Rastenburg district
The Rastenburg district was a district in East Prussia and existed from 1818 to 1945.
The district of Rastenburg comprised the three cities on January 1, 1945
and 76 other communities, of which only the Korschen railway junction had more than 2000 inhabitants.
From September 1940, not far from Rastenburg in the Görlitzer Forest near the small town of Görlitz , the Wolfsschanze headquarters was set up under the highest degree of secrecy during the preparations for the war in the east. The Army High Command was located about 13 km to the northeast in Mauerwald (Mamerki) on the Mauersee .
Administrative history
Kingdom of Prussia
Since the middle of the 18th century there was a district of Rastenburg with a district administrator at the head and, before 1818, comprised the main offices of Bartenstein, Rastenburg, Barten and the Gerdauen inheritance.
With the Prussian administrative reforms after the Congress of Vienna , the district of Rastenburg was created on February 1, 1818 in the administrative district of Königsberg in the Prussian province of East Prussia.
This included the parishes:
- Bartenstein,
- Bäslack ,
- Falkenau,
- Gallingen,
- Groß Schwansfeld,
- Gudnick ,
- Lamgarben ,
- Langheim ,
- Leunenburg
- Couple ,
- Rastenburg,
- Schönfließ- Tolksdorf ,
- Black stone ,
- Turn .
The district office was in Rastenburg.
As early as April 1, 1819, the following changes were made to the district boundaries:
- Incorporation of the parishes of Barten , Drengfurth and Groß Wolfsdorf from the Gerdauen district into the Rastenburg district ,
- Incorporation of the parishes of Bartenstein, Falkenau, Gallingen and Groß Schwansfeld from the Rastenburg district into the Friedland 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 i. Pr.
North German Confederation and German Empire
Since July 1, 1867, the district belonged to the North German Confederation and from January 1, 1871 to the German Empire . After the province of Prussia was divided into the new provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia, the Rastenburg district became part of East Prussia on April 1, 1878.
On March 4, 1909, the rural community of Babziens was incorporated from the Rastenburg district into the Rößel district. On September 30, 1929, a regional reform took place in the Rastenburg district in line with developments in the rest of Prussia, in which all previously independent manor districts were dissolved and assigned to neighboring rural communities. Around 1933, the Rastenburg district had a total area of 871 square kilometers, around 52,360 inhabitants. On October 1, 1938, the community of Schwaden from the Rastenburg district was incorporated into the Bartenstein district (East Pr.) .
Towards the end of the Second World War , the district was occupied by the Red Army in January 1945 . In the summer of 1945, the Rastenburg district was placed under Polish administration by the Soviet occupying power in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, along with the southern half of East Prussia and all of West Prussia . Unless the German residents of the district had fled, they were subsequently expelled from the Rastenburg district by the local Polish administrative authorities .
District administrators
- 1752–1775: Friedrich Gottfried von der Groeben
- 1775–1777: Johann Georg von der Groeben
- 1777–1780: Friedrich Leopold von der Goltz
- 1818–1841: Friedrich Leopold von Stechow
- 1841–1851: Went Botho Elimar zu Eulenburg
- 1851–1856: Ferdinand von der Trenck (1803–1868)
- 1856–1867: Ehrhard von Queis (1804–1867)
- 1867–1885: from Queis
- 1885–1887: Heinrich Maurach (1854–1904)
- 1887–1895: Ferdinand von der Trenck (1841–1895)
- 1895–1912: Hilmar Schmidt von Schmidtseck (1863–1912)
- 1912–1934: Dodo zu Innhausen and Knyphausen (1877–1967)
- 1935–1939: Wilhelm Friedrich Schulz († 1945)
- 1939– : Bourwieg ( substitute )
Local constitution
The district of Rastenburg was divided into town communities, rural communities and - until their complete elimination - 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 of Barten, Drengfurth and Rastenburg now used 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 .
Place names
In 1938, numerous places were foreign-sounding place names in East Prussia from political and ideological reasons of defense renamed . In the district of Rastenburg there are u. a .:
- Sawadden: Swaths
- Spieglowken : Spiegelswalde
Personalities
literature
- Gustav Neumann : Geography of the Prussian State . 2nd edition, Volume 2, Berlin 1874, pp. 15-16, item 8.
- Adolf Schlott: Topographical-statistical overview of the government district of Königsberg, according to official sources . Hartung, Königsberg 1861, pp. 203-213.
- Prussian Ministry of Finance: The results of the property and building tax assessment in the Königsberg administrative region : Berlin 1966, Rastenburg district, pp. 1–35.
- Rudolf Grenz (district community Rastenburg): The district of Rastenburg . Marburg 1976
- Leopold Krug : The Prussian Monarchy - represented topographically, statistically and economically . Part 1: Province of East Prussia , Berlin 1833, pp. 417–478 .
Web links
- Current pictures of the city of Rastenburg in the former East Prussia
- Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Rastenburg district (Polish Ketrzyn). (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
- Rastenburg district administrative history and district council list on the website territorial.de (Rolf Jehke), as of July 6, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Big Brockhaus . 15th edition, 15th volume, Leipzig 1933, p. 390.
- ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 350 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 331 ( limited preview in Google Book search).