East Prussia
East Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 ; following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's Free State of Prussia, until 1945. Its capital city was Königsberg. East Prussia was the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast.
History
The bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians were enclosed within the later province of East Prussia. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. After the conquest they were gradually converted to Christianity. As a result of the medieval Ostsiedlung, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles and Lithuanians formed sizeable minorities. From the 13th century, the region of Prussia was part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights. After the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 it became a part of the Kingdom of Poland, either directly or as a fief. In 1525, with the Prussian Homage, the territory became the Duchy of Prussia, a vassal duchy of Poland. It gained full sovereignty in 1657, when Poland renounced its feudal rights in the Treaty of Bromberg.Because the duchy was outside of the core Holy Roman Empire, the prince-electors of Brandenburg were able to proclaim themselves King beginning in 1701. After the annexation of most of Royal Prussia in the First Partition of Poland in 1772, eastern Prussia was connected by land with the rest of the Prussian state and was reorganized as a province the following year. Between 1829 and 1878, the Province of East Prussia was joined with West Prussia to form the Province of Prussia. The Polish and Lithuanian minorities were subjected to Germanisation policies.
The Kingdom of Prussia became the leading state of the German Empire after its creation in 1871. However, the Treaty of Versailles following World War I granted West Prussia to Poland and made East Prussia an exclave of Weimar Germany, while the Memel Territory, part of the Lithuania Minor region, was detached and annexed by Lithuania in 1923. Following Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II in 1945, war-torn East Prussia was divided at Joseph Stalin's insistence between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of Poland. The capital city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. The German and the Masurian population of the province was largely evacuated during the war or expelled shortly afterwards in the expulsion of Germans after World War II. An estimated 300,000 died either in wartime bombing raids, in the battles to defend the province, through mistreatment by the Red Army, or from hunger, cold and disease.
Geography
The landscape of East Prussia consisted of gently rolling plains and small hills, with flatter terrain in the north and more hills in the south. The province had a humid continental climate which was most pronounced in Lithuania Minor and at higher elevations in the south in the region of Masuria, while the northwesternmost coastal parts approached an oceanic climate.In the northwest, the province bordered the Baltic Sea, with the Vistula Spit and Curonian Spit separating the sea itself from the Vistula Lagoon and Curonian Lagoon, respectively. The Sambia Peninsula juts into the Baltic Sea between these two lagoons. Most of the rivers of East Prussia emptied into the two lagoons; the Pregel, Passarge, and Frisching into the Vistula Lagoon, and the Memel and Minge into the Curonian Lagoon.
In the northeast of the province, the river Scheschuppe, a left-tributary of the Memel, formed the border with the Russian Empire, and today forms the border between Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania. The Klaipėda Region was formed from the portion of the province located north of the Memel river. Adjacent to the Curonian Lagoon and the lower reaches of the Memel river could be found the, a vast partially-drained bog, much of it below sea-level.
Further south, the region becomes more hilly, with fewer bogs and more lakes. To the east, near the modern Polish-Russian border, is the Romincka Forest, a former hunting-ground for Prussian nobility. On the eastern end of the forest is Lake Vištytis, and to the south are the . The Angrapa river, a tributary of the Pregel, flows out Lake Mamry on the northern end of the Masurian Lake District. The largest lake in the province was Spirdingsee, at 113.8 square kilometers in area.
The headwaters of the Pregel's numerous tributaries were found in southern East Prussia, with the longest, the Alle, extending almost to the southern border with Congress Poland, winding its course northward through southern Warmia and the central portion of the province. In the southernmost regions, the rivers flow to the south, emptying into the Narew and Vistula rivers. The highest elevation of East Prussia at 312 meters above sea level was Kernsdorfer Höhe, found in the southwest near the border with West Prussia.
Background
Medieval Prussia under the Teutonic Order
At the instigation of Duke Konrad I of Masovia, the Teutonic Knights took possession of Prussia in the 13th century and created a monastic state to administer the conquered Old Prussians. Local Old-Prussian and Polish toponyms were gradually Germanised.The Knights' expansionist policies, including occupation of Polish Pomerania with Gdańsk/Danzig and western Lithuania, brought them into conflict with the Kingdom of Poland and embroiled them in several wars, culminating in the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War, whereby the united armies of Poland and Lithuania, defeated the Teutonic Order at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.
In 1440, the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation was founded, and various cities and nobles of the region joined it. In 1454, upon the Confederation's request King Casimir IV of Poland signed the act of incorporation of the entire region into the Kingdom of Poland.
The Teutonic Knights' defeat was formalised in the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 ending the Thirteen Years' War. The restoration of Pomerelia to Poland was confirmed, and Warmia also was confirmed part of Poland, with both co-forming the newly created autonomous province of Royal Prussia.
The remainder of historic Prussia also became a part of "one and indivisible" Kingdom of Poland as a fief and protectorate held by the Teutonic Knights. 1466 and 1525 arrangements by kings of Poland were not verified by the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the previous gains of the Teutonic Knights, were not verified.
Early modern transformation
The Teutonic Order lost eastern Prussia when Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach converted to Lutheranism and secularized the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order in 1525. Albert established himself as the first duke of the Duchy of Prussia and a vassal of the Polish crown by the Prussian Homage.Walter von Cronberg, the next Grand Master, was enfeoffed with the title to Prussia after the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, but the Order never regained possession of the territory. In 1569 the Hohenzollern prince-electors of the Margraviate of Brandenburg became co-regents with Albert's son, the feeble-minded Albert Frederick.
The Administrator of Prussia, the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order Maximilian III, son of emperor Maximilian II died in 1618. When Maximilian died, Albert's line died out, and the Duchy of Prussia passed to the Electors of Brandenburg, forming Brandenburg-Prussia.
Prussia between Poland and Brandenburg
Taking advantage of the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655, and instead of fulfilling his vassal's duties towards the Polish Kingdom, by joining forces with the Swedes and subsequent treaties of Wehlau, Labiau, and Oliva, Elector and Duke Frederick William succeeded in revoking the king of Poland's sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia in 1660.There was strong opposition to the separation of the region from Poland, especially in Königsberg. A confederation was formed in the city to maintain Poland's sovereignty over the city and region. The Brandenburg Elector and his army, however, entered the city and abducted and imprisoned the leader of the city's anti-Elector opposition Hieronymus Roth.
In 1663, the city burghers, forced by Elector Frederick William, swore an oath of allegiance to him, however, in the same ceremony they still also pledged allegiance to Poland. The absolutist elector also subdued the noble estates of Prussia.
The Kingdom of Prussia
Although Brandenburg was a part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Prussian lands were not within the Holy Roman Empire and were with the administration by the Teutonic Order grandmasters under jurisdiction of the Emperor. In return for supporting Emperor Leopold I in the War of the Spanish Succession, Elector Frederick III was allowed to crown himself "King in Prussia" in 1701.The new kingdom ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty became known as the Kingdom of Prussia. The designation "Kingdom of Prussia" was gradually applied to the various lands of Brandenburg-Prussia. To differentiate it from the larger entity, the former Duchy of Prussia became known as Altpreußen, the province of Prussia, or "East Prussia".
Approximately one-third of East Prussia's population died in the Great Northern War plague outbreak and famine of 1709–1711, including the last speakers of Old Prussian. The plague, probably brought by foreign troops during the Great Northern War, killed 250,000 East Prussians, especially in the province's eastern regions.
Crown Prince Frederick William I led the rebuilding of East Prussia, founding numerous towns. In 1724, Frederick William I prohibited Poles, Samogitians and Jews from settling in Lithuania Minor, and initiated German colonization to change the region's ethnic composition. Thousands of Protestants expelled from the Archbishopric of Salzburg were allowed to settle in depleted East Prussia.
In 1756 Russia decided to go to war with the Kingdom of Prussia and annex the territory, which was then to be offered to Poland as part of a territorial exchange desired by Russia, however, ultimately Russia only occupied the region for four years during the Seven Years' War before withdrawing in 1762 and did not make Poland an offer of territorial exchange.