What should happen with Kaliningrad?

steissd

Why should a revision of WWII results almost erase Poland from the maps?

Looking at the maps of

a brief history of Poland in the last 200 years

doesn't give any clue either.

Well, some Jewish people of Russia/former USSR decided neither to go to Israel nor to New York:
about 70,000 came to Germany the last ten years.

Poland will lose Ost Preußen and Pomeranien if the pre-war borders are re-established. The maps that you proposed show that Breslau will be lost as well. OK, maybe I exaggerated about total loss of Poland, but about thirty percent of its territory will "change citizenship".

I've thought, East Prussia became half Polish and half Russian after WWII?

And - believe it or not, steissd - quite a part of Pomerania is still German, making nearly half of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ('Mecklenburg-West Pomerania').

Not half Russian, Russia possesses only small chunk of Prussia, the Königsberg enclave. But any attempt to change the post-war status quo may revive extreme nationalism in Eastern Europe and endanger the integrative processes and democratic future of the post-Soviet areas. Therefore, it is better to act in the direction of gradual integration of the Russian Federation into EU and NATO as a whole, and not to integrate it by parts starting from the West.
I have no doubts that Königsberg is a German city (I used to call it Königsberg, and not Kaliningrad, even while being a Soviet officer), and Germany has all the historical rights to claim it, but disadvantages of claims of such kind overweigh possible advantages (I have serious doubts, however, that any Russian government will agree even to discuss such an issue, and proposals of such a discussion may surely affect Russo-German relations, quite good by this moment).

steissd

After World War II, East Prussia was partitioned between Poland (the southern part) and the Soviet Union (the northern part), the frontier running north of Goldap, Bartenstein (Bartoszyce), and Braunsberg (Braniewo).

"Russia possesses only small chunk of Prussia, the Königsberg enclave" - I was talking about EAST Prussia, not Prussia:

I also meant East Prussia. As far as I know, the historic Prussian capital city Berlin that is located in the West Prussia (Brandenburg area) is, was and will be forever German. Memel, by the way, is not Russian, it currently belongs to Lithuania.

My objection to discussing the Königsberg problem stems from the possible geopolitical complications that may be a result of any political moves of Germany in this direction. If such a complications were impossible in principle, I would advocate restoration of Germany in her 1913 borders.

The historic Prussian capital is Königberg (Kaliningrad) - since 1525 seat of the dukes of Prussia. Berlin has been the capital of the Princes of Brandenburg.

A brief history of Prussia

Germany in the borders of 1914?

Even the rightest wing of the right wing Volkdeutsche doesn't say such here!
(Btw: see you back in February, HofT )

(Since the map would be to big to post here, I'll give just the link:

Germany 1914 - there is no difference at all to the 1913 status.)

Oh, sorry, I always thought that the Prussian capital prior to creation of the German Empire was Berlin, and the Hohenzollern dynasty kings resided in Potsdam.
About the map: I meant exactly these borders of Germany. But I know that under present conditions it is non-realistic and dangerous to claim restoration of Germany in these borders, so I do not advocate such a thing.

greetings across the ocean, steissd! i agree with your point of view that "under present conditions ..it is dangerous to claim restoration of germany in these borders". having left germany in 1956(with a young wife born in east-prussia) i am ,of course, not quite up-to-date on this situation. but i know that my wife and her sister(and quite a few other former east-prussians) have no desire to return or re-occupy this land - even though one cannot and should not wipe out memories. and reading the information put out by hamburg chamber-of-commerce gives no sign of such intention by the merchants(die pfeffersaecke) of hamburg. germany anyhow seems to have its hands full trying to re-vitalize the former east-germany. and that does seem to create enough tension even within new new germany! let sleeping dogs lie....please!

Well, the option of "giving it back to the Germans" is up there, in the poll, for sure, but with tongue firmly in cheek. Even out of principle I would never support ceding land on a historical basis. History matters in many respect, but it should never determine what country people who now live should belong to. There are practically no Germans left there now. Russians live there now. How this has come to be is one thing, but those who live there now were mostly born there, it's their home now, and I can only conceive the area being given 'back' to Germany if they would vote for that themselves.

Steissd, welcome to the thread, glad to see you. You may have noticed that the poll was drafted up in a rather flippant fashion, more to make people think about the topic than to offer realistic options, so your points in this first post are well taken. The Jewish autonomous region idea was of course a deliberate folly on my part, serving merely as a reminder of the other lost inhabitants of the region (apart from the Germans), and to enable me to refer to Birobidzhan, as an example of the curious ways issues like these have been handled by the states in the region before.

(Birobidzhan, for the rest of you, was the Autonomous Jewish Republic, later demoted in status, in the Soviet Union - its existence reflected the formal, 'paper' commitment to self-determination for all nations of the Soviet Union, but its location at the outmost Eastern borders of the USSR (bordering Manchuria, I believe) reflected the amount of sheer fiction involved in both that commitment and the reality of "Jewish Birobidzhan". But, yes, a perfect illustration of the absurdities states can come to, by themselves or together, to "solve" the ethnic-historical mishmash of Central Eastern Europe).

Birobidzhan was a Communist alternative to Zionism. There was no free inhabited areas in the USSR by that time, so Far East was chosen as a default option. Besides this, Stalin was interested in enhanced development of the Eastern areas.

An interesting report about Birobidzhan is to be found here:

Stalin's Forgotten Zion

The great link. Danke shoen, Mr. Hinteler: there are many things I had no idea before.

The map sure says a lot!
Visiting the website linked above now.
Thanks, Walter.

and thanks again, whoa-it's me. this has been a really interesting thread. I'm learning a tremendous amount.