Hello, dear readers. Today we will raise a very interesting question, namely, the western Russian enclave — the Kaliningrad region — the former German East Prussia.
That is, why did Comrade Stalin hand over to the Russian Federation the part of East Prussia that went to the Soviet Union with Königsberg in 1945-1946? And not the neighboring Lithuania or The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic?
German East Prussia
Thus, in fact, as the Soviet archives prove, the possibility of handing over East Prussia to Belarus or Lithuania does exist.
Thus, the future Kaliningrad region may have been ceded to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic as a historically inhabited area inhabited by prussians who were related to Lithuanians by blood— baltic tribes assimilated by the Germans in the Middle Ages.
Historically, the Baltic Prussians lived on the territory of the Kaliningrad region
The Lithuanians also had quite a few tribal compatriots in East Prussia - the so-called leaflets, who lived here and under Germany. and Königsberg's own historical name, Karalyavichus (Royal).
Belarus could make Kaliningrad the largest Soviet republic in the nearest.
However, in 1946, Stalin abruptly handed over East Prussia, which seemed far from these places, to the Russian Federation. Why? There are several reasons. We tell further.
First, the wise Joseph Visa ríonovich apparently did not believe that the sparsely populated Lithuania and Belarus, which had been destroyed after the war, could control and inhabit such an area, where the former population of Germans was completely expelled.
Second, Stalin did not trust the same Lithuanians. Because immediately after the war they launched the forest brothers' anti-Soviet movement. What's not, the chief doesn't want to spread to the new neighboring area at all. Thus, Lithuania from the former East Prussia received only the port of Memel (now Klaipeda).
Stalin apparently did not want the forest brothers of neighboring Lithuania to enter the Kaliningrad region
In addition, the Father of the People is preparing to establish a reliable new ice-free base from former East Prussia for the Soviet Baltic Fleet. So I want to fill the new territory with mature military and technical personnel. Most importantly, no matter what people say, RSFSR is the same.
The leaders of the Soviet Union, then, have not forgotten that it was the Russian people, that is, Soviet Russia, who shouldered the heavy responsibility of the Great Patriotic War and won a difficult victory in the war. Therefore, RSFSR is most worthy of having such a solid territorial increment.
For these reasons, Kaliningrad itself became Russian. It turned out that the leader wisely looked into the distance— the only port after the collapse of the Soviet Union that would keep the new Russian fleet from leaving the vast little Kronstadt of the Baltic Sea in the winter.
However, the fact that the Kaliningrad region belongs to the Russian state is still challenged by its geographical neighbors Poland and Lithuania. On their maps, the same Lithuanians referred to Kaliningrad as Karaliaučius (Karalyaučius). No, no, they hung such banners arbitrarily on bridges in the Kaliningrad region.
Lithuanian inscription: "Welcome to Karalyaučius"
Even the old man Lukashenko sometimes says that the Kaliningrad region is the area he loves.
- We Belarusians are also responsible for Kaliningrad in many ways, and they somehow wanted to pass it on to us during their time in the Soviet Union, when we did so much for it,—— Alexander Grigorievich once said in an interview.