History of Poles in Königsberg
Polish intellectuals and scholars played a major role in the founding of the University of Königsberg (Albertina) and served as both faculty and administrators.
Although the church, along with a good portion of the town, was destroyed during the Great Prussian Uprising (1260-1274), it was rebuilt during the first half of the fourteenth century and eventually came to play an important role in the Polish cultural life of the city.
[2] Polish migrants from Masuria began moving to Königsberg during the fourteenth century, settling particularly in the Knipawa portion of the town, and, along with Lithuanians and Kurlandians, were soon granted the ability to acquire burgher rights.
By the beginning of the fifteenth century, according to the German historian Bernhard Stade, a large portion of the city's population was fluent in Polish, mostly for economic reasons.
[3] According to historian Janusz Jasiński, based on estimates obtained from the records of St. Michael's Church, during the 1530s Lutheran Poles constituted about one quarter of the city population.
The main cause of the discontent were the economic policies of the Knights which were perceived as detrimental to trade and growth, although ethnic and national identity also played a role.
[4] These tensions led Königsberg to co-establish the Prussian Confederation, formed in Kwidzyn in 1440, which opposed the Teutonic Order and sought help and protection from Poland.
On February 4, 1454, the Secret Committee of the Prussian Confederation, representing the cities, towns and nobility in the Teutonic State, repudiated their allegiance to the Knights, and asked King of Poland Casimir IV Jagiellon to incorporate the region, incl.
Casimir IV Jagiellon affirmed the Confederation's plea for protection and on March 6 issued an edict in Kraków which officially incorporated Königsberg, as well as other parts of Prussia, into the Polish Kingdom.
In the last phase of the war, the Order began running out of finances, and after a string of victories by the Polish commander Piotr Dunin agreed to the Second Peace of Toruń (1466).
[9] In 1635, Polish King Władysław IV Vasa granted the city the right to organize its military defense against a possible Swedish attack in exchange for exemption from paying taxes to Prussian dukes.
Over the course of the next four years, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert Hohenzollern in search for a political way out before the war resumed, met with several Lutheran theologians, including Andreas Osiander and Luther himself.
Since Lutheranism emphasized the importance of vernacular versions of the Bible and other religious works, several prominent Polish translators arrived in Königsberg on the duke's invitation.
The first notable translators were Jan Seklucjan and Stanisław Murzynowski, who had their works printed in the shop of Hans Weinreich, a native of Gdańsk.
Other prominent Polish Protestant translators and writers who published their works in the city include Hieronim Malecki and Marcin Kwiatkowski [pl].
[21] At about the same time, with the approval of the Duke, the church in the neighborhood of Steindamm of the city functioned as a religious center for local Polish and Lithuanian Lutherans.
[32] The 17th-century stock exchange included a painting depicting a townswoman buying goods from a Pole and a Dutchman, embracing the notion that the city's prosperity was based on trade with the East and West, particularly Poland and the Netherlands.
[34] During the Spring of Nations of 1848, Poles and part of the German population supported Polish independence endeavors and a Polish-German legion was formed.
Prior to the Nazi era, Königsberg was home to a third of East Prussia's 13,000 Jews, but under Hitler's rule, the city's Jewish population shrank from 3,200 in 1933 to 2,100 by October 1938.
[37] In September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland ongoing, the Polish consulate in Königsberg was attacked (which constituted a violation of international law), its workers arrested and sent to concentration camps where several of them died.
Other victims included local Polish civilians guillotined for petty violations of Nazi law and regulations such as buying and selling meat.
[39] In September 1944 there were 69,000 slave labourers registered in the city (not counting prisoners of war), with most of them working on the outskirts; within the city itself 15,000 slave labourers were located [40] All of them were denied freedom of movement, forced to wear "P" sign if Poles, or "Ost" sign if they were from the Soviet Union and were watched by special units of Gestapo and Wehrmacht.
