(Admin: While the Teutonic Knights did apparently kill a lot of the indigenous population in that area during their Baltic conquest, many - if not the majority - of the locals  would have survived,  and they - and their subsequent generations -  lived happily ever after after they were assimilated into the new order.  That was the way of the world in those days - and not any different  from most  other areas in Europe. Tribal warfare by any other name.  But if that was in any way the justification for destroying hundreds of  years of nation building and western culture, by incinerating thousands of innocent people in their beds and voiding  survivors from their home lands some 700 years later in Konigsberg - well, Luke, let's hope you're not in charge of the next murderous army that seeks to set right the wrongs of some distant past by under the motto of " What goes around, comes around")

I was born in the UK during WW11 and reading the devastating account of the assault on your city appalls me. I visited Dresden in July 2011 for the first time and my feelings were the same. War is futile and only a few gain by it, most suffer and in particular the hard working of the lower ranks.

Your site and all the history it tells is harrowing but necessary to tell the world about your once beautiful city and it's humiliating demise. I hope those who can remember it as it was will gain a tiny fragment of pleasure in the rebuilding and reconstruction of some of the old remains. I hope many more will come to visit your site and larn as I have about Konigsburg.

Thx so much - and yet recall - leading German (!!)politicians such as Schroeder (and Merkel?) joined the Russian/Soviet May 8 celebration in Moscow - with banners flying hammer and sickle with placards of Lenin and Stalin! No mention of Soviet mass-murder - of Russians - or others.

This website is interesting and it is now possible to visit Konigsberg with the travel company Regent Holidays which specializes in unusual locations. I have recently read "Forgotten Land" by Max Egremont which is an interesting and very sad account of the last days of Konigsberg and East Prussia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the world has changed for the better and it is now possible and I hope to see the section of East Prussia currently occupied by Russia returned to Germany in the manner of the former GDR.

(Admin: Thank you, Ian.  I believe it to be highly unlikely that that the Russians will either rename the city back to Konigsberg or return the enclave to Germany.  At the 750 anniversary of the city in 2005 the name Konigsberg was not being used during the celebrations - simply '750 years of Kaliningrad'.  To give this some context, as much as Russia has become more open about acknowledging its troubled past under its previous soviet rule – including such things as the Katyn Forest massacre – it seems there are still a majority of Russians who think that the dictator Stalin is a figure to be admired, and this despite the fact that historians have estimated the number of people that have perished under his absolute and brutal regime to be somewhere between 15 and 30 million. The vast majority of victims would have been his own citizens. In this he is likely only second to his fellow  communist dictator and genocidal butcher Mao Tse-tung in having more deaths of his own citizens on his conscious. So long as the majority of Russians aren't filled with a sense of revulsion when the name of Stalin comes up it is unlikely they are willing to redress any of the criminal actions that were perpetrated in his name. However, there is always hope for the future - but I assume we'll have to wait until ex-KGB operative Putin  - who's wife, incidentally, is from Kaliningrad - is no longer in charge of the country)

(Admin: Thank you for your comments - and with due respect to the citizens of Kaliningrad today who are completely innocent with respect to the destruction of Königsberg,  most recently they appear to have been making an effort to recognize their city's link with the past, including celebrating the 750 year anniversary of Königsberg / Kaliningrad in 2005. Towards this occasion, some of the  bombed-out buildings left standing have been restored to a degree, and apparently more are slated for restoration based on the availability of funds.  I'm still working on a photo page for this site that will attempt to show some of it and will publish it soon.)

(Admin: Point taken - I've changed the language to say "the funding for this included financial support from Germany".  Thanks for pointing that out.)

Oct 16, 2011

Excellent report or account of events. As I was born in Koenigsberg, I still have a deep feeling for my birthplace and it's culture.

It makes me very angry how the allies decided over the German population and divided the country, cutting all roots off.

Hello, I lived in Konigsberg until I was 16 years old, thank you for remembering my home town. I met a Russian born in Kalingrad in Nelson, New Zealand last week, here to play rugby in the Rugby World Cup. His name was Juri. Arno.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the Konigsberg site. My ancestors are from that area, and our original name was KRAMER. How wonderful to see the pictures of what once was. Is the movement to change to the name  back to Konigsberg really a hope, or a pipe dream? I would really like to continue hearing more about other sites in the old East Prussia.

Peters Vecrumba

Warmest regards, Peters (LATVIANS.COM, LOBH.ORG, among others)

Thanks for mantaining the memory of Koenisberg alive. My father was in Koenisberg in 1938 and he was impressed by a city he was admiring may the memory never been lost Should any commemoration event be done let me know. I appreciate Your work - Thank YOU

Giovanni Salieri , Seregno,   Italy

My mother was born in Koenigsberg in 1941. She was a war refugee and fled. She ended up with another family in a refugee camp in Norway before she was adopted by an American family in 1946. Do you know if there are any records still remaining to help find her existing family. She passed away in 2003, but I would welcome any information that you have. Her name was Gisela Machinska, but I've heard that her last name might have been changed to make it less German. Thanks.

An incredible website. I am an architecture student, Konigsberg looks like it was a stunningly, beautiful European city. I would have loved to have been able to visit. It is tragic beyond words what happened there. 800 years of history destroyed in such a short space of time, and what its been replaced with utterly depressing.

I studied modern history up to A-level, and what amazes me is how the complete destruction of German cities and the ethnic cleansing of Germans form Eastern Europe is never mentioned, instead it is just completely ignored. It seems to me that very few people in the English speaking world have any idea that this even happened. Such a total eradication of history, culture, architectural and a whole people deserves to be in the history books?

Regards, Ben    

Very nice presentation. 

A truly sad story on the inhumanity of man.

Hello, my name is Maxim. I'm looking for are people which lived Koenigsberg befor war. I'm was finding some things and want give it back. Gold ring "B. K. 8.4.1928" - marry day, and men which birthday 03.05, surname Wehrum (Wehrim, Wehrm, Wehram), Gottsched str.

It is truly sad what happen to this city and the people who once lived there.  Very few people in this country have no idea what happen to Konigsberg.  The cold war obscured the history of what happen to East Prussia.  I have always been fascinated by what happen to Germany during WWII and especially the destruction that occurred throughout the country.  There is a family in our congregation that fled East Prussia in 1945 and wrote a book about their escape.  They just missed getting onto the German ship Von Stuben which was sunk by the Russians. 

Can you tell me about your background and are you from Konigsberg.  I would love hearing your story.

(Admin: Sorry Peter - I have no connection to Konigsberg, other than having found its tragic story and feeling compelled to preserve the memory of this once great city and its people)

Thank you for this web site. Danke schon.  Ich mochte sagen das auf deutsch, aber mein sprechen nicht so gut ist.

I have been researching the events of post WWII Germany, especially Ostprussen, because my ancestors came from a little town south of Konigsberg, called Kinkheim.  Now it is in Poland and renamed Kinkajme. 

Thanks again

My Father was born in Konigsburg in 1917.  He died in Munhiem in 1988. He fought as a Luftwaffe pilot in WWII although because he never spoke of the war I never did learn how he participated or even if he was forced to participate in the fight.  He, my mom, my sister and brother fled Germany in 53 (after my Dad spent 5 years at a labour camp in Siberia after being caught by a Russian Army force literally hours after Hitler died. They went to start a new life in Canada where I was born in 62.  I still remember my Dad having a few paintings and drawings of his birthplace around the house.  Because I am facinated by the war and what happened after, I went looking for and found your site.  I remember my father saying, "you can't go back, it will never be the same".  I was never sure what he ment but after looking at the before-after shots, I think I now understand.  My mom and grandmother spoke about how difficult it was to abandon the city with only what they had on their backs while it

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

If we look at the bombing of Königsberg as some type of justice, we are making a cruel mistake. By 1944/45 the people suffering the Allied bombings were mostly women and children, many of whom were not even German. Refugees fleeing the Soviets began the westward march years ahead of the Germans. These included not only Baltic peoples (Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians) but also the French, English, and Russian P.O.W.’s who had been assigned to farms throughout East Prussia. There are many autobiographical accounts of those P.O.W.’s fleeing to Germany (and helping their East German captors) in the fear of being liberated by the Soviets. That should tell us something.
Moreover, the Allied bombings by this point in the war cannot be mistaken as having any military significance. These attacks were criticized by strategists (then and now) who felt that resources were needlessly wasted at the expense of compromising ground forces. The bombing of such cities as Königsberg and Dresden are signs of frustration and anger.

So when we read of personal accounts, let us remember that these people were children at the time. If we stand on the Biblical adage “a tooth for a tooth” we will find ourselves toothless and no wiser for the pain.
I think it’s important to note that everyone disregarded the East Prussian people. That includes the Germans who refused to allow their flight. When the order to evacuate was finally given, retreating German soldiers ran these civilians off the roads, leaving them to freeze or starve to death, committing them to the peril of crossing open fields and frozen water, and ultimately leaving an unknown number behind the lines when the Soviet advance overtook them. So I don’t think anyone contributing to a site like this is trying to defend the Nazis; to the contrary, I think it demonstrates that the Nazis didn’t care who they butchered so long as they fed their bloodlust and escaped leaving their people to pay the price.

A web site like this reminds us of other innocent civilians caught up in the insanity of WWII. Let us not disregard their stories because of their nationality. If we are to keep our humanity, if we are to remember the civilian cost of war, we must remember all of it.
Dr. Jay von Minden, USA.