It is the most significant preserved building of the former city of Königsberg, which was largely destroyed in World War II.

The spire and roof of the cathedral burnt down after two RAF bombing raids in late August 1944; reconstruction started in 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

After the Samland bishop Johann Clare had acquired the eastern part of Kneiphof island from the Teutonic Knights in 1322, he and his cathedral chapter had a new see built at the site and ensured its autonomy by a 1333 treaty with Grand Master Luther von Braunschweig.

After a relatively short period of almost 50 years, the cathedral was largely completed by 1380, while works on the interior frescoes lasted until the end of the 14th century.

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945, and the easternmost large German city until it was conquered by the Soviet Union near the end of World War II.

The part of the cathedral directly underneath the spire (today's Lutheran chapel) is where 20 to 25 citizens of Königsberg survived during the second air raid.

[2] Shortly after Kaliningrad was opened to foreigners in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, work began to reconstruct the cathedral.

The tomb of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the "Sage of Königsberg", is today in a mausoleum adjoining the northeast corner of the cathedral.

The mausoleum was constructed by the architect Friedrich Lahrs and was finished in 1924 in time for the bicentenary of Kant's birth.

The incident was apparently connected with a vote to rename Khrabrovo Airport, where Kant was in the lead for a while, prompting Russian nationalist resentment.