East Prussia Aid

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sponsor of the Bavarian East Prussia Aid for the Rößel and Fischhausen districts from October 1917

The East Prussian Aid was founded in the First World War after an appeal by the former East Prussian district administrator of the Gumbinnen district and police president of Berlin Bernd Freiherr von Lüdinghausen on March 16, 1915.

After the invasion of the Russian armies in 1914, 39 cities and over 1900 towns in East Prussia were destroyed, 40,000 buildings burned and another 60,000 damaged, 135,000 horses and over 250,000 head of cattle lost - a total damage of more than 1.5 billion marks.

Before that, on March 4, 1915, the Munich East Prussian Aid was founded. This relief operation differed from others in that no money was sent to the country destroyed by the events, but house furnishings were procured with the funds collected. To this end, in 1915  , 27 model rooms were set up in the ballroom of what was then the Munich police building - today's fishing and hunting museum - designed by various architects. More than 40,000 visitors viewed the exhibition and donated furnishings or even entire rooms based on these patterns, which were then manufactured by carpenters in Munich and the surrounding area.

After five months of advertising and collecting activity, Munich East Prussia Aid had around 450,000 marks, with which 833 room furnishings were financed. In addition, 40 railway wagons with used clothing and used furniture were brought to East Prussia.

During this time 61 such aid associations had come together to form "East Prussia Aid" and took over the sponsorship of a war-torn district or town . For larger donations there was the "sponsorship plate", which was provided by the Royal Prussian Porcelain Manufactory Berlin with the coat of arms and name of the sponsor and the sponsor as well as a sentence from an imperial telegram dated February 16, 1915.

literature

  • Aid to East Prussia in the First World War . Ed .: East Prussian State Museum Lüneburg. Husum Verlag, Husum 2006, ISBN 978-3-89876-307-3 .

Web links