– just another voice in the cosmic wilderness –

This site is about a conveniently forgotten part of  relatively recent  European history which bears repeating every so often lest we forget  how stupid, cruel and inhumane we can be to our fellow human beings.  While researching the appalling act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Soviet Dictator  Josef Stalin – and aided and abetted  by Harry Truman and Winston Churchill at the end of WWII -  I came across the tragic fate of the historic and once thriving German city of Königsberg.  Overrun by the Soviet Red Army in early 1945 and essentially given to the Soviet Union by the Allied forces because Stalin wanted a year-round ice-free harbour – and renamed to Kaliningrad in 1945 - it is located within a small section of Russian territory known as the Oblast or region of Kaliningrad,  lying on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It is disconnected from the main bulk of the Russian land mass by Poland in the south,  and by Lithuania to its North and East.

Prior to 1945 Königsberg was the cultural and economic centre in the German province of East Prussia, a region that was then cut off from the main part of Germany by a narrow strip of Polish territory and the city state of Danzig (now the Polish port of Gdansk). It was the dispute over this narrow piece of Polish land that gave Hitler the excuse to invade Poland in 1939, sparking off WWII.

The origins of Königsberg date back to a massive castle by the same name built in 1255 by the knights of the Teutonic order in the course of their expansion in the Baltic region. During the 1286-1327 period the three settlements which had formed round the castle of Konigsberg (Altstadt, Lobenicht and Kneiphof) were granted the status of towns. In 1724, they officially merged into the city of Königsberg.

The historical center of the city with an architecture characteristic of the period was formed in the late Middle Ages. Its symbols were the King’s Castle (mid-13th century), and the Cathedral Church (14th century). Altogether, there are some 730 historical and cultural monuments in the city which up to 1939 had a population of  around 350,000. For centuries, Königsberg was the metropolis of eastern Germany. The city played an important role in Europe’s international relations and became a meeting point of diverse historical and cultural traditions, as well as the home for people of various nationalities and religious beliefs.

Thus, the Huguenot settlers (French Protestants) set up many enterprises and whole industries there. Poles, Lithuanians, English and Dutch; merchants from every European country; artisans and learned men of every nationality not only coexisted peacefully: they also respected each other and together they built up their city. They helped form the world’s first Protestant state (1525) named the Duchy of Prussia with Königsberg as its capital.

On several occasions Königsberg found itself in the epicentre of major European conflicts: the Seven-Year War (1756-1763), the Napoleonic wars (1805-1807 and 1812-1814), the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945) Founded in 1544, the University of Königsberg became the center of attraction for men of science and culture from Poland and Lithuania. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the great philosopher, lived and worked here. It was in that city that the first-ever books were printed in Lithuanian.

Arts and commerce flourished here. Grand merchant houses, banking offices, palaces and opera houses were erected in the city center, around the reddish Gothic Cathedral on Kneiphof Island.

However, as a result of WWII, neither Königsberg nor East Prussia exist anymore.  The city’s historic centre had been fire-bombed into near oblivion by Arthur “Bomber” Harris and the RAF in August of 1944.  Occasionally bombed by the Soviet Air Forces, No. 5 Group of the Royal Air Force first attacked the city on the night of 26/27 August 1944. The raid was in the extreme range for the 174 Avro Lancasters that flew 950 miles from their bases to bomb the city.

Three nights later on the 29/30 August, a further 189 Lancasters of No. 5 Group tried the target again dropping 480 tons of bombs on the centre of the city. Bomber Command estimated that 20% of all the industry and 41% of all the housing in Königsberg was destroyed in the attack.  Further destruction was brought about during the 3 month siege of Königsberg by the Soviet Red Army in early 1945 and which ended on April 9 with the surrender of the local German army.

The historic city center, consisting of the quarters Altstadt, Löbenicht and Kneiphof was in fact completely destroyed, among it the Dom cathedral, the castle, all churches of the city, the old and the new university.

Out of Königsberg’s prewar population of  approximately 350,000 Germans 42,000 died during the war while many had fled elsewhere to escape the fighting.  Precise numbers are hard to come by, but perhaps as many as 100,000  survived the aerial onslaught of 1944, only to be held as virtual prisoners within their own city by the Red Army while enduring tremendous suffering until they were expelled 500 km westward across Poland to Germany between 1949 and 1950 as part of  Stalin’s ethnic cleansing project to remove every German from former Nazi territory that was now part of the Soviet communist empire.

While many other German cities suffered similar fates in WWII, being nearly bombed into oblivion, thousands of its citizens killed (Dresden and Hamburg come to mind) the situation at Königsberg deserves special mention.

Over the years much of Hamburg and Dresden has been rebuilt, with many of the destroyed significant landmarks being restored to their prewar condition. As recently as 2005 the historically significant Frauenkirche in Dresden was re-consecrated in its restored state after having been essentially destroyed in the war.

When the Soviets took possession of the devastated city in 1945, they took a different approach. They simply bulldozed the remains of most of the bombed out buildings and trucked away the rubble – shipping still usable building materials back to mother Russia,  thus eliminating all possibility of their eventual restoration, while leaving some standing in their bombed-out condition until as recent as 2005.

Given that all of the areas original German inhabitants had been expelled, there was no local opposition to this as Stalin had repopulated the city with people from all over the Soviet union, including from as far away as Siberia. As well, the city was now Soviet territory and – behind the Iron Curtain – essentially closed to all foreign eyes because Stalin was turning it in to a naval base, taking advantage of a newly acquired year-round ice free harbor with access to the Baltic sea.

It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, that the region has come out from behind the iron curtain to fend for itself and make a better life for its citizens. In the process, some of the remains of the old city of Königsberg have been restored to a semblance of their original state,  adding a bit more interest to the local post-war Soviet architecture which – in typical Stalin fashion – consists of the usual rows of dreadfully drab apartment blocks meant for the communist worker bee with only the bottle of vodka to look forward to at the end of yet another dreary day in their worker’s paradise.

In particular, the iconic Dom church on Kneiphof Island, which was still a ruin in 1990 has been largely restored with the help of German money and now looks very close to its original. Also, Kaliningrad acknowledged its link with the past by celebrating the 750 year anniversary of Königsberg / Kaliningrad in 2005. Towards this occasion, other bombed-out buildings have been restored to some degree, and more are slated for restoration based on the availability of funds.

The City of Königsberg is part of history now, and its tragic fate already largely forgotten if not ignored.  Yet today, and every year, many German expellees originally from that  ill-fated city and surrounding area undertake a trek back to their former homeland to look for that which was forever taken from them: their place of birth and the neighbourhoods and communities they grew up in. These are the things by which most of us are able to define ourselves, at least initially – and from which we build ourselves as individuals as we grow up, regardless of where we eventually end up,  geographically,  socially, economically or culturally.  Often referred to as “homesickness-tourism”,  it  finds now mostly aging people looking for their cultural and ancestral roots so brutally ripped out from underneath them after hundreds of years of settlement in East Prussia.  Here, the worst kind nostalgia reigns: they find themselves in a present with little or no  continuity with the past to latch on to, and putting into question the very memories they have of it and themselves being nurtured by it.   No doubt some will say that this is the price you pay for having been part of a warring nation – at least you were able to escape with your lives!  To this I would say: well, yes, but they only got away with part of their lives, as one part of it was violently amputated when their city was incinerated by the RAF and the  charred remains  handed to the Soviet Union for  ethnic cleansing and final disposal by the demonic Joseph Stalin.