Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Changes in the political power and the population in the southern part of East Prussia, which went to Poland in 1945, led to the removal of traces of the German past in the region, and to its Polonisation immediately after the war. After discussing the de-Germanisation policy, typical of the postwar period, the removal of symbols of ‘German power’, the elimination of the ‘German spirit’, and trends in the adaptation of the new population to the cultural landscape, the author raises the question how relations between the population of the territory and the German heritage and past changed after 1989. The issue is considered in the context of the discussion among intellectuals in Poland as to what the relationship with the German heritage should be. The answer is based on the results of a sociological poll carried out by the Institute for Western Affairs in 2001.

The so-called “Group of Saints” (Heilige) formed in Mazury, in the County of Neidenburg (Kreis Neidenburg), in the late 18th c. and was most active in the parishes of Jerutki (Jerutten), Rozogi (Friedrichshof), and Wielbark (Willenberg). The present article, based on the documents stored in Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin-Dahlem, discusses its activities. In particular, an effort is made to present the reconstructions of the essential policies and postulates of the activity of the group members. The author tries to answer the question about the period of time that the activities of surinkimininkai (Gemeinschaftsbewegung; participants of prayer hours held in private homes by lay preachers) in the Land of Mazury started. The official secession from Church was the principal reason which made the author support the previous researchers of the phenomenon of the “Saints” who attributed the “Saints” to non-traditional religious groups. On the other hand, because of the pietist roots and the majority of their views, they can be considered to be direct predecessors of surinkimininkai.

Like many other towns in East Prussia, Klaipėda lost almost all its former population during World War II and was inhabited by newcomers after 1945. After an example of Klaipėda, the article analyzes the process of comprehension of a newly inhabited area and making it one’s own. Klaipėda became a former East Prussian city having returned to Lithuania and simultaneously incorporated into the Soviet Union. That caused the clash of interests, the development of which also changed the systems of meanings that provided a framework for the appropriation process. The city was gradually comprehended in the process of formation of unique interrelationships of the meanings of Soviet ideology, all-Union patriotism, Lithuanian national culture, and East Prussian cultural heritage. In the article, the author identifies the processes that affected different configurations of the said interrelationships in different post-war periods.

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.

The year 1923 was a critical moment in the history of the Weimar Republic. Due to Germany’s delay in paying war reparations, French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr region in January. Shortly afterwards the Lithuanians seized Memel (now Klaipėda), which in the Treaty of Versailles had been declared a Free City with a French Governor and garrison. German public opinion was outraged by this situation. In the press, a campaign against Lithuania was started. The article is devoted to publish the results of research on the military potential of Reichswehr in East Prussia in January 1923. The hypothesis concerning the military Reichswehr impossibility to influence the Klaipėda events has to be examined in this article.