Ostpreußen

Ostpreußen (East Prussia), a former Prussian province (Provinz), is now partly Lithuanian, partly Russian, and partly Polish territory. The north-eastern area around Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) has been incorporated into Russia, while Masuria (see Masuren) and the western region are Polish. (See also Ottokar II.)

In the Middle Ages the originally Slavonic region was conquered by the knights of the Teutonic Order (see Deutscher Orden), and in 1525 became the Duchy of Prussia. In 1618 it passed after a long period of confusion and misrule into the hereditary possession of the Elector of Brandenburg, Johann Sigismund. It was at that time horseshoe-shaped, the central portion (Ermland), including a stretch of the Baltic coast, belonging to Poland; the duchy was also separated from Brandenburg by a broad belt of Polish territory. The Duchy of Prussia did not take kindly to Hohenzollern rule, but in 1662 disorders and risings were finally quelled by the Great Elector (see Friedrich Wilhelm, der Grosse Kurfürst). Friedrich I extended the name to his other dominions, including Brandenburg and Pomerania, and the duchy was renamed East Prussia.

The first Partition of Poland (see Poland, Partitions of) in 1772 gave to Prussia the territory linking East Prussia with Pomerania and Brandenburg. The third Partition (1795) added to East Prussia vast Polish territories, including Ostrolenka and Bialystok, designating them New East Prussia (Neuostpreußen). By the Treaty of Tilsit (see Napoleonic Wars) this was permanently lost by East Prussia. From 1815 to 1945 East Prussia was a Prussian province. In 1919 it was separated from the rest of Prussia by a strip of Polish territory reaching the coast at Gdynia, known as the Polish Corridor, and by the Free State of Danzig, established under the Treaty of Versailles (see Versailles, Treaty of).

East Prussia has repeatedly suffered from the ravages of war, notably in the Seven Years War (see Siebenjähriger Krieg), in 1914 and 1915, when it was the scene of the battle of Tannenberg and of the two Masurian battles, and finally in 1945 (see Weltkriege I and II). In the course of the 1939-45 War some 600, 000 inhabitants lost their lives by enemy action or in attempts to escape across the ice when East Prussia was cut off in 1945. After the end of the war the greater part of the German population was expelled.