Fortification buildings in Königsberg

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Wall fortifications and cities of Königsberg (1626)

The fortification buildings in Königsberg fortified the easternmost German city. The Königsberg garrison in Prussia was always the strongest fortress and the largest garrison in Prussia

Early history

Twangste was the name of a Prussian refugee castle on the site of the later Königsberg i. Pr. .

middle Ages

West wing of the Königsberg Castle

After the conquest of the country by King Ottokar of Bohemia , the Teutonic Order built the Castrum de Coningsberg (Königsberg) on this site in 1256 , which was destroyed less than ten years later in the Prussian uprisings (Manthey: Königsberg, 2005).

The first medieval wall rings were built by Marshal Henning Schindekopf between 1355 and 1370 and surrounded each of the three cities individually:

  • Old Town : From the Danzker of the castle westwards over the Diebsturm (demolished in 1800) and Yellow Tower to Steindammschen Tor, south to the Old Town Powder Tower (demolished in 1880), Laakentor, the four-cornered New Tower (demolished in 1888), Lastadientor, Piepenturm; to the east followed the cog tower, bath gate, smith gate, wooden gate and crooked pit gate.
  • Löbenicht : To the Pregel a towerless wall with Kohltor and Krönchentor in the north, Narrentor in the west and Mühlentor in the southwest. Northwest of the Krönchentor wall with cross gate, powder tower at the castle pond at the place of the three holm oaks in the Weißgerberstraße.
  • Kneiphof : In the north, towerless wall with shopkeeper gate, two Kaitoren and forged gate; east wall with honey gate; to the south with the Blue Tower, two house passages, the prison gate, the Kötteltor, the Green Gate and the round corner tower; west wall with two house passages. In the cavalry war in 1520, the suburb received the moat with ramparts, palisades and train gate.

17th century

Entrance to the Pillau fortress

The baroque fortification belt was built between 1626 and 1634 when Gustav Adolf landed in Pillau and threatened the city. The belt surrounded Koenigsberg with all liberties within a wide radius of two miles, with 32 rondells and ravelins , two gates south and seven gates north of the Pregel . With the exception of the Gumbinnisches Tor , the gates kept their names until the end of Königsberg. The purely functional passages like the Steindammer Tor were closer to the city than the Holländerbaum and the Brandenburg Gate. The wet garden was separated from the old garden, the Lomse fortified.

The builders of the ramparts were the mathematician Johann Strauss , Colonel Abraham Graf von Dohna and the surveyor Konrad Burck.

This belt of fortifications was supplemented in 1657 by the fortress Groß Friedrichsburg (Königsberg) , which the court mathematician Christian Otter built on the site of the first Lizenthaus, then an electoral state house on the south side of the Pregel.

The fortress Pillau , the sea fortress of Königsberg, was started by the Swedes in 1625 and continued by the Great Elector and Friedrich Wilhelm I. This was to prevent an attack from the sea.

19th century

The royal fortification in Koenigsberg

Due to the changed political situation vis-à-vis Russia, with the Highest Cabinet Order (AKO) of December 9, 1841, a commission consisting of Generals von Grolmann , von Krauseneck and Aster was set up to clarify questions relating to the fortress in East Prussia. As early as February 23, 1842, she reported on her results and Aster, in his function as inspector of all Prussian fortresses, added general drafts of the fortifications to be created. With AKO of March 3, 1842, the establishment of a closed enceinte was approved for Königsberg. The actual master plan comes from the then inspector of the 1st engineering inspection Leopold von Brese-Winiary , who also exercised the greatest influence on the execution of the projects in the next few years. Construction began in Herzogsacker in 1843 and was completed in 1859. It enclosed the city in a length of 11 km. Fortress construction directors were the majors von Dechen, from 1848 Block and from 1849 von Engelbrecht.

The actual main wall was broken through by eight gates. These were artistically lavishly designed by Friedrich August Stüler and Wilhelm Stürmer with brick and yellow sandstone in the Tudor style. The solid vaults of the casemates were given strong armor. Numerous bastions, an earthworks E in the north and the defense barracks on Herzogsacker protected the city. The Fort Friedrichsburg got walls, gate and four corner towers. On Oberteich two cannon stands and the two massive round towers threatened Wrangel and Dohna .

The forts around Königsberg

Battle of Koenigsberg

Immediately after the completion of this fortress ring, a belt of fortifications was built far outside the city in a radius of 8–10 km from the city center. The circular belt of 43 km consisted of several large fortifications, namely the fortress Groß Friedrichsburg and 12 forts and 4 intermediate structures. The draft of a fortification belt consisting of several forts around Königsberg was accepted since 1871 under General Inspector Georg von Kameke . The average distance between the forts and the mound was 5 km. Construction of the forts began in 1872. 11 forts were built between 1874 and 1885. Overall, the work dragged on until 1890. Initially, mostly French prisoners of war from the Franco-German War of 1870/71 were used as construction workers . A lion's share of the reparations that defeated France had to pay to Prussia was used to build the fortification belt. A total of twelve forts and four intermediate works were built . Each fort was marked with a number and a name. The numbering starts in the east, north above the Pregel and runs counterclockwise. With a few exceptions, the structures were built in the form of Biehler's standard forts . The fortifications are usually a 360 m wide and 180 m deep symmetrically arranged hexagon on a wall, which is surrounded by a 20 m wide and 3-5 m deep moat. In the wall there were bastions under a layer of earth of 3–4 m. Barracks and bastions were made of double-fired, i.e. very hard, bricks and had several floors. In the 16 fortifications of this belt there were a total of 1242 rooms with an area of ​​49,585 m². They housed command posts, accommodations for officers and men, a hospital, a kitchen and dining rooms, several stores for food, ammunition, fuel and various military equipment. The inner courtyards were large enough to allow vehicles to be turned, and they were also used to bring artillery pieces into cover behind the earth wall if necessary. In the combat position, the guns were positioned on the earth wall behind a parapet. There were shelters for the gunners not far from the guns. The garrison of a fort consisted of an infantry company to which an artillery and two engineer detachments were attached, around 200 men. In 1912 the fort belt was reinforced by so-called infantry bases. In addition, the ceilings were replaced with reinforced concrete. The forts were connected to one another by the Ringchaussee and were accessible from the city by side streets. After the forts were built, the old ramparts no longer had any military value. In the battle of Königsberg , forts 5, 5a, 6, 7a, 7b, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 were captured. The most difficult part was the conquest of Fort 5.

Fort 1 stone

Fort 1

The name of this fortification comes from Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein . The fort is located south of Bolschoje Issakowo (Lauth) on the Lauther mill pond.

Fort 1a Groeben

Fort 1a Groeben

The name of this fortification comes from Karl von der Groeben . The fort is located near Maloje Wassilkowo (Gut Neudamm) .

Fort 2 Bronsart

Fort 2 Bronsart

The name of this fortification comes from Paul Bronsart von Schellendorff and Walther Bronsart von Schellendorff . The fort is located near Maloje Wassilkowo (Gut Neudamm) .

Fort 2a Barnekow

Fort 2a Barnekow

The name of this fortification comes from Albert von Barnekow . It is not far from Wassilkowo (Neudamm village) .

Fort 3 Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Fort Quednau)

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich Wilhelm I (Prussia). Fort III Friedrich Wilhelm I was built between 1872 and 1884 as one of the twelve largest forts of the new fortification belt in the north of Königsberg. The crew will be the Grenadier Regiment King Friedrich Wilhelm I (2nd East Prussian) No. 3 .

Gestapo prison

Presumably a camp was set up there by the Königsberg police together with other agencies as early as January 1933 in order to accommodate rumors of a planned blow by Reich Chancellor Schleichers against the leaders of the East Prussian NSDAP who were to be arrested. Between March and June 1933, after the National Socialists came to power, the fortress was used for male opponents of the NSDAP. Almost 400 functionaries of the SPD and the KPD were arrested. The prisoners were taken to police custody, where they were still treated well, or to Fort Quednau, which must be viewed as a preliminary stage to the concentration camp. The costs amounted to 3000 RM, which is extremely low for the conditions at the time and speaks for the poor living conditions. Survivors of the camp tell of the worship services held, but also of torture and draconian punishments. Quednau was one of the six state concentration camps recognized and financed by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. Most of the East Prussian prisoners were collected to be brought to the Reich. The facility was closed in autumn 1933.

During World War II , the fort was held by the 367th Infantry Division until April 7, 1945.

Part of the Prussia collection was found

As the Soviet troops approached, part of the Prussia collection was stored in Fort Quednau because it was the largest and safest bastion of the Königsberg fortification ring. The fortress was used for military purposes in Soviet times and was not open to the public. When the army gave up the arsenal in the late 1990s, robbers and black market traders took what was left of the torn Prussia finds. They were discovered on the Kaliningrad black market in 1999 and identified using the signature.

Fort 4 Gneisenau

Fort 4 Gneisenau

The name of this fortification comes from Gneisenau . The fort lies with two thirds.

Fort 5 Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Fort 5 Friedrich Wilhelm III.

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Prussia). It is the best developed fort . During World War I , apart from a fleeting exchange of fire with a mounted Cossack troop in August 1914, there was no fighting. In the battle of Königsberg , the attackers managed to close the encirclement around the fort on April 6, 1945. The fort's 200-strong garrison capitulated after 16 hours of bitter resistance.

In the first months after the end of the war, Fort Friedrich Wilhelm III was used. as a collection and destruction point for scattered ammunition. The city council of Kaliningrad wants to set up a museum of fortification arts and war technology there.

Fort 5a Lehndorff

Fort 5a Lehndorff

Fort 6 Queen Luise

Fort 6 Queen Luise

The name of this fortification comes from Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz . The fort is near Juditten .

Fort 7 Duke of Holstein

Fort 7 Duke of Holstein

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich Ludwig (Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck) .

Fort 7b "---"

Fort 8 King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

Fort 8 King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich I (Prussia) . The fort is near Tannenwalde .

Fort 9 Dohna

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten and Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten and Christoph I. zu Dohna-Schlodien and Christoph II. Von Dohna-Schlodien and Karl Friedrich Emil zu Dohna-Schlobitten . The fort is near Karschau .

Fort 10 Kanitz

The name of this fortification comes from August von Kanitz . The fort is near Altenberg .

Fort 11 Count Dönhoff

Fort 11 Count Dönhoff

The name of this fortification comes from Friedrich von Dönhoff and Otto Magnus von Dönhoff and August Heinrich Hermann von Dönhoff and Alexander von Dönhoff . The fort is near Seligenfeld . Parts of the Amber Room are still believed to be here .

Fort 12 Eulenburg

The name of this fortification comes from August zu Eulenburg and Friedrich zu Eulenburg and Philipp zu Eulenburg . The fort lies with Adlig Neuendorf .

20th century

By 1900 the fortress belt was long out of date. The garrison church built in 1671 and the armory (1796) in Fort Friedrichsburg were demolished in 1892. The Lord Mayors Siegfried Körte and Hans Lohmeyer operated the demolition of the city and the conversion of the ramparts into green spaces. The first wall breakthrough occurred in 1906 at the Wrangelturm . In 1910 the city was able to buy the 318 hectare rampart belt from the Prussian state for 29 million marks. Ten annual installments were agreed; at recent rates, inflation helped after the First World War .

The simple Tragheimer Tor was razed in 1910, the beautiful Steindammer Tor in 1912. The gloomy exit gate was embedded in systems. The other gates were preserved. The annoying rayon regulations for the inner city no longer existed. Thus, the demolition of the city created the conditions for a modern infrastructure (train stations, port). The fastening rings remained intact until the end of the First World War . At the beginning of the 1920s, Lord Mayor Hans Lohmeyer and Horticultural Director Ernst Schneider turned the ramparts into a green belt with parks, which eventually covered 602 hectares. The copper pond was converted into a large outdoor pool in 1925.

When the city was declared a fortress in January 1945, many parts of the fortress were included in the defense and heavily fought over. While the inner city was almost completely destroyed in the air raids on Königsberg in August 1944 and later by Soviet artillery and bombers, the old fortifications remained partially intact. Many of the numerous air raid shelters can still be seen.

Governors

Commanders

literature

  • Robert Albinus: Königsberg Lexicon. City and surroundings . Flechsig, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-88189-441-1 .
  • Richard Armstedt: history of the royal. Capital and residence city of Königsberg in Prussia. Hobbing & Büchle, Stuttgart 1899 ( German land and life in single descriptions . 2, city stories), (reprint: Melchior-Verlag, Wolfenbüttel 2006, ISBN 3-939102-70-9 ( historical library )).
  • Carl Beckherrn: History of the fortifications of Königsberg. Beyer, Königsberg 1890.
  • Traugott Ehrhardt: History of the fortress Königsberg / Pr. 1257-1945 . Holzner, Würzburg, 1960.
  • Venice Eremeev: Koenigsberg - Kaliningrad - 750. The Monuments of Defensive Architecture. “April” Studio, Kaliningrad 2006, ISBN 5-902949-07-6 (Russian).
  • Fritz Gause : The history of the city of Königsberg in Prussia , 3 volumes. 2nd / 3rd supplemented edition. Böhlau, Cologne Weimar Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-412-08896-X .
  • Rainald Goetz : Fortress. 3 volumes in 5 sub-volumes. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-09887-X .
  • Jürgen Manthey : Königsberg - history of a world citizenship republic . Hanser , Munich 2005, ISBN 3-446-20619-1 .
  • Rudí Rolf: A Dictionary of Modern Fortification. An illustrated lexicon on European fortifications in the period 1800–1945. PRAK, Middleburg 2004.
  • Gunnar Strunz: Discover Königsberg. Between Memel and fresh lagoon . Trescher, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89794-071-X .
  • Hardi Schumny: The New Prussian fortress Königsberg i. Pr., History and current state of preservation , in: German Soldier Yearbook 1993, Schild, Munich, 1993, pp. 177–195, ISBN 3-88014-105-3 .
  • Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : The state forces of the Prussian monarchy under Friedrich Wilhelm III. , Vol. 3, Berlin 1830, p. 203, (digitized version)

Web links

Commons : Fortifications in Kaliningrad  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Filled with 200 quintals of powder, the powder tower was blown up by lightning in 1636
  2. ↑ a b c Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt : Königsberg from A to Z - a city dictionary . Leer 1972
  3. ^ Udo von Bonin: History of the engineer corps and the pioneers in Prussia . tape 2 , 1878, p. 238-245 .
  4. ↑ Fort Stein as a Russian website ( memento of the original from April 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kc.koenig.ru
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Editor Angelika Königseder. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52960-3 .
  6. ^ Heinrich Lange: Saving the 'Titanic of Prussian Archeology'? In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 10, 2000, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 42-57 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  7. ↑ The treasure of the Pruzzen . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 16, 2002
  8. ↑ Kaliningrad: exhibits of the Prussia collection discovered . kaliningrad.aktuell.ru, March 19, 2009
  9. ↑ Avenir Owssjanow: Fort King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Behind the thick walls of the Pregelstadt. (No longer available online.) Königsberger Express , April 28, 2004, archived from the original on June 21, 2008 ; Retrieved October 27, 2010 .
  10. ↑ In a bunker near Königsberg. the city was the site of a decades-long search ... (No longer available online.) amberroom.org, archived from the original on June 16, 2008 ; Retrieved October 27, 2010 .
  11. ↑ The Wrangelturm became a youth home in 1928.
  12. ↑ Protocols of the Reichstag 1910
  13. ^ Curt Jany: History of the Prussian Army . Ed .: Eberhard Jany. 2nd supplemented edition. tape II . Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1967, p. 183 .