East Prussia

East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen; Lithuanian: Ryt? Pr?sija; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: ????????? ??????? — Vostochnaya Prussiya; Dutch: Oost-Pruisen; Spanish: Prusia Oriental;) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and of the German Empire, situated on the territory of former Ducal Prussia. Today the northern part of East Prussia, with the exception of the "Memelland" which is now part of Lithuania, corresponds to Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast (Königsberg); the southern parts form Poland's Warminsko-Mazurskie Voivodship. East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the ancient ancestral lands of the Baltic Prussians.

World War II

During World War II, the province was extended (see Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany). In 1939, East Prussia had 2.49 million inhabitants. Many were killed in the war, most of them young people conscripted to the German army and killed in action.

Related Topics:
World War II - Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany - 1939

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The Red Army had entered the eastern-most tip of Prussia by August 29 1944. The news about massacres and rape of civilians committed by the Soviet troops spread panic in the province and caused a mass flight westward. More than 2 million people were evacuated, many of them via the Baltic Sea. Over 15,000 of these refugees drowned when the ships Wilhelm Gustloff, Steuben and Goya were torpedoed by Russian submarines in three of the worst sea disasters in terms of lives lost.

Related Topics:
Red Army - August 29 - 1944 - Evacuated - Wilhelm Gustloff - Steuben - Goya

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After the war, some ethnic Germans who had fled in early 1945 tried to return to their homes in East Prussia. The remaining German population of East Prussia was brutally oppressed and expelled by the Communist regimes. During the war and shortly thereafter, many people were also deported as slave labourers to eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Many of those sent to the Soviet Union ended up in the Gulag camp system. The use of the German language was forbidden, and all German place names were changed to Russian or Polish names.

Related Topics:
Expelled - Communist - Soviet Union - Gulag

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In April 1946, northern East Prussia became an official province of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In July of that year, the capital city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad and the area renamed the Kaliningrad Oblast. After the expulsion of the German population beginning in late 1947 from the Russian territory, ethnic Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians were settled in the northern part, and Polish expatriates from eastern parts of Poland taken over by the Soviet Union were settled in the southern part of East Prussia, now the Polish Warminsko-Mazurskie Voivodship.

Related Topics:
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic - Königsberg - Kaliningrad - Kaliningrad Oblast - Russians - Belarusians - Ukrainians - Warminsko-Mazurskie Voivodship

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