----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 10:58
PM
Subject: RE: [BoundaryPoint] Moving
borders
marco_polito
[mailto:marco_polito@...]
1) Klaipeda (formerly Memel)
until 1568: Polish-Lithuania
until 1629: Polish
until 1635: Sweden
until 1757: Poland
until 1762: Russia
until 1795: Poland
until 1807: Russia:
from 1807 Prussia: Memel becomes the capital
until
1918 German Reich
from 1918 Lithuania
1919-1923 French administration under the League of
Nations
until 1939 Lithuania
until 1945 Germany (Well, in 1939 Germany pressures
Lithuania to give up Klaipeda and Hitler personally visits the city to
proclaim its re-incorporation into the German Reich = Lithuania, but occupied
by the German Reich.)
My grandmother as a German was
standing on this place in front of the theatre, where Hitler made his
proclamation, listening and shouting, happy and blind about whats really going
on.
As I know, before the German
nationalistic way of confrontation, this region was binational
in everyday live. I read a book about this time, in German its
called "Litauische Klaviere" von Johannes Bobrowski.
Many Lithuanians lived in the today
Kaliningrad region, called Lithuania Minor. I dont exactly know the date, but
the old books in Lithuanian language where all printed in East Prussia and
smuggled by so called "book-carriers" to the Lithuanian mainland under
Russian control. In this territory Lithuanian language and printing books in
Lithuanian language was prohibited. As an effect of this, the biggest library
of old Lithuanian books was in Königsberg.