Forgotten Land (8 page)
Authors: Max Egremont
Friendship or familiarity with a place’s history can beat hatred, Lorenz Grimoni thinks. He has an example of this: Yuri Ivanov, the Russian writer who moved to Kaliningrad after the war, had once felt such loathing for everything German that when he came to Königsberg with the Red Army he had helped to cut the sculpted heads off one of the city gates. But later, in the 1960s,
after years in Kaliningrad during which he became increasingly fascinated by its past, Ivanov campaigned against the blowing up of what was left of the castle. He had come to Duisburg with a Russian delegation and Lorenz’s mother, also full of hatred (in her case, for the Russians), was reluctant to meet him when, guided by Lorenz, he toured the town’s Königsberg museum. But Ivanov, a big jolly man, had charmed her so much that she gave him some of her dead husband’s East Prussian books.
after years in Kaliningrad during which he became increasingly fascinated by its past, Ivanov campaigned against the blowing up of what was left of the castle. He had come to Duisburg with a Russian delegation and Lorenz’s mother, also full of hatred (in her case, for the Russians), was reluctant to meet him when, guided by Lorenz, he toured the town’s Königsberg museum. But Ivanov, a big jolly man, had charmed her so much that she gave him some of her dead husband’s East Prussian books.
Lorenz drives me back to where I’m staying and when I ask how many people come to the museum each year he is reluctant to say. Who pays for it? I wonder. The city of Duisburg gives the room, the heating, the light and a cleaner; the German federal and state governments help, and supporters raise the rest. You can’t judge the success of a museum by attendance figures, Lorenz says; visits to German museums in general are down but they had a Kant exhibition recently that drew in thirty thousand people. We pass through the centre of Duisburg. Lorenz reminds me that 80 per cent of the city had been destroyed in the war by the British bombing.
Lorenz Grimoni thinks the Teutonic Knights brought civilization to the east. The poet Johannes Bobrowski, born in East Prussia in 1917, believed the opposite – that Germans should feel guilty not only about the recent horrors on the eastern front, which he had seen as a soldier in the Wehrmacht, but also about the earlier conquest – with its extinction of the pagan Prussians and destruction of Baltic Slav civilizations in what is now Poland, Russia and Lithuania. The land in Bobrowski’s poetry is still unconquered – a region of great rivers, of the Vistula, the Memel and the Nieman, of the Masurian lakes and forests, of coastal lagoons and havens, of beautiful myths of heroes and of gods. This was what the Teutonic Knights – the German order of chivalry – entered when they launched a northern crusade with papal blessing in the thirteenth century. It was to be an equivalent to
the campaign against the Muslims in the Holy Land but aimed principally at the pagan Prussians who lived on the south-eastern edge of the Baltic.
the campaign against the Muslims in the Holy Land but aimed principally at the pagan Prussians who lived on the south-eastern edge of the Baltic.
In September 1991, the Professor of Slavic Studies at Princeton wrote to the
New York Times
to correct the ‘common error’ of calling the original Prussians Slavs; they were, Professor Charles E. Townsend stated, ‘a Baltic tribe, akin to the modern Lithuanians or Latvians’. In medieval Europe, the Wends, the so-called West Slavs, lived to the west of these old Prussians, between the rivers Elbe and Oder. There must have been movement of people, spurred by trade along the Baltic coast, in fur, fish and amber. Then, after the conquest of the old Prussians by the Teutonic Knights, Slavic Poles moved into the newly Christianized lands, chiefly into Masuria, the south-eastern part of what became East Prussia.
New York Times
to correct the ‘common error’ of calling the original Prussians Slavs; they were, Professor Charles E. Townsend stated, ‘a Baltic tribe, akin to the modern Lithuanians or Latvians’. In medieval Europe, the Wends, the so-called West Slavs, lived to the west of these old Prussians, between the rivers Elbe and Oder. There must have been movement of people, spurred by trade along the Baltic coast, in fur, fish and amber. Then, after the conquest of the old Prussians by the Teutonic Knights, Slavic Poles moved into the newly Christianized lands, chiefly into Masuria, the south-eastern part of what became East Prussia.
Racial identities quickly became blurred yet provided reason enough for conflict. The eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen described areas of tension that were still being fought over by Poles, Germans and Russians in the twentieth century. In his history of Königsberg, Fritz Gause, director of the city’s archives and museums at the end of the war, says that Slav settlements came under the early influence of German or Goth culture from the land by the River Vistula or further south; Gause’s use of the word
Kultur
– the opposite of barbarity – is surely significant. Heinrich Himmler, an amateur archaeologist, came to the East Prussian estate of the Dohna family in the 1930s to examine some remains nearby, hoping for evidence of original Germanic settlement.
Kultur
– the opposite of barbarity – is surely significant. Heinrich Himmler, an amateur archaeologist, came to the East Prussian estate of the Dohna family in the 1930s to examine some remains nearby, hoping for evidence of original Germanic settlement.
To Fritz Gause, the Teutonic Knights’ campaign was heroic. But to Poles and Russians it could seem a precursor of the German forces of 1939 and 1941 that had the black cross of the Knights on their planes and tanks. The Knights – the Warrior Monks – combined force with self-denial. The crusade was brutal – but not more brutal than those in the Holy Land. It attracted knights from throughout Christendom, including the future King
Henry IV of England. The English kings Edward I and Edward III contributed to its costs. Chaucer’s ‘verray parfit gentil knyght’ went on a northern campaign or ‘Reise’.
Henry IV of England. The English kings Edward I and Edward III contributed to its costs. Chaucer’s ‘verray parfit gentil knyght’ went on a northern campaign or ‘Reise’.
The northern crusaders needed extraordinary toughness, for the Baltic’s south-eastern edge was an inhospitable wilderness – a country of elk, bears and wolves, of long icy winters and intense short summers – a place, Frederick the Great thought later, unfit for humans. Red-brick castles began to appear, evidence of conquest; bishoprics were established at Marienwerder in 1243 and at Königsberg in 1255, the city that was named after King Ottokar of Bohemia (who had joined a crusade in 1254). Much of what became East Prussia was under the Knights’ control by the end of the thirteenth century and they pressed further east. In 1386 the baptism of the Lithuanian Prince Jagiełło, who also became King of Poland, began the conversion of Lithuania, the last pagan state in Europe.
By 1409 there was conflict between the Polish-Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights and, in 1410, at Grunwald, the Order was defeated and its grand master, Ulrich von Jungingen, killed. The 1410 battle became a symbol either of national triumph or of shame. It was fought near two villages, one called Grunwald, the other called Tannenberg. To the Poles and Lithuanians it became the victory of Grunwald; the Germans, however, took the other village’s name for what to them had been a defeat at the hands of the Slavs – Tannenberg. Five centuries later, in August 1914, when a German army defeated a Russian one near the site, the Germans called this the second battle of Tannenberg, as if to wipe the 1410 Slav victory of Grunwald off the map.
The power of the Orders was waning when in 1511 Albrecht of Brandenburg-Anspach, from the Franconian family of Hohenzollern, with a Jagiełłon mother and King Zygmunt I Stary of Poland for an uncle, became Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. Nineteenth-century Polish nationalists saw Albrecht’s public homage to his uncle the Polish King as a triumph; in fact, it freed Albrecht from the theocratic Orders and began the ascent
of Königsberg, his capital city. Albrecht held power for fifty-seven years, first as grand master, then as Duke of Prussia. His lands became the first evangelical state, with a Lutheran University founded in Königsberg in 1544. The two faiths – Polish Roman Catholicism and Prussian Lutheranism – tolerated one another; unlike in England, remarkably little destruction of Church property occurred as a result of the Reformation. Polish and German were spoken throughout East Prussia, after Polish overlordship ended in 1656. In 1618, with the end of Albrecht’s direct line, Brandenburg and Prussia were united under the Hohenzollern Elector of Brandenburg.
of Königsberg, his capital city. Albrecht held power for fifty-seven years, first as grand master, then as Duke of Prussia. His lands became the first evangelical state, with a Lutheran University founded in Königsberg in 1544. The two faiths – Polish Roman Catholicism and Prussian Lutheranism – tolerated one another; unlike in England, remarkably little destruction of Church property occurred as a result of the Reformation. Polish and German were spoken throughout East Prussia, after Polish overlordship ended in 1656. In 1618, with the end of Albrecht’s direct line, Brandenburg and Prussia were united under the Hohenzollern Elector of Brandenburg.
Settlers came to East Prussia from the west and the accumulation of large estates began. The Lehndorffs arrived in the fifteenth century, the Dohnas and the Dönhoffs at about the same time. In the eighteenth century, there was more immigration: Protestants thrown out by the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1732, Mennonites from less tolerant parts of Germany, Huguenots from France. Königsberg became an international port, with traders from all over Europe. But the land was always hard, devastated by plagues, needing to be drained and reclaimed. Its precarious security was shown in 1656 when Tatars stormed into Masuria, perpetrating massacres still used in the twentieth century to evoke terror of what might come from across the eastern frontier.
Königsberg was chosen for the coronation of the King of Prussia in 1701 because, unlike Berlin, it was outside the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, thus freeing the new king from having to acknowledge the Habsburg Emperor in Vienna as his overlord. In 1713 Frederick I was succeeded by Frederick William I, who doted on his regiment of tall soldiers and forced his oldest son, Frederick (later ‘the Great’), to watch the execution of Frederick’s best friend, Katte, who had been involved in a failed attempt by the boy to flee from Prussia and parental tyranny. Frederick William I consolidated an absolutist state, sound finances and a powerful army and encouraged immigration, particularly into his eastern domains. Tax increases hit the smaller
farmers but the nobility flourished and built many of the large East Prussian houses. The ascent of Prussia as a great power began in 1740 when King Frederick II, ‘the Great’, inherited from his terrible father the strong state that made an adventurous policy possible. With such coups as the conquest of Silesia in 1740 and the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Frederick turned Prussia into a European power, and the perception of a cold, militarized kingdom began. By 1786 it was the thirteenth-largest European state by population but with the third largest army: with a population of 5.8 million, Prussia had an army of 195,000, or a soldier for every twenty-nine subjects.
farmers but the nobility flourished and built many of the large East Prussian houses. The ascent of Prussia as a great power began in 1740 when King Frederick II, ‘the Great’, inherited from his terrible father the strong state that made an adventurous policy possible. With such coups as the conquest of Silesia in 1740 and the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Frederick turned Prussia into a European power, and the perception of a cold, militarized kingdom began. By 1786 it was the thirteenth-largest European state by population but with the third largest army: with a population of 5.8 million, Prussia had an army of 195,000, or a soldier for every twenty-nine subjects.
Frederick’s foreign adventures were no more cynical or brutal than those of Louis XIV or Napoleon or the later imperial expansion of Britain and France. Also they were not always successful. They gained territory for Prussia – Silesia, Roman Catholic Warmia in the first Polish partition (Danzig and Thorn came later) – but also brought about defeat when Königsberg came under Russian rule from 1758 until 1762. Kant wrote a letter of homage to his new monarch, the Tsarina Elizabeth.
Prussia, shown to be fragile by Frederick II’s defeats, was overwhelmed by Napoleon. The Prussian court fled from Berlin to Königsberg in December 1806, then further north-east to Memel in January 1807. After the battle of Eylau, in February 1807, Napoleon ruled his empire from the East Prussian castle of Finckenstein for ten weeks, while having a liaison with the Polish Countess Marie Walewska, before winning a decisive victory in June at Friedland. The Teutonic Knights had built fortifications at Friedland some four hundred and fifty years before.
The humiliation of the Prussian King, Frederick William III, was demonstrated by the King’s presence as a mere observer at the meeting on 25 June 1807 between Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon on a raft on the River Niemen at Tilsit. Queen Luise’s approach to Napoleon on 6 July in the town, when she pleaded for her defeated country, was appropriated by manufacturers of commemorative plates as a beautiful romance, although the effect
on the Emperor was minimal. Memorials to the Russian dead were put up later by the Prussians on the battlefields of Friedland and Eylau.
on the Emperor was minimal. Memorials to the Russian dead were put up later by the Prussians on the battlefields of Friedland and Eylau.
In 1807, the French Emperor seemed invincible. On 10 July, after the meetings at Tilsit, he entered Königsberg, to flowers and the pealing of bells, to take up residence in the castle until the 13th. The French occupied the city for thirty-nine days. The people of Königsberg – unlike Berliners under a similar occupation – were said to have been ‘meritorious’ and ‘reserved’ and the conquerors kept, on the whole, good discipline; Königsbergers were surprised to find so many German Rhinelanders in French uniform. The city suffered from the plunder of war, the French taking from the castle all the amber in the royal apartments and turning the old weapons into scrap metal. The buyers of this loot, Fritz Gause, the last director of the town’s archives and museums, notes in his history of the city, were ‘Jewish merchants’. The invasion brought missed harvests, forced requisitions and plundering. The trade of the port was closed to enemies of the French. Huge bonfires of English goods blazed by the Königstor, the city’s main gate.
Forced into an alliance with Napoleon, Prussia, particularly its eastern territories, seemed to have only a great past and a future at best as a French or Russian satellite. The King and Queen came to Königsberg from Memel in January 1808 and stayed until December 1809. At that time of apparent humiliation, the administrators responsible for the reforms that revolutionized Prussia again gathered in Königsberg: Stein, Gneisenau, Humboldt. But first, in 1812, the city – and its surrounding region – was forced to help equip what was now its French ally for the invasion of Russia; the teeming herds of oxen needed by the Grand Army showed the extent of Napoleon’s empire, coming as they did from Lombardy, the Low Countries and what is now Croatia.
It was reported that the French had taken Moscow. By the end of November very different rumours were confirmed by the first
refugees. In December, columns of frost-bitten, ragged troops accompanied by skeletal horses trudged westwards, ridiculed by the people of East Prussia. Taking advantage of French disarray, the Prussians, at the Convention of Taurrogen that month, abandoned the alliance with Napoleon in favour of neutrality. Now the Russians were their liberators and Tsar Alexander I was greeted at Lyck, on Prussia’s eastern frontier, by a priest and a joyful crowd.
refugees. In December, columns of frost-bitten, ragged troops accompanied by skeletal horses trudged westwards, ridiculed by the people of East Prussia. Taking advantage of French disarray, the Prussians, at the Convention of Taurrogen that month, abandoned the alliance with Napoleon in favour of neutrality. Now the Russians were their liberators and Tsar Alexander I was greeted at Lyck, on Prussia’s eastern frontier, by a priest and a joyful crowd.
Colonel Alfred Knox’s risky East Prussian journey of 1911 had irritated his superiors but by March 1914 he was back in favour after an important dispatch on the Russian army.
Knox wrote that Russia was the only great European power to have had recent experience of modern warfare: in Manchuria in 1904 and 1905 when, in spite of dreadful tactical errors, the army had been remarkably brave. He stated that ‘owing to the rigour of the climate and the lower general civilisation, all ranks are more fitted than the men of central Europe to stand privation and nerve strain’. Another asset was ‘the simple, almost fanatical, faith of the Russian soldier in God and the Emperor.’ What they needed was more time – the men, ‘grandsons of serfs’, lacked initiative, and too many reserve officers came from the ‘unpatriotic’ intelligentsia – but by April 1917 the Russians could have over two million men under arms. At the War Office in London, General Sir Henry Wilson wrote on the dispatch, ‘It is easy to understand now why Germany is anxious about the future & why she may think that it is a case of “now or never”.’
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