East Prussians

[Hilderinc]

I understand that after Germany's territorial losses in WWII many Germans were forced to leave the ceded territories and their numbers are all but gone today.

What I want to know is if people who can be labeled as "Prussian" still exist in any large numbers. Any demographics, statistics and the like would be helpful.

[Sigurd]

What I want to know is if people who can be labeled as "Prussian" still exist in any large numbers. Any demographics, statistics and the like would be helpful.

That totally depends on whether you observe it from a "wider perspective" or from a "Bavarian perspective". Down here, we term everyone who isn't Bajuvarian or Alemannic as "Prussians".

[Ralf]

Iam half Prussian, if thats any good?
Whats more, only 1/4 East Prussian as the other Grandparent was West Prussian, and from where we had to flee after the First World war, nevermind the second.

The other half of me is English, but England just does and belives what thier Jewish masters tell them, Prussians had the guts to try and shake off thier yoke of oppression, maybe Iam getting ashamed to be part English, so will be all Prussian.

[Hilderinc]

I should have been more clear, I meant to ask if there are still Germanic Prussians who exist in Prussia

[theTasmanian]

Totally Germanic i doubt it

I have cousins(Grand father was from Posan area Half German his mother was from Königsberg) in what is now Poland that are "part" Germanic

and even before Prussia "fell" you have to remember that a large number of "Prussians" were Baltic/German so after the Fall any who had common sense run for it to area's like schleswig Holstein(my Grand mothers side originate from there 1600's) i think it was the Dohna's (sp) that lead the great march away from the Russians to end up there

[Hauke Haien]

Up to 150.000 initially remained in the Polish portion of East Prussia, although those were more likely to be Masurians, i.e. Protestant Masovians who had found refuge in the region after the Reformation, but some of the original Germanic colonists were also among them. The Soviets were more thorough in their enclave, but a small number of Germans remained. Since they were usually unregistered, it is difficult to know how many. By that time, the Prussian Lithuanians (who are closest to the Baltic Prussians) still existed as a distinguishable ethnic group, but they were likewise expelled, some of them to Lithuania.

Today, it is still possible to find some Germans from the war generation in the East Prussian region, but their children, if they had any, have long since migrated to the Federal Republic, because they simply had no future as Germans in societies that are now Polish and Russian. German communities do not exist any longer.

This kind of soft expulsion accompanied the post-war era as a continuous process and led to the loss of an additional 4 million Germans in their settlement areas in Central and Eastern Europe, which adds up to a total of 18 million Germans that were lost in a wider region once dominated by the German nation.

[Ragnar Lodbrok]

We're were starting to slowly lose East Prussia to the Slavs after the war... thats terrible, we've got to start taking the land back, whats the terrain like over there may I ask?

[Hauke Haien]

Well, not exactly. This slow process is dwarfed by the planned mass expulsions, largely executed by 1950. Here is an early plan drawn up by the United States Department of State for discussion with their Allies:



The area of East Prussia is also marked, in case there is still confusion. It gave the Kingdom of Prussia its name, but there were many other Prussian provinces. Ostpreußen, Westpreußen and Posen were lost completely, Schlesien and Pommern except for small portions, as well as a large part of Brandenburg.


Adjacent to the Prussian territories were those lost by Habsburg after the First World War, which retained their German settlers until the expulsion:



Austria itself had to renounce the German nation in the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 in order to gain its "independence".

[Devin De Blois]

It's a shame, Germany lost most of what was the original Kingdom of Prussia after WWII. There's a few Germans left in Poland, but not many.

[Walter]

We're were starting to slowly lose East Prussia to the Slavs after the war... thats terrible, we've got to start taking the land back, whats the terrain like over there may I ask?

This isn't extensive, by any means, but may give you an idea. I have a few other URLs w/ photos to find on my hard drive.:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/kaliningradskaya/pool