History of a city: Kant, Klopse, war: 80 years of Kaliningrad instead of Königsberg

The 50 meter high cathedral rises majestically above the island in the Pregel River. Almost 700 years after it was built, it is still the city’s landmark, and the area around the brick building is a popular destination for Kaliningraders and vacationers in the Russian Baltic Sea exclave.

The tomb of Immanuel Kant at the back of the cathedral is a place of pilgrimage for young newlyweds. Flowers testify that the great German thinker, who placed reason and morality at the center of his philosophy, also has his followers in Russia.

The university of the Baltic Sea metropolis, which rests on the foundations of the former Albertina, has borne Kant’s name since 2005. During the cold season, the small stalls around the cathedral serve mulled wine called Kant wine.

But the former city center at the Kneiphof has now degenerated into a peripheral location. For the most part, the facades of Soviet apartment blocks characterize Kaliningrad. They make it clear just as impressively as the name that the city, which many Germans know primarily for the popular meat dish Königsberger Klopse, has been Russian for 80 years.

When the Soviet troops conquered Königsberg in April 1945, not much was left of the once proud Hanseatic city, which was founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Order of Knights.

Residence city of Prussian princes and Russian rule

In the almost 700 years of German history, Königsberg had experienced rises and falls. The city was the seat of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order and later the residence of the Prussian princes. In 1701, Elector Friedrich III was crowned. here to King Frederick I of Prussia.

A few years later, however, almost 10,000 people from Königsberg – and thus a quarter of the population – fell victim to the great plague. A few decades later, the Russians conquered Königsberg in the Seven Years’ War. From 1758 to 1762, when the new Tsar Peter III. When East Prussia voluntarily returned to Frederick II, the city was under Russian rule.

But Königsberg has never been hit as badly as it was in the Second World War. The Germans had started the war under Adolf Hitler, wanted to conquer “living space in the East” and brought destruction and destruction to their neighboring peoples. But this same scourge ultimately turned against the Germans themselves – especially in Königsberg.

Königsberg was completely destroyed in the Second World War

In 1944, British air raids practically completely destroyed the old town. They also turned the castle, the university and the cathedral into a field of rubble. The battle for Königsberg, which was declared a fortress, destroyed what was left.

When the Red Army marched into Königsberg in April 1945, there were only ruins. While more than 360,000 people lived in the city before the outbreak of the Second World War, by the end of the war there were fewer than 50,000. They had to do forced labor, many died of hunger and exhaustion, and the last Germans were expelled from East Prussia in 1948.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who had secured the northern part of East Prussia as spoils of war at the Potsdam Conference, had Russians settle on the Baltic Sea. He deliberately incorporated the region, initially called Kjonigsbergskaya Oblast, into Russia and not into Lithuania, which also belonged to the Soviet Union. Politically, the Baltic Republic, which Moscow had acquired only a few years earlier in the Hitler-Stalin pact, was considered unreliable.

Renamed after Soviet party leader

East Prussia was supposed to secure the Kremlin’s military influence in Europe – this was one of the reasons why the naval port in Pillau was further expanded and made into the main base of the Soviet Baltic Sea Fleet.

But in order to underpin the claim to the strategically important region, a name change was needed. Pillau became Baltiysk, and the regional capital Königsberg was given the name Kaliningrad on July 4, 1946, after the death of the Russian party official Mikhail Kalinin.

Kalinin, formal head of state of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1946, had no connections at all to the city. Giving names to dead or even living party leaders was a widespread practice in Soviet times, especially under Stalin.

Six cities were renamed in honor of Stalin; the most famous was Stalingrad, today’s Volgograd. But five Soviet towns also bore Kalinin’s name. The most famous city besides Kaliningrad was Kalinin, today’s Tver.

Unlike Tver, Kaliningrad did not get its old name back during perestroika. Here, too, there were many voices who spoke out in favor of a renaming. But such a maneuver was too explosive for Moscow to even entertain thoughts of returning the exclave to Germany. Instead, the Kantgrad alternative was actually seriously discussed for a long time.

Edge grade as an alternative?

The ulterior motive was not only to honor the city’s most famous son, but also the desire to build bridges to Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union turned Kaliningrad into an island, so to speak, and its residents oriented themselves towards the West. Moscow tried to build Kaliningrad into a pilot region, a new “window to Europe”.

The area benefited from this for a while. There was a train and a flight connection to Berlin. And pre-Soviet history also experienced new interest. Enthusiasts rebuilt the cathedral, which had been in ruins since the Second World War – also with German help.

The increasing confrontation with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 ended the attempts at rapprochement on both sides. The bridge became a fortress. Kaliningrad is now as heavily armed militarily as it was in Soviet times. German history is officially no longer in demand in Kaliningrad today – only the residents continue to affectionately call the city “Kenig”.