.
Museum of the World Ocean.
The inner ring of Koenigsberg. From the Friedland Gate to the Square.
The inner ring of Koenigsberg. From the market to the amber museum.
The inner ring of Koenigsberg. From the Amber Museum to Pregolya.
Garden City of Amalienau.
Rathof and Juditten.
Ponart.
Sambia.
Natangia, Warmia, Bartia.
Nadrovia, or Lithuania Minor.
Even in the late Middle Ages, the lands located between the Neman and Vistula rivers got their name East Prussia. For all the time of its existence, this power has experienced various periods. This is the time of the order, and the Prussian duchy, and then the kingdom, and the province, as well as the post-war country up to the renaming due to the redistribution between Poland and the Soviet Union.
The history of the origin of possessions
More than ten centuries have passed since the first mention of the Prussian lands. Initially, the people who inhabited these territories were divided into clans (tribes), which were separated by conditional borders.
The expanses of Prussian possessions covered the now existing part of Poland and Lithuania. These included Sambia and Skalovia, Warmia and Pogezania, Pomesania and Kulm land, Natangia and Bartia, Galindia and Sassen, Skalovia and Nadrovia, Mazovia and Sudovia.
Numerous conquests
The Prussian lands throughout their existence were constantly subjected to attempts to conquer by stronger and more aggressive neighbors. So, in the twelfth century, the Teutonic knights - the crusaders - came to these rich and alluring expanses. They built numerous fortresses and castles, such as Kulm, Reden, Thorn.
However, in 1410, after the famous Battle of Grunwald the territory of the Prussians began to smoothly pass into the hands of Poland and Lithuania.
The Seven Years' War in the eighteenth century undermined the strength of the Prussian army and led to the fact that some eastern lands were conquered by the Russian Empire.
In the twentieth century, hostilities also did not bypass these lands. Beginning in 1914, East Prussia was involved in the First World War, and in 1944 - in the Second World War.
And after the victory of the Soviet troops in 1945, it ceased to exist altogether and was transformed into the Kaliningrad region.
Existence between the wars
During the First World War, East Prussia suffered heavy losses. The map of 1939 already had changes, and the updated province was in a terrible state. After all, it was the only territory of Germany that was swallowed up by military battles.
The signing of the Treaty of Versailles was costly for East Prussia. The winners decided to reduce its territory. Therefore, from 1920 to 1923, the League of Nations began to control the city of Memel and the Memel region with the help of French troops. But after the January uprising in 1923, the situation changed. And already in 1924, these lands, as an autonomous region, became part of Lithuania.
In addition, East Prussia also lost the territory of Soldau (the city of Dzialdovo).
In total, about 315 thousand hectares of land were disconnected. And this is a large area. As a result of these changes, the remaining province found itself in a difficult situation, accompanied by enormous economic difficulties.
The economic and political situation in the 20s and 30s.
In the early twenties, after the normalization of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Germany, the standard of living of the population in East Prussia began to gradually improve. The Moscow-Kenigsberg airline was opened, the German Oriental Fair was resumed, and the Koenigsberg city radio station began work.
Nevertheless, the global economic crisis has not bypassed these ancient lands. And in five years (1929-1933), five hundred and thirteen different enterprises went bankrupt in Koenigsberg alone, and grew to one hundred thousand people. In such a situation, taking advantage of the precarious and uncertain position of the current government, the Nazi Party took control into its own hands.
Territory redistribution
A considerable number of changes were made to the geographical maps of East Prussia until 1945. The same thing happened in 1939 after the occupation of Poland by the troops Nazi Germany. As a result of the new zoning, part of the Polish lands and the Klaipeda (Memel) region of Lithuania were formed into a province. And the cities of Elbing, Marienburg and Marienwerder became part of the new district of West Prussia.
The Nazis launched grandiose plans for the redivision of Europe. And the map of East Prussia, in their opinion, was to become the center of the economic space between the Baltic and Black Seas, subject to the annexation of the territories of the Soviet Union. However, these plans failed to materialize.
Post-war time
As the Soviet troops arrived, East Prussia also gradually changed. Military commandant's offices were created, of which by April 1945 there were already thirty-six. Their tasks were to recalculate the German population, inventory and a gradual transition to civilian life.
In those years, thousands of German officers and soldiers were hiding throughout East Prussia, groups engaged in sabotage and sabotage were operating. In April 1945 alone, the military commandant's offices captured more than three thousand armed fascists.
However, ordinary German citizens also lived on the territory of Koenigsberg and in the surrounding areas. They numbered about 140 thousand people.
In 1946, the city of Koenigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad, as a result of which the Kaliningrad region was formed. And in the future, the names of other settlements were also changed. In connection with such changes, the previously existing 1945 map of East Prussia was also redone.
East Prussian lands today
Today, the Kaliningrad region is located on the former territory of the Prussians. East Prussia ceased to exist in 1945. And although the region is part of the Russian Federation, they are territorially divided. In addition to the administrative center - Kaliningrad (until 1946 it bore the name of Koenigsberg), such cities as Bagrationovsk, Baltiysk, Gvardeysk, Yantarny, Sovetsk, Chernyakhovsk, Krasnoznamensk, Neman, Ozersk, Primorsk, Svetlogorsk are well developed. The region consists of seven city districts, two cities and twelve districts. The main peoples living in this territory are Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Armenians and Germans.
To date, the Kaliningrad region ranks first in the extraction of amber, storing about ninety percent of its world reserves in its bowels.
Interesting places of modern East Prussia
And although today the map of East Prussia has been changed beyond recognition, the lands with the cities and villages located on them still keep the memory of the past. The spirit of the disappeared great country is still felt in the present Kaliningrad region in the cities that bore the names Tapiau and Taplaken, Insterburg and Tilsit, Ragnit and Waldau.
Excursions conducted at the Georgenburg stud farm are popular with tourists. It existed as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century. The fortress of Georgenburg was a haven for German knights and crusaders, whose main business was horse breeding.
The churches built in the fourteenth century (in the former cities of Heiligenwalde and Arnau), as well as the churches of the sixteenth century in the territory of former city Tapiau. These majestic buildings constantly remind people of the old days of the prosperity of the Teutonic Order.
Knight's castles
The land rich in amber reserves has attracted German conquerors since ancient times. In the thirteenth century, the Polish princes, together with gradually seized these possessions and built numerous castles on them. The remains of some of them, being architectural monuments, still make an indelible impression on contemporaries today. The largest number of knightly castles were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their place of construction was the captured Prussian rampart-earthen fortresses. When building castles, traditions in the style of order Gothic architecture were necessarily observed. late medieval. In addition, all buildings corresponded to a single plan for their construction. Nowadays, an unusual
The village of Nizovye is very popular among residents and guests. It houses a unique museum of local lore with ancient cellars. Visiting it, one can say with confidence that the whole history of East Prussia flashes before one's eyes, starting from the time of the ancient Prussians and ending with the era of Soviet settlers.
During the German counterattack on Kragau (East Prussia), artillery officer Yuri Uspensky was killed. The deceased had a handwritten diary."January 24, 1945. Gumbinnen - We passed through the entire city, which was relatively undamaged during the battle. Some buildings are completely destroyed, others are still on fire. They are said to have been set on fire by our soldiers.
In this rather large town, furniture and other household utensils are scattered on the streets. On the walls of houses, inscriptions are visible everywhere: "Death to Bolshevism." Thus, the Fritz tried to campaign among their soldiers.
In the evening we talked in Gumbinnen with the prisoners. It turned out to be four Fritz and two Poles. Apparently, the mood in the German troops is not very good, they themselves surrendered and now they say: "We don't care where we work - in Germany or in Russia."
We quickly reached Insterburg. From the car window you can see the landscape typical of East Prussia: roads lined with trees, villages in which all the houses are covered with tiles, fields that are surrounded by barbed wire fences to protect against livestock.
Insterburg turned out to be bigger than Gumbinnen. The whole city is still in smoke. Houses are burning down. Endless columns of soldiers and trucks pass through the city: such a joyful picture for us, but so formidable for the enemy. This is retribution for everything the Germans have done to us. Now German cities are being destroyed, and their population will finally know what it is: war!
We drive further along the highway in the passenger car of the headquarters of the 11th army towards Königsberg to find the 5th artillery corps there. The highway is full of heavy trucks.
The villages we meet on our way are partly badly destroyed. It is striking that we come across very few wrecked Soviet tanks, not at all like it was in the first days of the offensive.
Along the way, we meet columns of the civilian population, which, under the protection of our submachine gunners, are sent to the rear, away from the front. Some Germans ride in large covered wagons. Teenagers, men, women and girls go on foot. All good clothes. It would be interesting to talk with them about the future.
Soon we stop for the night. Finally we got to a rich country! Everywhere you can see herds of livestock roaming the fields. Yesterday and today we boiled and fried two chickens a day.
Everything in the house is very well equipped. The Germans left almost all their household belongings. I am compelled to think again about what a great grief this war brings with it.
It passes like a fiery whirlwind through cities and villages, leaving behind smoking ruins, trucks and tanks mangled by explosions, and mountains of corpses of soldiers and civilians.
Now let the Germans see and feel what war is! How much grief is still in this world! I hope that Adolf Hitler does not have long to wait for the noose prepared for him.
January 26, 1945. Petersdorf near Velau. - Here, on this sector of the front, our troops were four kilometers from Koenigsberg. The 2nd Belorussian Front went to the sea near Danzig.
Thus, East Prussia is completely cut off. In fact, it is already almost in our hands. We are driving along Velau. The city is still burning, it is completely destroyed. Everywhere smoke and corpses of the Germans. On the streets you can see many guns abandoned by the Germans and the corpses of German soldiers in the sewers.
These are signs of the brutal defeat of the German troops. Everyone is celebrating the victory. Soldiers cook food on a fire. Fritz abandoned everything. Entire herds of livestock roam the fields. The surviving houses are full of excellent furniture and utensils. On the walls you can see paintings, mirrors, photographs.
Many houses were set on fire by our infantry. Everything happens as the Russian proverb says: "As it comes around, it will respond!" The Germans did this in Russia in 1941 and 1942, and now in 1945 it echoed here in East Prussia.
I see a weapon covered with a knitted blanket being carried past. Nice disguise! On another gun lies a mattress, and on the mattress, wrapped in a blanket, a Red Army soldier sleeps.
To the left of the highway, you can see an interesting picture: two camels are being led there. A captive Fritz with a bandaged head is led past us. Angry soldiers shout in his face: "Well, did you conquer Russia?" With their fists and the butts of their machine guns, they urge him on, pushing him in the back.
January 27, 1945. The village of Starkenberg. - The village looks very peaceful. The room of the house where we stayed is light and cozy. From afar comes the sound of cannonade. This is a battle in Koenigsberg. The position of the Germans is hopeless.
And now the time comes when we can pay for everything. Ours treated East Prussia no worse than the Germans with Smolensk region. We hate the Germans and Germany with all our heart.
For example, in one of the houses of the village, our guys saw a murdered woman with two children. And on the street you can often see dead civilians. The Germans themselves deserved this on our part, because they were the first to behave in this way in relation to the civilian population of the occupied regions.
One only needs to remember Majdanek and the theory of the superman to understand why our soldiers bring East Prussia to such a state with such satisfaction. But German composure in Majdanek was a hundred times worse. In addition, the Germans glorified the war!
January 28, 1945. We played cards until two o'clock in the morning. The houses were abandoned by the Germans in a chaotic state. The Germans had a lot of all sorts of property. But now everything is in complete disarray. The furniture in the houses is just great. Each house is full of a variety of utensils. Most Germans lived quite well.
War, war - when will you end? For three years and seven months this destruction of human lives, the results of human labor and monuments of cultural heritage has been going on.
Towns and villages are burning, the treasures of thousands of years of labor are disappearing. And the nonentities in Berlin are doing their best to continue this one-of-a-kind battle in the history of mankind as long as possible. Therefore, hatred is born, which is poured out on Germany.
February 1, 1945. - In the village we saw a long column of modern slaves, whom the Germans drove to Germany from all over Europe. Our troops invaded Germany on a broad front. The allies are coming too. Yes, Hitler wanted to crush the whole world. Instead, he crushed Germany.
February 2, 1945. - We have arrived in Fuchsberg. Finally, we reached our destination - the headquarters of the 33rd Tank Brigade. I learned from a Red Army soldier from the 24th Tank Brigade that thirteen people from our brigade, including several officers, had been poisoned. They drank denatured alcohol. That's where the love of alcohol can lead!
On the way we met several columns of German civilians. Mostly women and children. Many carried their children in their arms. They looked pale and scared. When asked if they were Germans, they hastened to answer "Yes."
There was a clear stamp of fear on their faces. They had no reason to be glad that they were Germans. At the same time, quite nice faces could be seen among them.
Last night, the soldiers of the division told me about some things that can not be approved. In the house where the headquarters of the division was located, the evacuated women and children were placed at night.
Drunken soldiers began to come there one after another. They chose women for themselves, took them aside and raped them. There were several men for every woman.
Such behavior is unacceptable. Revenge, of course, is necessary, but not in this way, but with weapons. You can somehow understand those whose loved ones were killed by the Germans. But the rape of young girls - no, this is unacceptable!
In my opinion, the command must soon put an end to such crimes, as well as to the unnecessary destruction of property. For example, soldiers spend the night in some house, in the morning they leave and set fire to the house or recklessly break mirrors and break furniture.
After all, it is clear that all these things will one day be transported to the Soviet Union. But while we live here and, carrying out soldier's service, we will continue to live. Such crimes only undermine the morale of the soldiers and weaken discipline, which leads to a decrease in combat capability."
