Natural events and accidents in East Prussia

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Flood and drift ice with an enclosed farm in Prussian Lithuania

The natural events in East Prussia , which were also understood as signs of fate or heavenly signs in pre-enlightened times, included earthquakes , comets , northern lights and solar eclipses in northeastern Central Europe . The shortened fruiting period and the mostly barren soils made living conditions in later East Prussia difficult. Extreme climatic fluctuations brought additional, often catastrophic, stresses. Before 1835, the years 1308, 1349, 1360, 1497, 1510, 1701, 1702, 1768 and especially 1818 brought severe hurricane damage. In 1308 the low on the Fresh Spit was changed. In 1510 the Pillauer Tief was created .

Natural events

The following extraordinary natural phenomena are documented for East Prussia from the 14th century to 1934:

  • 1322/23 cold winter, almost all fruit trees frozen to death
  • 1427 drought, no rain between Easter and August
  • 1506 pear trees bear fruit twice
  • 1556/57 very cold winter
  • 1572 “Miraculous Signs in the Sky” , Northern Lights
  • 1577 big comet over Königsberg
  • In 1585 the great northern lights were considered a "terrible sign"
  • 1620 flood; Flooding of the floor of the Königsberg Cathedral; the Köttelbrücke is torn away
  • 1642 the stork arrives at the end of January
  • 1680 on December 23, “after the sun set, a terrible comet beam 52 ° was seen for the first time” , Halley's comet
  • 1706 on May 12th total solar eclipse , at 11 o'clock total darkness
  • In January 1709 it was extremely cold; rare trees die in the pleasure garden; sledges are still being used on the Baltic Sea at the beginning of May; The consequences of malformation, famine, rising prices and the great plague . - See also: Millennium of 1708/1709
  • 1711 Königsberg suffers from swarms of locusts
  • 1718 Hurricane flooding Koenigsberg
  • 1739/40 very severe winter; Cracked oak; Frozen wine and beer; Guard posts, game and poultry frozen to death; the Baltic Sea does not open until mid-May
  • 1766 on April 12th total solar eclipse
  • 1771 severe winter with frost until the end of April, early summer extremely dry, then "incessant rain" from July 10th to October 15th (church book Heiligenwalde)
  • 1794/95 great cold
  • 1801 on November 3rd, western Orcan with enormous backwater; Ships lie in meadows and in Königsberg on the wall
  • 1806 a hurricane over Königsberg sweeps down one of the three palace courtyard gables of the Berwart building
  • In January 1818 , a hurricane devastated large parts of East Prussia, damage amounting to 4,414,710 thalers
  • 1825 flood, boat traffic on plantation, willow dam , fish bridge and philosopher dam
  • 1829 winter westerly storm, heavy flooding, ice jam at the Pregelbrücken, Albertinum under water, detached Wittinen , Pregelkrug and wooden mug torn away
  • 1832 cold summer, rime and ice on July nights
  • 1834 heat and drought; twice blooming and twice fruit
  • 1836 great northern lights
  • 1849 severe cold, down to −35 ° Ré = −43.75 ° C
  • 1868 hot summer, on August 13th 35.8 ° Ré = 44.75 ° C
  • 1871 June 1st snow
  • 1889 cold winter with 92 days of snow
  • 1894 in February western storm, large backwater; the dam of the wet garden breaks
  • 1899/1900 snowy winter; the snow masses are cleared in 28,721 loads
  • 1905 minor earthquake shock in June
  • 1907/08 snowy winter, 175,696 cubic meters of snow cleared, costs 235,860 marks
  • Halley's Comet in July 1910
  • In 1911/12 Landgraben frozen to the ground
  • 1912 almost total solar eclipse on April 7th . Hot summer, 25 heat vacations at schools in Königsberg
  • In January 1918 violent winter thunderstorms
  • 1928/29 very hard winter, the Baltic Sea frozen over to the horizon; on January 7th, 42 cm snow depth, on February 10th −34.4 ° C, mean February temperature −13.8 ° C, still in May ice on the Curonian Spit . Mostly northeast wind
  • 1934 enormous snowfalls; the May celebration is canceled

Calamities and disasters

  • 1352 plague in Königsberg, 5,078 dead in 4 months
  • 1529 English sweat in Königsberg and East Prussia, 25,500 dead
  • 1549 Plague in Königsberg and East Prussia, 15,000 dead
  • 1550 Large caterpillar plague in Königsberg and Samland
  • 1693 The rotten bulwark next to the wooden bridge collapses, 20 dead
  • 1709 Beginning of the Great Plague
  • 1747 The bulwark next to the Green Bridge collapses, many dead
  • 1807 typhus and dysentery in Königsberg, 10,000 deaths, cattle deaths, high prices, 1,949 births, 6,392 deaths
  • 1831 Cholera in Königsberg, 2,200 illnesses, 1,327 deaths, see also the cholera uprising in Königsberg
  • 1866 Cholera in Königsberg, 3,967 illnesses, 517 of them soldiers; 2,671 dead
  • 1869 During the visit of Wilhelm I , the railing of the Schloßteichbrücke breaks at the evening festival on the Königsberg Schlossteich , 32 dead
  • 1871 smallpox , 771 diseases
  • 1871 cholera, 3,741 illnesses, 1,790 deaths
  • 1914 in August / September Russian invasion with devastation of 39 cities and 1900 villages, see East Prussian Operation (1914) and East Prussia # First World War
  • 1916 On July 4th, ammunition explosion in Rothenstein , 44 dead, 95 injured
  • 1920 Rothenstein accident: on April 10th, the munitions factory exploded with many dead; the dome of the crematorium with Otto Ewel's frescoes collapses
  • 1944 Air raids on Königsberg at the end of August

literature

  • Ernst Strehlke , Friedrich Strehlke: News about special weather phenomena in Prussia , Old Prussian monthly magazine New Series 10 (1873), pp. 650–660.
  • Ananiasz Rojecki, Ryszard Girguś, Witold Strupczewski: Wyjątki ze źródeł historycznych o nadzwyczajnych zjawiskach hydrologiczno-meteorologicznych na ziemiach polskich w wiekach od X do XVI (selection of historical sources from the 10th to the 16th century in Poland about extraordinary hydrological-meteorological phenomena) , Warszawa 1965.
  • Piotr Oliński: Mnich wobec pogody. O zapiskach dotyczacych pogody w Kronice pelplinskiej (A monk and the weather. On the notes relating to the weather in the Chronicle of Pelplin), in: Pelplin 725 rocznica powstania Opactwa Cysterskiego. Kulturotwórcza rola cystersów na Kociewiu . Materiały z sesji naukowej zorganizowanej w Pelplinie w dniach 21–23 września 2001 roku przez Starostwo Powiatowe w Tczewie, Instytut Historii Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego oraz Zespół do badańskiego oraz Zespół do badań nad historią, Poznan, Poznan, Poznan, Poland -168.
  • R. Przybyla, G. Wójcik, W. Chorążyczewski, W. Nowosad, K. Marciniak, Piotr Oliński, K. Syta: Zmienność warunków termiczno-opadowych w Polsce w okresie 1501–1840 w świetle danych historycznych (The variability of temperatures and rainfall in Poland between 1501 and 1840 in the light of historical data), Przegłąd geograficzny 76/1 (2004), pp. 5-31.
  • Piotr Oliński, J. Majorowicz, A. Zielski: Temperature Changes in Poland from the 16th to the 20th Century , International Journal of Climatology 25 (2005), pp. 773-791.
  • Piotr Oliński: Wylewy Wisły w ziemni chełmińskiej w XV-XVIII wieku, świetle zródel narracyjnych (The Vistula floods in the Kulmer Land from the 15th to the 18th century in narrative sources), [in:] Mesto a voda. Praha, mesto u vody . Sborník příspevku z 22nd vedecké konference Archivu hlavního mesta Prahy, usporádané ve spolupráci s Institutem mežinárodních studií Fakulty sociálních ved Univerzity Karlovy ve dnech 7. a 8. - Října Prišté ve dnech 7. a 8. - íjna 2003 ve spolupráci.
  • Marie-Luise Heckmann : Between the Vistula Delta, the great wilderness and the Gulf of Riga. Ecological prerequisites for land acquisition in the late medieval Baltic States , in: From Novgorod to London. Studies on trade, economy and society in medieval Europe. Festschrift for Stuart Jenks' 60th birthday (Nova mediaevalia 4), ed. v. ders. and Jens Röhrkasten. Göttingen 2008, pp. 255-295.
  • Marie-Luise Heckmann : War and Weather - in narrative sources from Prussia and Livonia in the 13th and 14th centuries , in: Piśmienność pragmatyczna - edytorstwo źródeł historycznych - archiwistika. Studia ofiarowane Profesorowi Januszowi Tandeckiemu w sześćdziesiąta oiąta rocznicę urodzin , ed. by Roman Czaja / Krzysztof Kopiński, Toruń 2015, pp. 191–212.
  • Marie-Luise Heckmann with the participation of Dieter Heckmann : Falken im Ordensland and Duchy of Prussia, an ecologically and economically scarce good , in: Preußenland 8 (2017), pp. 7-40. English summary

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Prussian country and folklore: or description of Prussia (1835)
  2. ^ A b Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt : Königsberg from A to Z - a city dictionary . Leer 1972, ISBN 3-7612-0092-7