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Book Reviewed by:This article relates to Skeletons at the Feast
The Central European region known as Prussia extended from the
south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the
Masurian Lake District which is now divided between Poland, Russia, and
Lithuania. East Prussia was a province in the Eastern part of the region
which, along with the rest of Prussia, became part of the German Empire during
the unification of Germany in 1871. In 1875, almost three-quarters of the
region were ethnically German, the remainder were Polish and Lithuanian.
As the Russian troops marched across Europe in the waning months of World War
II, many ethnic Germans evacuated or were forcibly expelled from territories claimed by Germany during the early years of World War II, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, and also from parts of Germany.
The evacuation of East Prussia took place between January and March 1945. Although the German military had had evacuation plans in place for some months, the order to evacuate was delayed for
too long making an orderly evacuation impossible. The result was chaos for much
of the civilian population who, caught in the middle of the combat, were left to
make their own evacuation plans, traveling during a bitterly cold winter that
left many thousands dead.
The Soviet Union took control of East Prussia in May 1945. Although many
of the German civilians had managed to evacuate it is estimated that about
300,000 were killed during the Soviet offensive and many others were later
expelled. Census counts in 1950 showed 2.6 million Germans still living in
Eastern Europe, about 12% of pre-war totals.
Maps
Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities
This "beyond the book article" relates to Skeletons at the Feast. It originally ran in May 2008 and has been updated for the
February 2009 paperback edition.
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