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Klaipėda Region

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Image:Memelland 1923-1939.png

The Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland or Memelgebiet), in English: Memel Territory, was a territory historically part of East Prussia and the German Empire. Its largest city was Klaipėda (German: Memel or Memelburg). Apart from the interwar period, the area was always part of a single political entity: until the end of World War I it belonged to the eastern provinces of Prussia and Germany. The particularity of area appeared only in 1920, according to the Treaty of Versailles, it fell under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors and was occupied by French troops. It was seized by Lithuania in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923 and remained part of Lithuania until 1939, when it was annexed by Nazi Germany. After World War II, the territory was part of the Lithuanian SSR and today is contained within the Republic of Lithuania's Klaipėda and Tauragė counties, which border Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the south.

Contents

[edit] History

The area has historically been within the territory of various political entities:

For more details on this topic, see Klaipėda#History.

[edit] History between the World Wars

Image:Memel-10mark-1922b.jpg
Banknote of emergency money from 1922 issued and used in Memel (www.GermanNotes.com)

By decree of the Treaty of Versailles in February of 1920, this former part East Prussia, north of the Niemen River and up to the town of Memel, was separated from Germany. It was designated as the Memel Territory (Territoire de Memel, Memelland,Klaipėda Region), was separated from Germany and passed to an interim supervisor, the Council of Ambassadors. The administration and control of the region was nominally exercised by France.

In January 1923, three years after Versailles, some Lithuanian inhabitants of the territory rose up during the Klaipėda Revolt. On January 19, leading rebels asked for formal admission into Lithuania as an autonomous territory. The French administration did not take any significant counteractive measures against the rebels because tensions between Germany and France were high at the time during the Ruhr Crisis. The area was subsequently annexed by Lithuania and the Memel Territory was granted a separate parliament, two official languages, capacity to raise its own taxes, charge custom duties, manage its cultural and religious affairs, allowed a separate judicial system, internal control of agriculture and forestry, as well as a separate social security system. The Council of Ambassadors accepted the resulting arrangement and confirmed the autonomy of the region within the Republic of Lithuania. On May 8th 1924, a further Convention on the Klaipėda region confirmed the annexation, and a resulting autonomy agreement was signed in Paris. Memel Territory was recognized as an integral part of the Republic of Lithuania also by Germany on January 29, 1928, where the 2 countries signed the (Lithuanian - German Border Treaty).

Importantly, the annexation gave Lithuania control of a year-round ice-free Baltic port. Lithuania fully used the makings of Klaipėda port, modernizing and adapting largely for its agricultural exports. The port reconstruction was certainly one of the larger long-term investment projects ennacted by the government of Lithuania in the interwar period.

The inhabitants of the area were not given a choice on the ballot whether they wanted to be part of the Lithuanian state or part of Germany. Since the pro-German political parties had an overall majority of more than 80% in all elections to the local parliament (see election statistics below) in the interwar period, there can be little doubt that such a referendum would have been in favour of Germany. In fact, the area had always been part of East Prussia since the Middle Ages and even many Lithuanian-speakers regarded themselves as East Prussians declaring themselves as "Klaipėdians" in the official census (see below for demographic information) and did not want to belong to a Lithuanian national state. There was also a strong confessional difference since about 95% of inhabitants of the region were Lutherans while more than 90% of Lithuanians were Catholics. And thus the government of Lithuania faced considerable opposition from the region's autonomous institutions. As years passed, claims were becoming more and more vocal about a re-integration into a resurgent Germany. It was only during the latter period that Lithuania then instituted a policy of 'Lithuanization'. This was met by even more opposition, as religious and regional differences slowly became unsurmountable. At the start of the 1930's, certain leaders of pro-Nazi organizations in the region were put on trial by Lithuania. The 1934-5 proceedings of Neumann and Sass in Kaunas can be presented as the 1st anti-Nazi trial in Europe. A significant difference however, was that its leaders were not indicted for their pro-Nazi ideology, but rather for their undesirable relations with Nazi Germany. On account of later political and economical pressure from Germany, most of these leaders were released. By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in Territory. On March 22, 1939, after a political ultimatum, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Juozas Urbšys and his Germany counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany. Germany then promptly invaded it, even before the official Lithuanian ratification. England and France, despite their pledges to care after Klaipėda and help maintain its position as autonomous part of Lithuania, were ultimately not interested in helping Lithuania. It was under these conditions that Seimas was forced to approve the annexation of Klaipėda and its environs to the Third Reich, hoping that Germany would not press any other territorial demands upon Lithuania.

[edit] Election results for the local parliament

The local parliament had 29 seats, one for every 5000 inhabitants. Men and women from age 23 ys had the voting right. [1]

Year Memelländische
Landwirtschaftspartei
("Agricultural Party") 		Memelländische
Volkspartei
("People's Party") 		Sozialdemokratische
Partei
("Social Democratic Party") 		Arbeiterpartei
(Worker's Party) 		Communist Party
 		Others Lithuanian
People's Party
1925 38,1% - 11 seats 36,9% - 11 seats 16,0% - 5 seats Others 9,0% - 2 seats
1927 33,6% - 10 seats 32,7% - 10 seats 10,1% - 3 seats 7,2% - 2 seats 13,6% - 4 seats
1930 31,8% - 10 seats 27,6% - 8 seats 13,8% - 4 seats 4,2% - 2 seats 22,7% - 5 seats
1932 37,1% - 11 seats 27,2% - 8 seats 7,8% - 2 seats 8,2% - 3 seats 19,7% - 5 seats
Jahr Unified German Election List Greater Lithuanian Parties
1935 81,2% - 24 seats 18,8% - 5 seats
1938 87,2% - 25 seats 12,8% - 4 seats

[edit] World War II and later

When the area was returned to German control in 1939 under Nazi Germany, many Lithuanians and their respective organizations began leaving Memel and the surrounding area. Memel was then quickly turned into a fortified naval base for disposal by the Germans. After the failure of the German invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa), the fate of East Prussia, and Memel, was sealed . By 1944–45, all of the inhabitants of the area, without ethnic distinction, had to make a decision whether to stay or leave. Germanized Lithuanians from the Memel countryside, as well as ethnic German inhabitants of Memel City, fled quickly from the approaching Red Army, most by boat or on foot. The resulting decisions of the Potsdam Conference decreed that the former Memel Territory again become a part of the Lithuanian SSR. The majority of the areas inhabitants fled to the West at the end of the war to settle in Germany and today the formerly 95% Lutheran area is entirely inhabited by Catholic Lithuanians. The few remaining ethnic Germans were then forcibly expelled (expulsion of Germans after World War II), with most opting to flee to what would be West Germany. Memel Territory, or as it is now official called today, Klaipeda Region, is of continuing vital importance to Lithuania, acting as an important harbour, as well as an industrial and agrarian region.

[edit] Demography

According to a 1925 census (by subdivisions):

  • City of Klaipėda (Memel) - 35,854 inhabitants, 30.3% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 57.2% local Germans, 5.5% other locals, 7.0% foreign citizens.
  • Klaipėdos apskritis (Memel Kreis) - 30,409 inhabitants, 73.4% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 23.7% local Germans, 0.8% other locals, 2.1% foreign citizens.
  • Šilutės apskritis (Kreis Heydekrug) - 36,404 inhabitants, 55.6% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 41.8% local Germans, 0.1% other locals, 2.5% foreign citizens.
  • Pagėgių apskritis (Kreis Pogegen) - 38,987 inhabitants, 47.5% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 49.2% local Germans, 0.2% other locals, 3.1% foreign citizens.
  • All apskritys, excluding Klaipėda city - 105,804 inhabitants, 57.8% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 39.3% local Germans, 0.3 other locals, 2.6% foreign citizens.
  • All region - 141,640 inhabitants, 50.8% local Lithuanians and "Klaipėdians", 43.8% local Germans, 1.6% other locals, 3.8% foreign citizens.

Overall, Lithuanians were more rural than Germans; the part of Lithuanians in the city of Klaipėda itself increased over time due to urbanization and migration from villages into cities and later also from remaining Lithuania (in the city of Klaipėda, Lithuanian-speaking people made up 21.5% in 1912, 32.6% in 1925 and 38.7% in 1932*). Foreign citizens might include some Germans, who opted for German citizenship instead of Lithuanian (although at the time German government pressured local Germans to take Lithuanian citizenship, so that German presence would remain). There were more Lithuanians in the north of region (Klaipėdos apskritis and Šilutės apskritis) than in south (Pagėgių apskritis). Other locals included people of other nationalities who had citizenship of Lithuania, such as Jews.

*these percentages exclude foreign citizens living in Klaipėda; including foreign citizens would slightly lower the percentages

It was perfectly imaged by an authoress of the region Ieva Simonaitytė, who in the 1930s earned fame when she wrote her first novel about the centuries-old German-Lithuanian relations in the region.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

it:Territorio di Memel lt:Klaipėdos kraštas nl:Memelland pl:Okręg Kłajpedy sv:Memelland

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