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East Prussia, all I know about it is what I learned as a schoolgirl, and that in the 1920's the old Prussian language was still spoken in villages, where some had kinfolk over in Lithuania.
I have found a few interesting links for those who care to check them out.
There doesn't seem to be a consensus about the ancient Prus and their language as far as I can see, 2 schools of thought.
Here's one site about the Prus language PRUSSIAN* RECONSTRUCTIONS
You can hear spoken Prussian: Spoken Prussian
This is a site written by a Polish language speaker, but in English. Some opinions expressed on this site get rather heated, and I feel there is a distinct bias, but there is some accurate historic data and some nice maps. Prussians - History, Conquest, extermination of ancient Baltic nation
Below is another page from the above site which was cached.
Prussians - History, Conquest, extermination of ancient Baltic nation (http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://prusowie.pl/stowarzyszenie/index-en.php - broken link)
And finally a Mar 3, 1918 article in NY Times titled:
Baltic Provinces Which Germany Is Overrunning; Ruling Teuton Class Has Oppressed Bulk of Inhabitants of Courland, Lithuania, Livonia, and Esthonia for Centuries
East Prussia was problematic even before WWII. After WWI, Germany lost land connection to it, with the city of Danzig (now Gdansk) going to Poland (technically it was independent as "Free City of Danzing but Poland has rights to its port facilities). German attempt to restore the land corridor was a major reason for WWII.
It is a bit ironic that the German state owes its existance to the Kingdom of Prussia, and now historical Prussia is not even part of modern Germany.
There was no GIVING! The Soviets invaded! 1000s of Germans living there had to flee the advancing Soviet army or risk being raped, beaten or shot (as my grandfather was when he refused to leave his farm that had been in the family for generations). Evidently the Soviets felt they had a pretty big grudge against the German people and part of me does understand that point of view (altho I also really wish we still had the farm - apparently it was on the coast and stunning beautiful). The 120,000 Germans remaining in the city in 1945 were captured and held as prisoners until 1949 and those who hadn't died by then were expelled by the Soviets.
Saying "the Soviets invaded!" takes things out of context a bit (to put it mildly). Had the Germans won, territorial changes in their favor would have been far more drastic - they had to make room for the Lebensraum after all.
Germany invaded Russia not the other way around and killed tens of millions of Russians in the process not to mention destroying much of the industrial capacity of that country. The Germans killed over ten million Russian prisoners of war alone. Whole cities were destroyed.
So yeah you could say the Russians (and pretty much everyone else) had a grudge against Germany in 1945. They were extremely lucky that anti-communism displaced hatred of Germany in England and the US as quickly as it did. As late of 1944 the US Sec of Treasury proposed to entirely eliminate all industry in Germany - and the US had been far less harmed by them then the Russians, French, Poles....
In the mid 1990s I went on a bus tour out of Berlin with a German travel agency that went to places in what was known prior to WWII as Silesia and East Prussia. This included a visit to Kaliningrad in the enclave of the Russian Federation formerly called Koenigsberg. I speak enough Russian to have simple, basic conversations, and read enough Russian enough to understand basic things. So I was able to communicate with people around Kalaningrad much better than any of the German tourists on my bus tour. The German tourists were stunned that they could not find anyone who knew how to speak German. Yet here we were, walking around a city with many beautiful buildings put up before WWII, and it looked so similar walking through a city in Saxony, Brandenberg or Pomerania states in the eastern part of Germany. The bus tour guide was a walking history book on the place and could tell you the importance or significance of anything.
Kaliningrad is considered a prosperous place in Russia today. The year round ice-free port, the military bases and good transportation and commercial ties with Central Europe bring in a lot of money and jobs. I liked the place, in fact of all the places I've been in Russia and the former USSR, Kalaningrad is pretty good. Not glamorous or exciting, but a comfortable place to walk around and just enough to do to keep most anyone entertained.
There was no GIVING! The Soviets invaded! 1000s of Germans living there had to flee the advancing Soviet army or risk being raped, beaten or shot (as my grandfather was when he refused to leave his farm that had been in the family for generations). Evidently the Soviets felt they had a pretty big grudge against the German people and part of me does understand that point of view (altho I also really wish we still had the farm - apparently it was on the coast and stunning beautiful). The 120,000 Germans remaining in the city in 1945 were captured and held as prisoners until 1949 and those who hadn't died by then were expelled by the Soviets.
"Soviets invaded" is little bit misleading wording. It's true that Stalin gave Soviet troops a few days to rape and plunder occupied German regions. Except those few days there were rather draconian punishments for doing that. East Prussia was ethnically cleansed, Poles got most of it. Prussian junkers & Prussia were heart & driving force of the German militarism and unification. Stalin made a symbolic statement by wiping it off the map.
East Prussia, all I know about it is what I learned as a schoolgirl, and that in the 1920's the old Prussian language was still spoken in villages, where some had kinfolk over in Lithuania.
I have found a few interesting links for those who care to check them out.
There doesn't seem to be a consensus about the ancient Prus and their language as far as I can see, 2 schools of thought.
Here's one site about the Prus language PRUSSIAN* RECONSTRUCTIONS
You can hear spoken Prussian: Spoken Prussian
This is a site written by a Polish language speaker, but in English. Some opinions expressed on this site get rather heated, and I feel there is a distinct bias, but there is some accurate historic data and some nice maps. Prussians - History, Conquest, extermination of ancient Baltic nation
Below is another page from the above site which was cached.
Prussians - History, Conquest, extermination of ancient Baltic nation (http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://prusowie.pl/stowarzyszenie/index-en.php - broken link)
And finally a Mar 3, 1918 article in NY Times titled:
Baltic Provinces Which Germany Is Overrunning; Ruling Teuton Class Has Oppressed Bulk of Inhabitants of Courland, Lithuania, Livonia, and Esthonia for Centuries
I don't remember right ,but I think that Lithuanian guy who wanted to reconstruct old prussian language died few years ago.....
Old Prussian was 4 baltic country which(closest to Lithuanians,Latvia,Estonia(which is closer to scandinavian).
Samogitian who live in lithuania had the largest connectio with Prussians.my father is Samogitian..there language is alitle bit diffrent from Lithuanian some words and accent sound more to Latvian or Danish.
I listen old prussian language and it sounds alit like Lithuanian..there are similar words..
my father is Samogitian..there language is alitle bit diffrent from Lithuanian some words and accent sound more to Latvian or Danish.
Actually, Samogaitia is also known as Žemaitija. It's where my mother came from. The speech is not a different language, it's more of an accent with regionalisms.
Its a good point about the Junkers. Rightly or wrongly (the Nazi party had few nobles in its ranks iniitally and came primarily from the south of Germany) most allied nations blamed the Junker nobles for the two world wars that nearly destroyed Europe. They were determined to eliminate them as a class and thus prevent future wars.
Actually, Samogaitia is also known as Žemaitija. It's where my mother came from. The speech is not a different language, it's more of an accent with regionalisms.
maybe it's not different ,but there are regions in Lithuania that you can't understand what they are saying.and there alot of different words...
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and there alot of different words...
