Klaipėdos universitetas

The article is dedicated to the dramatic history of the Wallenrodt library – the book repository in Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad) of the 17th-20th centuries. The Wallenrodt library was given space in the Königsberg main cathedral, which was in close proximity to the University. In the 19th century, the library contained about 10,000 books and manuscripts. In 1909, United Library of Königsberg acquired custodianship of this famous book collection. In March, 1945, as fighting approached Königsberg, the books were packed into 200 boxes, but were not taken from the city. On the 6th of April, Königsberg was attacked by the Red Army. It is impossible to give a complete accounting of the post-war fate of this precious book collection. Luckily, Kaliningrad inherited a small, but invaluable, because of its authenticity, part of book treasury of the former Königsberg book repository. Old books are the pearls of the University Museum and the return of this collection to its native town has a very symbolic meaning.

Analysis of the contemporary Lithuanian historiography indicates a lack of research by historians of the socio-economic aspects of Klaipėda’s post-war history. Methods of settling the rural territory of Klaipėda region and the Klaipėda-city are examined. The specifics of involving specialists from various sectors in the reconstruction and the activities of the Soviet Lithuanian leadership are discussed.

The repressive politics of the Soviet Union between 1939-1941 and 1939-1958, which affected 1 in 10 Lithuanians, is well researched by Russian and Lithuanian researchers. The most important archival documents and research have been published. Few, however, know of the deportation from Lithuania to Tajikistan at the end of the Second World War of a small Lithuanian minority of German ancestry. In this article, the selection criteria and other circumstances that led to the deportation of this 908 person group, that were considered “enemies of the State” in 22-26 of April, 1945, is defined using the electronic database gathered at the Centre of the Research of Genocide and Resistance in Lithuania, documents from the KGB archive and diaries and memoirs of the deportees themselves. Comparisons are made between the treatment of “enemy nationals” of German, Japanese or Italian ancestry by the democratic allies – USA, Britain and Canada and totalitarian USSR.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the solution (?) of the case. People, because of famine and the occupation of the East Prussia by the Stalinists, fled the Kaliningrad region to Lithuania and other regions in search of bread and work. How many were there? There are hypothesis that 5-7 thousand or more people from Kaliningrad roamed Lithuania in 1946-1947. After the deportation of the ethnic people from the Königsberg/Kaliningrad region in 1947-1949, the MGB and Soviet militia structures searched for them in the neighbouring territories. The net result of the action was the deportation of the so called “Kaliningrad Germans” in 10-12 May, 1951 from Lithuania to Germany. The total amount of deportees, who declared their birth place as East Prussia, was 3415 persons from Lithuania and 275 other regions. The principal result of these deportations of unnecessary, ideologically foreign people was that East Prussia became homogeneously Soviet and all that remained of Königsberg and East Prussia were historical facts.

Based on documents in the Kaliningrad Regional State Archive, the article considers the health of the German population and Soviet people in East Prussia (the territory of the Special Military District and subsequently – the Kaliningrad Region). Factors, such as provisioning/nutrition, the state and dynamics of the health care system and living conditions that influenced the civilian population’s incidences of disease and mortality rates during the first post-war years are examined. Special attention is given to the lives of German and Soviet children in the East Prussia in 1945-1947.

Technical and technological construction questions of Memel / Klaipėda tunnel bombshelters of the World War II are analyzed in the following article. These questions help to reconstruct historical aspects of function and presumable purpose of these bombshelters during the siege of the town. The researches allowed to systematize the attributes, typical of such constructions. For the research of bombshelters’ constructions and materials, a comparative method was used: the received results were compared with analogous research results of Memel / Klaipėda and its surroundings’ structures – antiaircraft (Flak) and coast artillery battery – which functioned during the World War II. The constructions of remained German bombshelters are more than modest; the technological mistakes allow suppose, that the builders of the shelters didn’t dispose such material and human resources like ones of the batteries. Beside this, the durability of the bombshelters leads to believe that builders used some building materials of high quality, for example, the slag cement, the waterproof concrete and plaster.