Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 252–266
Abstract
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.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 231–251
Abstract
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.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 207–230
Abstract
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.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 189–206
Abstract
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.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 160–188
Abstract
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.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 151–159
Abstract
The end of the Second World War vitally influenced the fate of East Prussia not only from a historical point of view, but also its collective memory. The main object of the article is an analysis of the local aspects of this issue. This included the Curonian Spit as an important evacuation route for Klaipėda/Memel inhabitants at the end of 1944 and a reflection of this process in the collective memory. An important aspect of this analysis is connected with the problem of contemporary Curonian Spit residents in relating with the past as a part of their identity.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 127–150
Abstract
The article compares historical literature that conveys the Soviet story of ‘liberation’ of Memel/Klaipėda during World War II, and compares them with post-war German publications dealing with the issue of seizure of Klaipėda that emerged in the post-war period. On the basis of this comparison, verification is sought of the story of ‘liberation’, highlighting its major factual and interpretational problems. The analysis corrects some episodes of the story of Klaipėda’s seizure, thoroughly covering the course of World War II events in the approach of the Eastern Front toward Klaipėda during the period from October 1944 till the end of January 1945.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 109–126
Abstract
The paper gives an overview of military developments on the final stage of Second World War in the East Prussia territory. The events in this area had been sticked in collective German memory as an Apocalypse. The extensive crimes committed by the conqueror, the motives for the mass criminality in East Prussia are examined as well. These events left a collective trauma in the culture of German remembrance, but the consequences for the Soviet Union were also negative.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 87–108
Abstract
This article analyses commemorations of World War II events in the northern part of former East Prussia, comparing discourses and practices of commemoration in post-war Klaipėda region and Kaliningrad oblast. It reviews the socio-cultural developments in this region and distinguishes between private and public forms of commemoration. Author argues that two main plots were important in the public commemoration of war: the plot of “liberation” and that of the victory achieved in the “struggle against Fascism”. Analyzing the public commemoration of these plots, it distinguishes and exhaustively examines its three functions: legitimation of territorial subordination, founding myth, and payment of homage to the warriors as strategies of regime legitimation and the formation of valuable orientations.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 18 (2009): Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaiga Rytų Prūsijoje: faktai ir istorinės įžvalgos = End of the Second World War in East Prussia: Facts and Historical Perception, pp. 71–86
Abstract
The history of the founding of the Kaliningrad region, as part of the USSR, is one of the most vital issues for Kaliningrad historians. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this problem is actively investigated. The article presents the background and history of these investigations, draws the characterization of them, defines the main historical documents published on this issue, point out the progress of the regional researchers and gives general characteristics of contemporary Kaliningrad historiography.