Added: May 16, 2008
From: hagbatana
Duration: 9:58
East Prussia German: Ostpreußen Lithuanian: Rytų Prūsija or Rytprūsiai; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: Восточная Пруссия or Vostochnaya Prussiya) refers to the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to 1945. From 1772--1829 and 1878--1945, the Province of East Prussia was a province of the German state of Prussia. The capital of East Prussia was Königsberg. East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. The indigenous Balts who survived the conquest were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles and Prussian Lithuanians formed minorities. From the 13th century on, East Prussia was part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, which became the Duchy of Prussia in 1525. The Old Prussian language became extinct by the 17th century or early 18th century. In 1618 the Duchy of Prussia entered into a personal union with the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg, and was separated from Brandenburg by territory of Poland. Because the duchy was outside of the Holy Roman Empire, the prince-electors of Brandenburg were able to proclaim themselves kings in Prussia beginning in 1701. After the annexation of most of Polish Royal Prussia in the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, East Prussia was connected with the rest of the Prussian state and reorganized into the Province of East Prussia the following year. Between 1829 and 1878, the Province of East Prussia was joined with West Prussia to form the Province of Prussia. The Kingdom of Prussia became the leading state of the German Empire after its creation in 1871. The Treaty of Versailles following World War I made East Prussia an exclave of Weimar Germany, while the Memel Territory was added to Lithuania. Following Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II in 1945, war-torn East Prussia was partitioned between Soviet Union (the Kaliningrad Oblast), the People's Republic of Poland (the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship), and the Lithuanian SSR (the constituent counties of the Klaipėda Region). The capital city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. The German population of the province largely evacuated during the war, during the years 1944--46, but an estimated 300.000 (around one fifth of the population) died due to war circumstances and the remainder were subsequently expelled. In 1944 the medieval city of Königsberg, which had never been severely damaged by warfare in its 700 years, was almost entirely destroyed by two Allied air raids on the night of 26/27 August 1944 and three nights later on the 29/30 August 1944. Winston Churchill (The Second World War, Book XII) erroneously considered the city "a modernised heavily defended fortress". Gauleiter Erich Koch protracted the evacuation of the German civilian population until the Eastern 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 westward were overtaken by retreating Wehrmacht units and the rapidly advancing Red Army. Reports of Soviet atrocities in the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944 and organised rape spread fear and desperation among the civilian populace. Thousands lost their lives during the sinkings 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. The exact number of civilian victims of the fight has never been determined but is estimated to be at least 300 000 with most of them dying under miserable conditions. However, most of the German inhabitants, which at that point consisted mainly of children, women, and old men, did escape the Red Army as part of the largest exodus of people in human history A population which had stood at 2.2 million in 1940 was reduced to 193,000 at the end of May 1945
Channel: Film
Tags: baltic coast documentary east evacuation königsberg. ostpreußen prussia prusy wschodnie ww2 Восточная Пруссия
Rating: 5.00 (12 ratings) Views: 2378' favoriteCount='20 Comments: 29
sch8mid Says:
Jun 18, 2008 - unbelievable reading such a complete ,stupid and innocent nonsense make your homework TimesiN
ElbeRiver Says:
Jun 20, 2008 - "Prussia is not "faterland" for germans?" LOL LOL LOL Until Germany got "liberated" by the British Slavetrading-Empire and raping and murdering Soviet Soldiers, Prussia happened to be the biggest German state, my dear. The first Prussian King (Frederick the Great) had been crowned in Königsberg 1701, after this they had their residence either in Potsdam, in Charlottenburg or in Berlin. These are all Residential Prussian towns - and they are all in Germany.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jun 20, 2008 - PS: You have heard about a town called "Berlin", haven't you, TimesINessence ? It was capital of Prussia, and also happens to be capital of Germany. So according to your words, Berlin is a true Lithuanian city?
J99Grimbold Says:
Jun 23, 2008 - My Grandma was born in Tilsit, East-Prussia. It was a great country, an open country.
WeedsLikeUs Says:
Jun 29, 2008 - I was one of the East Prussian children trapped by the Russians in 1945. At that time I was only 7 years old. You can read my story in my book "Weeds Like Us".
PeterAikman Says:
Jul 2, 2008 - The Allies forfeited any right to moral superiority when they committed crimes against the Germans of an equal or greater degree than the crimes committed by the Germans themselves. The death of half of a million Germans in the terror Air War, the death of some two million Germans during the flight and expulsion from Eastern Europe and the death of hundreds of thousands of German POWs showed the Allies to be no less morally corrupt than the Germans. There was nothing 'good' about the War.
warmoviesboy Says:
Jul 6, 2008 - how cares fucking kill the nazi and burn his/her body
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - @warmoviesboy You are written proof that the murderous Allies were a hate-ridden bunch of fraudulent fakers, who claim to have fought "bad", whilst being far worse themselves. To think, that you believe yourself to be "good".....you fool. Stop praising the slaughter of innocent German women and children, you anglo-american Terrorist. Child-abusing and murderous people like you simply disgust me.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - Your country, the USA, has allied with the impersination of Evil, namely with the Red-Fascist Communist Realm of terror and death. Your great Ally Stalin was just another, Hitler painted in RED. So why did you become friends with evil?
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - You Anglo-American gangsters have murdered 1 Million innocent German women and children by "terror bombing", which means you applied methods that were worse than the Nazis. Germany had never targeted housing areas in London or Warsaw, but in Hamburg an Dresden you criminals did. Also, you have sent 1 Million innocent people (mainly young girls) to Allied concentration camps (after having raped them of course) in Siberia, and you have murdered 2 Million innocent Germans by Ethnic Cleansing.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - Your British-American war-mongering criminal leaders Roosevelt and Churchill stole German land and called it making "a clean sweep". Officially you anglo-american terrorists wrote: "the population transfer is to be carried out in an human and orderly manner". What you criminal Anglo-Americans euphemistically called "population transfer", i call "deportation and murder" resp. "Ethnic Cleansing". Millionen Deutsche Vertriebene - Frauen und Kinder - wurden ermordet und deportiert.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - However, Roosevelt's and Churchill's "clean sweep" was not carried out in a "human and orderly manner" but with an utmost extent of brutality and crimes. (Source: Professor Alfred de Zayas, A terrible Revenge, New York 1993). The deportation of 14 Million innocent German men happened under Allied looting, stealing, child-abusing, raping, torturing and murdering. Of those 14 Million "Vertriebene" only 12 would arrive the safe West; the other 2 Million were murdered by the Allies.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - Foolish, fraudulent, illiterate and thug-like Anglo-American criminals like you, "Warmovieboy", not only deny and refuse acknowledgement for the dead and their right to dignity and commemoration, but you spit on the graves of miillions of innocent victims. May god forgive you evil British and American people for hiding all your crimes, atroticies and sins. The truth about Allied crimes has leaked out, and more is to come.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - I want JUSTICE for the dead - I want nothing but to stop evil Anglo-Americans from spitting on their graves.
mikolajoskierko Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - "Germany had never targeted housing areas in London or Warsaw" Oh really? No, not worse than nazis were allied bombing, but verry similar, this "tactic" was first used in Spanish civil war. Sibiria is the best prison on the world... since centuries, even my family tasted it in XIXc. and since Russians haven`t had a railroads at that times (or verry few)... it was a long walk.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - Mikolajo, i think all Bombing is crime. OK? But you Polish people say: Warsaw is crime, Dresden is NOT crime because all Dresdners Nazis...right? That is difference.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - From your Anglo-American friends (who were also fascist) a Law was passed by the British Ministry of Defense on 14th February 1945 called "Area bombing directive". In this law, it was clearly pointed out that the targed should not be military objects, not factories, not docks, not shipyards, not ammunition production, not railway, not bridges and not casernes. This law said, that the targed is CIVILIANS. In Germany, such Law was never passed. The ALLIES passed it.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - And i say it again, but you dont listen: ALL bombings are crime. But you say that Warsaw is crime, and Dresden bombing is "good"?? Dresden was biggest desaster in Human History!
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - You say that all Germans are Nazis, but i am really sick of these STUPID conversations, Mikolajo! But in Dresden, how can women and children be NAZIS?? Dresden was full of Women and Children, fleeing your communist raping and murdering friends , there were 500 000 Refugees in Dresden at the time. Bombing a city with refugees, is evil crime!
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - And please stop writing all this nonsense on my page! I told you that you can write what you want, but please dont accuse me of crimes! This is offensive! And also stop telling me all this nonsense, i talk about Versailles treaty and you say "appeasement", what is the connection???! This is completely nonsense! One has nothing to do with each other, Versailles was 1918, Appeasement was 20 years later, two completely different things!
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - If you polish people won't stop all your Nazi/Hitler/Ausschwitz Nonsense, then i see no good chances for Polish-German relationship! History in Germany did not begin 1933, stop limiting German history to 12 years! So please stop repeating to Germans 10000 times a day "Hitler/Nazis/Jews", because WE KNOW ALL THAT. You have told us million times, so dont repeat, we already know. Nazi-topic is taught in German schools, it is DAILY on German TV, it is DAILY in German newspapers.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - But why is Polish plans for invading German territory since 1918 not taught in Polish Schools? Why is oppression and murder of German minority in occupied Westprussia not taught in Polish Schools? Why are Polish concentration camps not taught in Polish schools? Why is Polish Genocide to German people (14 Million deported and two million murdered) not taught in Polish schools? Why is ethnic cleansing of 14 Million Germans from Eastern Europe not taught in Polish Schools? You even deny it.
ElbeRiver Says:
Jul 10, 2008 - So please stop about telling me about Hitler/Nazis/Jews, because nobody officially denies it. Germany renounces Nazi-past, and all facts area taught, broadcasted, shown, revealed. No other country does that with her past! Russia, USA, England, France, all have bad history, too. Nobody of them reveals it! Germany shows everything, and agrees that Nazis was criminal period. So what more do you want? But YOU deny your history, you dont reveal all facts, you blow nationalist trumpet and HIDE past.
radeg68 Says:
Jul 11, 2008 - ElbeRiver, Stop, you are loosing it! - will work yourself up to a heart attack.
Kurlandlegionar Says:
Jun 12, 2008 - Jootvingis, you are wright!