Insterburg
Insterburg is a German former industrial town on the river Pregel in East Prussia, today under Russian occupation and called Chernyakhovsk (Russian: Черняхо́вск)[1]. Its population in 1904 was 27,800.[2] Outside Insterburg stood Schloss Georgenberg, an ancient castle originally erected as a seat of the Bishop of Samland, which, in the 21st century due to neglect and vandalism has been badly damaged and partially demolished.
History
Insterburg was founded in 1336 by the Teutonic Knights when Dietrich von Altenburg, the new Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, built a castle here following the Prussian Crusade. During the Teutonic Knights' Northern Crusades against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the town was devastated in 1376. The castle was rebuilt as the seat of a Procurator and a settlement grew around it. During the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, the settlement was devastated by Polish troops in 1457.
The area was depopulated by the Black Plague in the early 18th century, after which King Frederick William I of Prussia invited Protestant refugees who had been expelled from the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of Salzburg to settle in Insterburg in 1732. During the Seven Years' War the town was occupied by the Russian Empire.
During the Napoleonic Wars, French troops passed through and pillaged the town in 1806, 1807, 1811 and 1813. The Baltic baron and renowned soldier, Prince Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, died at Insterburg in 1818 whilst tavelling from his Livonian manor to Germany proper. During World War I the Imperial Russian Army invaded East Prussia and Insterburg was taken on 24 August 1914, but it was retaken by German forces on September 11th.
Prior to 1945 Insterburg was a major railway junction with two stations and major goods yards. Trains from here ran west to Thorn and, in the opposite directions to Saint Petersburg (via Gumbinnen, and Edytkuhnen - the frontier station 94 miles from Insterburg), while another line went to Tilsit (90 miles) and Memel.
World War II
The town was heavily bombed by the British Royal Air Force on 27 July, 1944, and was subsequently taken by Red Army troops 21/22 January, 1945 after heavy fighting. From October 1944 terrible atrocities were taking place as the Red Army began to invade East Prussia and the reports of these caused many of the civilian population to flee West. Those who remained were raped, murdered or expelled[3]. The town was repopulated with imported Russian settlers.
Notable people
- Martin Grünberg (1665–c.1706), architect
- Johann Otto Uhde (1725–1766), composer and violinist
- Johann Friedrich Goldbeck (1748–1812), geographer and Protestant theologian
- Eduard Heinrich von Flottwell (1786–1865), politician
- Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan (1819–1904), writer and politician
- Ernst Wichert (1831–1902), author
- Edward Frederick Moldenke (1836–1904), Lutheran theologian and missionary
- Hans Horst Meyer (1853–1939), pharmacologist
- Therese Malten (1855–1930), opera singer
- Paul Gerhard Neumann (1911–1986), physical oceanographer
- Hans Orlowski (1894–1967), woodcut artist and painter
- Fritz Karl Preikschat (1910–1994), engineer and inventor
- Kurt Kuhlmey (1913–1993), during World War II, he served as ground-attack aircraft pilot in the Luftwaffe, commanding two air wings. He flew over 500 combat missions, and in July 1942 was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
- Kurt Plenzat (1914–1998), was a Hauptmann (officer) and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves during World War II, recognising extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership, or both.
- Traugott Buhre (1929–2009), actor
- Harry Boldt (born 1930), Olympic champion in dressage
- Anatol Herzfeld (1931–2019), German sculptor and mixed media artist
- Jürgen Schmude (born 1936), SPD politician
- Hans-Jürgen Quadbeck-Seeger (born 1939), chemist
Sources
- ↑ Named after Soviet General Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, commander of the Red Army which committed the most appalling atrocities against civilians at Nemmersdorf and Gumbinnen in October 1944.
- ↑ Baedeker, Karl, Northern Germany, Fourteenth revised edition, Leipzig & London, 1904, p.178.
- ↑ Schieder, Professor Dr.Theodore; Rassow, Professor Dr.Peter; Laun, Professor Dr.Rudolf; Rothfels, Professor Dr.Hans, and Diestelkamp, Dr.Adolf, editors, The Expulsion of the German Population from the Territories East of the Oder-Neisse-Line, vol.1, Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Bonn, West Germany, 1954.