District of Johannisburg

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The Johannisburg district was a district in Masuria , the southern part of the East Prussia province . It existed from 1818 to 1945.

overview

Its total area covered 1,684 km². 33.1% of this was covered with forest , 11.4% with moors and 11.3% with bodies of water. Only 44.2% of the total area could be used for agriculture .

On January 1, 1945, the Johannisburg district comprised the three cities

and 166 other municipalities with fewer than 2000 inhabitants and three manor districts (forests).

population

The census of 1837 showed (with a total of 33,081 inhabitants) a Masurian population of 89% and a German of 11% according to their mother tongue. The census of 1890 showed (with a total of 48,747 inhabitants) a Masurian population of 76% and a German of 24% according to their mother tongue.

After the end of the First World War , the population voted in the referendums in East and West Prussia on July 11, 1920 about whether the district should remain with East Prussia or join the re-established Poland . Of 38,964 residents entitled to vote, 34,036 voted for East Prussia and only 14 for Poland.

At the last German census (1939) the district had 53,089 inhabitants, of which only 6,451 lived in the city of Johannisburg. 58.5% of the residents worked in agriculture.

Administrative history

With the Prussian administrative reforms after the Congress of Vienna , the Johannisburg district was established in the Gumbinnen administrative district in the province of Prussia ( not : East Prussia) on February 1, 1818 .

This included the parishes:

The district office was in Johannisburg.

On April 6, 1819, the island of Fort Lyck in Spirdingsee was incorporated into the Johannisburg district. Since December 3, 1829 the district - after the merger of the previous provinces of Prussia and West Prussia - belonged to the new province of Prussia with the seat in Königsberg . Since July 1, 1867, the district belonged to the North German Confederation and from January 1, 1871 to the German Empire . On July 21, 1875, the Dietrichswalde rural community was incorporated from the Johannisburg district into the Sensburg district.

After the division of the province of Prussia into the new provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia, the Johannisburg district became part of East Prussia on April 1, 1878. On November 1, 1905, the Johannisburg district joined the newly formed Allenstein district . On September 30, 1929, a territorial reform took place in the Johannisburg district in line with developments in the rest of the Free State of Prussia , during which almost all previously independent manor districts were dissolved and assigned to neighboring rural communities.

In the spring of 1945 the district was occupied by the Red Army . After the end of the war , the district was placed under Polish administration by the Soviet occupying power in the summer of 1945 in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . As far as the German population had not fled, she was largely in the aftermath of the circle area sold .

The territory of today's Powiat Piski ( Johannisburger Kreis ) corresponds roughly to the former district area.

District administrators

Local constitution

The Johannisburg district was initially divided into town communities, rural communities and - until they were almost completely eliminated - in independent manor districts.

With the introduction of the Prussian Municipal Constitution Act of December 15, 1933, there was a uniform municipal constitution for all municipalities from January 1, 1934. The previous municipalities Arys, Gehlenburg (formerly: Bialla ) and Johannisburg now carried the name city . With the introduction of the German Municipal Code of January 30, 1935, the municipal constitution valid in the German Reich came into force on April 1, 1935, according to which the previous rural municipalities were now referred to as municipalities . These were grouped together in administrative districts .

A new district constitution was no longer created; The district regulations for the provinces of East and West Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia and Saxony from March 19, 1881 continued to apply .

Administrative districts (incomplete)

  1. Arenswalde district
  2. District of Breitenheide
  3. Dorren District
  4. Dreifelde district
  5. Drigelsdorf district
  6. Eckersberg district
  7. Eichendorf district
  8. District Gehsen
  9. Großdorf district
  10. Groß Kessel district
  11. Großrosen district
  12. Kullik District
  13. District tomorrow
  14. District of Ruhden
  15. Seegutten district

Place names

On July 16, 1938, as part of the National Socialist Germanization of place names, extensive name changes were also made in the Johannisburg district . These were partly phonetic adjustments, partly translations, partly free inventions. In addition to the city of Bialla, which was renamed Gehlenburg, it affected another 80 communities, for example

literature

  • Gustav Neumann : Geography of the Prussian State. 2nd edition, Volume 2, Berlin 1874, pp. 33–34, item 14.
  • Emil Johannes Guttzeit : The district of Johannisburg. An East Prussian homeland book. Wuerzburg 1964
  • JS Verlag and JG Gruber (eds.): General encyclopedia of science and arts in alphabetical order . Volume 21, Leipzig 1842, pp. 261-263.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Kossert: Prussia, Germans or Poles? The Masurians in the field of tension of ethnic nationalism 1870–1956 . Ed .: German Historical Institute Warsaw . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04415-2 , p. 157 .