Jump to content

Klaipėda Region

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lschulz (talk | contribs) at 08:00, 6 August 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Historical map of East Prussia and the Klaipėda region.

The Klaipėda Region ([Memelland or Memelgebiet] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)), in English: Memel Territory, was a territory historically part of East Prussia, as well as the German Empire. Following World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles in 1920, it fell under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors followed by a short occupation by French troops. It was seized by Lithuania in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923 and remained an integral part of Lithuania until 1939, when it was annexed by Nazi Germany. After World War II, the territory was part of the Lithuanian SSR and today is contained within Lithuania's Klaipėda and Tauragė counties, which border Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the south.

History

The area has historically been a part of various political entities:

History between the World Wars

Banknote of emergency money from 1922 issued and used in Memel (www.GermanNotes.com)

By decree of the Treaty of Versailles in February of 1920, this former part East Prussia, north of the Niemen River and up to the town of Memel, was separated from Germany. It was designated as the Memel Territory (Territoire de Memel, Memelland,Klaipėda Region), was separated from Germany and passed to an interim supervisor, the Council of Ambassadors. The administration and control of the region was nominally exercised by France.

In January 1923, three years after Versailles, the Lithuanian inhabitants of the territory rose up against the French administration during the Klaipėda Revolt. On January 19, leading rebels asked for formal admission into Lithuania as an autonomous territory. The Memel Territory was then granted a separate parliament, two official languages, capacity to raise its own taxes, charge custom duties, manage its cultural and religious affairs, allowed a separate judical system, internal control of agriculture and forestry, as well as a separate social security system. Lithuania accepted these demands, and thus the Klaipėda Territory came to be an autonomous province within Lithuania. Importantly, the annexation gave Lithuania control of a year-round ice-free Baltic port.

The Council of Ambassadors accepted the resulting arrangement and confirmed the autonomy of the region within the Republic of Lithuania. On May 8th 1924, a further Convention on the Klaipėda region confirmed the annexation, and a resulting autonomy agreement was signed in Paris. Memel Territory was recognized as an integral part of The Republic of Lithuania also by Germany on January 29, 1928, where the 2 countries signed the (Lithuanian - German Border Treaty). In Klaipėda Territory, however, as an autonomous region inside Lithuania, also had a significant German population, in addition to a significant part of the population who chose to identify themselves as Klaipėdians rather than Lithuanians during official census (see below for demographic information). Both the Lithuanian and German languages at this time were official languages in the Region.

Between 1924-1940, the government of Lithuania faced considerable opposition from the Region's autonomouse institutions. The minority German population had a significant say with regards to the Regions' policies, and as years passed, were becoming more and more vocal about its desire to be re-integrated into a resurgent Germany. It was only during the latter period that Lithuania then instituted a policy of 'Lithuanization'. This was met by even more opposition, as religious and regional differences slowly became unsurmountable. Nonetheless, Lithuania fully used the makings of Klaipėda port, modernizing and adapting largely for its agricultural exports. The port reconstruction was certainly one of the larger long-term investment projects ennacted by the government of Lithuania.

At the start of the 1930's, certain leaders of pro-Nazi organizations in the region were put on trial by Lithuania. The 1934-5 proceedings of Neumann and Sass in Kaunas can be presented as the 1st anti-Nazi trial in Europe. A significant difference however, was that its leaders were not indicted for their pro-Nazi ideology, but rather for their undesirable relations with Nazi Germany. On account of later political and economical pressure from Germany, most of these leaders were released. By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in Territory. On March 22, 1939, after a political ultimatum, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Juozas Urbšys and his Germany counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany. Germany then promptly invaded it, even before the official Lithuanian ratification. England and France, despite their pledges to care after Klaipėda and help maintain its position as autonomous part of Lithuania, were ultimately not interested in helping Lithuania. It was under these conditions that Seimas was forced to approve the annexation of Klaipėda and its environs to the Third Reich, hoping that Germany would not press any other territorial demands upon Lithuania.

World War II and later

When the area was returned to German control in 1939 under Nazi Germany, many Lithuanians and their respective organizations began leaving Memel and the surrounding area. Memel was then quickly turned into a fortified naval base for disposal by the Germans. After the failure of the German invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa), the fate of East Prussia, and Memel, was sealed . By 1944–45, all of the inhabitants of the area, without ethnic distinction, had to make a decision whether to stay or leave. Germanized Lithuanians from the Memel countryside, as well as ethnic German inhabitants of Memel City, fled quickly from the approaching Red Army, most by boat or on foot. The resulting decisions of the Potsdam Conference decreed that the former Memel Territory again become a part of the Lithuanian SSR. The few remaining ethnic Germans were then forcibly expelled (expulsion of Germans after World War II), with most opting to flee to what would be West Germany. Memel Territory, or as it is now official called today, Klaipeda Region, is of continuing vital importance to Lithuania, acting as an important harbour, as well as a industrial and agrarian region.

Demography

According to a 1925 census (by subdivisions):

  • City of Klaipėda (Memel) - 35,854 inhabitants, 30.3% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 57.2% local Germans, 5.5% other locals, 7.0% foreign citizens.
  • Klaipėdos apskritis (Memel Kreis) - 30,409 inhabitants, 73.4% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 23.7% local Germans, 0.8% other locals, 2.1% foreign citizens.
  • Šilutės apskritis (Kreis Heydekrug) - 36,404 inhabitants, 55.6% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 41.8% local Germans, 0.1% other locals, 2.5% foreign citizens.
  • Pagėgių apskritis (Kreis Pogegen) - 38,987 inhabitants, 47.5% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 49.2% local Germans, 0.2% other locals, 3.1% foreign citizens.
  • All apskritys, excluding Klaipėda city - 105,804 inhabitants, 57.8% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 39.3% local Germans, 0.3 other locals, 2.6% foreign citizens.
  • All region - 141,640 inhabitants, 50.8% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 43.8% local Germans, 1.6% other locals, 3.8% foreign citizens.

Overall, Lithuanians were more rural than Germans; the part of Lithuanians in the city of Klaipėda itself increased over time due to urbanization and migration from villages into cities and later also from remaining Lithuania (in the city of Klaipėda, Lithuanian-speaking people made up 21.5% in 1912, 32.6% in 1925 and 38.7% in 1932*). Foreign citizens might include some Germans, who opted for German citizenship instead of Lithuanian (although at the time German government pressured local Germans to take Lithuanian citizenship, so that German presence would remain). There were more Lithuanians in the north of region (Klaipėdos apskritis and Šilutės apskritis) than in south (Pagėgių apskritis). Other locals included people of other nationalities who had citizenship of Lithuania, such as Jews.

*these percentages exclude foreign citizens living in Klaipėda; including foreign citizens would slightly lower the percentages

It was perfectly imaged by an authoress of the region Ieva Simonaitytė, who in the 1930s earned fame when she wrote her first novel about the centuries-old German-Lithuanian relations in the region.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Klaipėda_Region&oldid=67972089"