The siege of the Prussian town of Konigsberg ( today Kaliningrad in Russia) took place between April 6 and 9, 1945, and constitutes one of the final episodes of the war on the Eastern Front that began in June 1941, but it should be placed in the broader framework of the Soviet offensive in East Prussia that began in January 1945 and ended in May of that year with the surrender of the encircled German troops in Courland; also had as a further consequence the flight and subsequent expulsion of Germans from East Prussia and the territories passed to Poland up to the Oder – Neisse line, which forms the present German-Polish border.
This siege is one of the lesser-known episodes of World War II and has not been given due attention by historians as was the case with the Battle of Berlin and the Siege of Wroclaw, but for the people and soldiers on both sides it evokes images of suffering and pain, a battle waged house to house with the German military stretched in the effort to protect the evacuation by sea of the refugees who had come there from various parts of East Prussia to escape Soviet vengeance, and in this regard the great work of the German navy should be highlighted which, with Operation Hannibal, succeeded in evacuating to the still free areas of Germany and Denmark , thousands of refugees even at the cost of numerous losses as shown by the tragic events of the sinking of the passenger ships Wilhelm Gustloff and General von Steuben laden with refugees, it also supported with cannon fire from its ships the ground troops until almost the end of the war.
There are few sources available and they refer to the accounts of refugees who fled the city or from the memories of German soldiers who returned from captivity or Soviet ones furthermore, the fall of the fortress also had a symbolic value because it ended the almost thousand-year Germanic presence in those lands that began in the Middle Ages with the arrival of the Teutonic Knights.

The city of Konigsberg: brief history

In 1945, East Prussia and its capital city, Konigsberg, ceased to be part of the Germanic world, the inhabitants fled or were expelled, this land for centuries inhabited by Germanic peoples became part of the Soviet Union, and the city took on the new name of Kaliningrad: today very few traces of the Prussian past remain because the war and the Soviet authorities
they wanted to erase.
The Germanic presence had begun in the Middle Ages with the arrival of the Teutonic Knights who began a ruthless Christianization of the Slavic and Baltic peoples there; in their wake came settlers from all parts of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire as well as from Holland and Scandinavia, Prussia was then the driving force behind the birth of the German Empire in 1871, and by its inhabitants it was and is remembered as the land of dark forests and crystal-clear water lakes.
The Masuri Lakes to the east of the region were the domain of wild animals, and the locals called these lakes the Auglein (little eyes), but what characterized these places was the solitude and silence as the farms and villages were many so far apart that for several miles only the rustling of the wind among the dark forests and wheat fields and the cries of animals could be heard : it was a life, that of the peoples, regulated by the rhythm of the seasons and it seemed that nothing could disturb that tranquility, these people lived gathered in self-sufficient communities clustered around the house of the local squire, the famous junker, who became the stereotype of Prussian and later German militarism but who actually lived off the land and service to the state following what Frederick the Great considered the best Prussian virtue namely nuchterkeit i.e. simplicity and sobriety.
East Prussia had few paved roads linking the large cities such as Konigsberg and Pillau to the rest of Germany, most of the roads were built by sandy paths that were lost in the dark forests , it seemed as if everything had remained in the time of the Middle Ages when the Teutonic knights began a struggle between the Slavic and Germanic worlds destined to end with the defeat of the latter at the end of World War II and the erasure of that tragic and at the same time glorious past.
But Prussia had already seen another conflict when its quiet was disturbed by clashes between the armies of Kaiser Wilhelm II° and Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II° on that occasion at Tannenberg in 1914 the Germans took a belated revenge for the defeat suffered by the Teutonic Knights in 1410 at the hands of a Polish-Lithuanian coalition .
The East Prussian coastline was picturesque and sloped gently northeastward where the city of Memel (now Klaipeda n Lithuania ) was located, the Frishes Nehrung extended from the city of Danzig to the Pregel River estuary , further north was the region known as Samland : of the old Konigsberg the modern city of Kaliningrad (now part of the Russian Federation) little remains except the grave of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the cathedral where Kepler is buried, and then the fortress where the tower in which General Otto Lasch signed the surrender of the German garrison in April 1945 has been restored, however in recent times a submarine pipeline has been built from the former Prussian city to Rostock in what was once the German Democratic Republic , all due to the new climate after the end of the Cold War and the
fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and also to the strong political and economic relations between the Russian Federation and unified Germany.
Konigsberg has always been a frontier town , the extreme limit of German expansion into Slavic lands, and its walls and fortress were built precisely to defend itself against the local people who periodically rebelled against their Germanic rulers. The city’s name (King’s Hill) comes from the Teutonic Knights’ ally King Ottokar Przemysl of Bohemia known as the “Fortress King”; the city was built on the northern side of the Pregel River estuary in a marshy area that Germanic knights and settlers reclaimed over time, and in the cathedral William I th of Prussia was crowned King of Prussia there after becoming Emperor of Germany in 1871.
The castle had been built on a small hill overlooking the city, the smaller tower was
called Spitzturm but by the end of the 19th century it no longer played a military role and the town itself became
was transformed into a hundred commercial and shipyard headquarters. The city was divided in two by a
picturesque lake, the Schlossteich ( castle lake) artificially created by the Teutonic Knights to
reduce the floods of the Pregel River, was crossed by seven bridges ( which faith inspire the famous
Euler’s mathematical theorem that none of these could be traversed a single
time but at least one of them had to be twice), and the most famous were the Kramer Brucke and
the Grune Brucke that united the Altstadt (the old city ) with the Keniphof Island in the center of the
Schlossteich.
The prosperity of the entire region declined at the end of World War I as a result of the
German defeat, during that conflict on Prussian soil the battles of the lakes had been fought
Masuri and Tannenberg and town of Konigsberg had become home to military hospitals and depots of
supplies. Following the defeat, East Prussia had been separated from the rest of Germany
from the so-called Polish corridor that had its apex in the free city of Gdansk , but also
episodes of civil war occurred in the Prussian city when, in 1919, the Freikorps faced each other
Gertschen Jager the sailors of the local flotilla who had mutinied and were defeated.
The crisis of the 1920s also had repercussions on the region’s economy despite the work of
men like Carl Goerdeler who was later one of the July 20, 1944 conspirators involved in the failed
assassination attempt against Hitler, but even the East Prussians were eventually subjugated by the fascination
demonic of Nazism and they would pay at a much higher price than the entire people
German that choice with the loss of their land and many of their lives.
Unfortunately, among the original inhabitants of those regions were also many future criminals of
war who in the name of the German people committed terrible crimes against humanity: among them
should be mentioned Erich Koch the gauleiter first of Ukraine and then of East Prussia who finished his
days in a Polish prison when instead he should have followed his worthy
cronies; Police Colonel General Kurt Daluge head of the Ordnungspolizei who ended up
hanged in Prague in 1947 and SS Obergruppenfuhrer Erich von den Back-Zelewsky who was
the architect of the Warsaw Uprising crackdown in 1944, but who avoided the gallows by witnessing
against his former colleagues at the Nuremberg trials; finally, the infamous Rudolf von Alvensleben
involved in the massacres committed by the SS Einsatzgruppen in Russia. In this set there
were, however, also men who bravely opposed the Hitler regime, such as the aforementioned
Goerdeler, Lieutenant General Henning von Tresckow, former ambassador to Russia von der
Schulemburg and other officers belonging to the 9th Potsdam Infantry Regiment heir to the
traditions of the Kaiser’s guard regiments.
The outbreak of World War II was not greeted with enthusiasm by the citizens of
Konigsberg and East Prussia just as it had happened in 1914 and also in the city were
introduced ration cards and ration cards as well as curfews.
Due to the fear of Allied bombing, they were evacuated to East Prussia and the capital city
children from the western parts of Germany, but food supplies were sufficient
to feed the increased population; in addition, the shipyards were working at full capacity for the
maintenance of u-boats and other navy warships, which resulted in the arrival of
prisoners of war and foreign workers.
Although the danger of air raids on the city seemed remote they were taken anyway
Of precautions with the construction of air-raid shelters under the cellars of buildings, in basements
of the university and near the cathedral, and air warning and
dimming.
The city had its first serious impact with the war beginning in the spring of 1941, when in
prediction of Operation Barbarossa (attack on the Soviet Union), troops, tanks and vehicles
were unloaded in the port of Pillau or traveled the sandy roads that cut through the dark
forests, while troops stopped at night to rest either in makeshift camps or in the
farms and in barns
Soviet planes attacked Konigsberg on June 23, 1941 without causing any damage, and they did not
returned to fly over the city until the end of 1944 when by then the Luftwaffe had lost the
dominion of the heavens. As the war progressed, so did the quantity and quality of food distributed.
declined also saw the city’s hospitals increasingly crowded with German soldiers
wounded from the Russian front and to make up for labor shortages in the factories and the
yards more prisoners of war arrived, mostly French and foreign workers in large numbers.
part Poles and Ukrainians.
Beginning in the summer of 1941 Konigsberg was considered the main collection point for units
directed to the eastern front also were created coastal vigilance units made up of men too
old people to be sent to the front, while the town’s population was invited to collect clothes
Winter to be sent to troops at the front.
Beginning in the summer of 1943, city hospitals were increasingly crowded with soldiers from the
Russian front as medical personnel began to run out, as did supplies of
medicines and medical supplies: the population meanwhile had grown due to the arrival of many
displaced from areas of Germany subjected to harsh Allied bombing, while they were built
In the suburbs of the city and in the vicinity of the castle of camps to house prisoners of war
and foreign workers, such camps were guarded by the SS who on several occasions were guilty of
crimes, this while food was further rationed.
In early 1944 it became clear to the Prussian population that the war was lost despite
what the propaganda said, Allied planes were increasingly beginning to fly over the skies of
Konigsberg by striking at various construction sites and military installations so the city began to
take on the same appearance as all the other cities that had long suffered the devastating air strikes
allies.
For Konigsberg, the final and most tragic phase of its history opened in late 1944 with the defeat
of the German armies on the Eastern Front and also began the odyssey of the inhabitants of Prussia
East who had to flee in the face of the advancing Soviet army abandoning
permanently their homeland.
Internationally, the fate of East Prussia and Konigsberg was enshrined in the conference
of Tehran in November 1943 when Stalin obtained the westward shift of the borders of the
Soviet Union up to the Bug River while the Poles would get the German territories up to the
Oder – Neisse line that marks since 1945 the German-Polish border first with the Republic
German Democratic Party then, starting in 1990, with reunified Germany although since 1972
then Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Brandt had recognized that border in
virtue also of the ostpolitik he was carrying out. it was also decided that all Germans would be
were expelled from the region, and this agreement was finally sanctioned by the conference of
Potsdam in August 1945.
The East Prussians had no idea of the fate that awaited them and: their escape occurred
mainly between January and March 1945 in conjunction with the Soviet advance while
expulsion of those who remained began in August of that year when the entire region
was incorporated into the Soviet Union, and the city of Konigsberg assumed its current name of
Kaliningrad.
Initially, the escape was spontaneous as a result of the accounts of civilians and German soldiers concerning the
atrocities committed by the Soviet army against the population, mail most chaotic moment vi
will be in February 1945 when the Soviet offensive that will lead to the
subsequent fall of the city of Konigsberg after a long siege, long columns were then seen
of wagons, the so-called trecks (named after the wagons that the Dutch Boers used to migrate the
Transvaal and Orange regions in southern Africa) who ventured into the few
roads vacated by military units or in freshly groomed trails , under polar temperatures, they will
headed westward in the direction of Gdansk and Gdansk, taking with them household goods and the little
Of their past lives. In some cases their journey ended tragically as they were
caught up with the advancing Soviet columns that looted them of all their possessions and often killed
many of the refugees. However, the escape was delayed by the authorities, and it is estimated that during February –
May about 300,000 Germans had been killed and another 800,000 civilians will be deported after the
war.
In their escape, the East Prussians were followed by Allied prisoners of war, especially
French and British, who in many houses drove the wagons, there were then Soviet citizens and from the countries
Baltics who had cooperated with the German authorities and feared the inevitable revenge of the
their compatriots.
Few of these refugees had help from Wehrmacht and SS units engaged in
plugging the front while they will get it from the navy of war: the most tragic episodes of this
vicissitudes will occur when these columns attempt to cross the Frozen Lagoon (Frishes
Haft) an area of the Baltic coast at the mouth of the Vistula River near the town of Elbing: the ice
in some places gave way, swallowing wagons and people and leaving no escape for those who had ended up
In the frozen water. However, it was the German Kriegmsarine (war navy ) that saved the most
of refugees and military personnel by taking them to safety in West Germany and Denmark.
By order of the great Admiral Karl Donitz, Operation Hannibal was organized, which, between 21
January and May 8, 1945, saw the relocation of 900,000 refugees and 350,000 wounded and non
Of all weapons. The refugees and soldiers came from East Prussia, Curlamdia, and the
Polish corridor and those who were personally involved in the organization were the admirals
Kummetz and Engelhardt who used about 1080 ships of all types, including pocket battleships and
cruisers which used their guns to bombard the coast in support of the units
of the army and that is what the cruisers Prinz Eugen, Admiral Hipper, Scheer and the battleship
pocket Lutzow ( formerly Deutschland).
The number of people relocated was three times the number evacuated by the British in Dunkirk in the
May 1940, smaller ships such as minesweepers cleared the routes of mines dropped by the
British planes and in many cases shot down some of them, while what astonished the Germans was the failure to
intervention of the heavy ships of the Soviet Baltic Sea Fleet, which also had a force
sufficient to stop or thwart such an operation.
Refugees and soldiers were relocated to Kiel , Hamburg, Bremen and the Denmark and even after
occupation of these areas by British troops the relocation continued : those who
remained in Denmark were interned in the Oksbol camp and later transferred to the area
British of Germany.
Beginning in the summer of 1944, Konigsberg youth from the classes 1926, 1927 and 1928 were mobilized
in the Luftwaffe as anti-aircraft auxiliaries (Luftwaffe flakhelfer) or in the navy (Marinehelfer)
for the defense of the ports of Pillau and Memel and in support of the refugees who in increasing numbers
major arrived in the city.
On June 25, 1944, the Soviet Army launched Operation Bagration, which wiped out the Group of
German Army Center and the town of Konigsberg saw again after many years the Soviet planes that the
struck heavily: the gauleiter Koch ordered the entire population to be mobilized for the
construction of defenses against the Soviet advance, British bombers struck Konigsberg between the
26 and August 29, 1944 destroying part of the naval installations but they also had the purpose of
to sap the morale of the population (so-called moral bombing), as it basically
the city was no substitute for a serious military objective.
After this raid, General Hossbach ,commander of the German 4th Army, suggested.
evacuation of the eastern part of the Prussian region but Hitler refused as he had
ordered to defend every meter of German territory to the last.
In addition, the evacuation by sea of the Northern Army Group trapped in
Courland:it consisted of 26 divisions and about 200,000 men.
Its composition was: XXVIIIth Army Corps :31 Grenadier Division, Infantry Divisions 21 and 30 and 61, 12 Luftwaffe Field Division; 16 Army 21 Luftwaffe Field Division, 81 Infantry Division, ZBV Division 30 formed by four Estonian police regiments; VI Waffen SS Army Corps (Latvian) :19th Latvian SS Division, 24th Infantry Division, 12 Armored Division; 18 Army IInd Army Corps : Infantry Divisions 263 – 30, 563 Volksgrenadier Division, 14 Division battleship.

The beginning of the end

In September 1944, the formation of the Volkssturm (people’s militia) was decreed, which was to enlist all young people not yet called to arms and old people between 50 and 60 years old, and also in East Prussia battalions were formed and sent to the front, but the gauleiter Kock wanted to use the units established in Konigsberg to build fortifications on the outskirts of the city. The first Soviet attack on the town of Memel occurred in August 1944, and many refugees arrived In East Prussia, the Soviets launched a massive attack on the German 4th Army on October 16. on the northern side of the Prussian border by breaking through three days later between Goldap and Gumbinnen . The 4th Army then consisted of. LVth Army Corps : 28 Jager Division, Infantry Division 267, 203 Security Division, 562 Grenadier Division; XXXXIst Armored Corps : ZBV Division; VIth Army Corps : Infantry Divisions 61 – 121 – 131, 10 Cyclist Brigade, 18 Division Armored Grenadiers ; Cavalry Corps VIIIth Hungarian Army Corps Armored Division, 3 Cavalry Division , 711 Infantry Division, 23 Infantry Division Hungarian, 1 Fallschirmpanzer division Hermann Goring. The city was increasingly showing signs of war, food and medicine were in short supply, and the number of wounded was increasing more and more, the population began to fear the Sovietians and no longer believed to propaganda while Volkssturm units continued to erect fortifications and build trenches on the periphery.

The Soviet offensive in East Prussia began on January 13, 1945 after careful planning with the goal of separating the region from the rest of the Reich and then targeting Berlin: this attack would end on April 25 with the surrender of Konigsberg and the occupation of the entire region as well as the flight and subsequent expulsion of the remaining Germans. The offensive was led by the 3rd Belorussian Front, which intended to march along the banks of the Pregel River until it encircled Konigsberg and prevented the use of the port. At that time the 3rd Belarusian Front was composed of: 5 Army : 9 infantry divisions, one artillery division, one anti-aircraft division, one anti-tank brigade, two armored brigades, and one rocket launcher brigade as well as various support units; 11 Guard Army :9 infantry divisions, two antiaircraft divisions, an armor corpsaton with T34/85 and Stalin II tanks, an artillery brigade, a rocket launcher brigade, an anti-tank brigade and various support units; 31 Army . 8 infantry divisions, one antiaircraft division, one heavy artillery brigade,one anti-tank brigade, one tank brigade with T34/85; 5 Guard Armored Army : two armored corps and one anti-aircraft division; 1 Air Army: six medium bomber divisions, eight fighter aircraft divisions, four ground attack aircraft divisions with The -2 Schturmovick, one night bomber division; there were then in support three cavalry divisions, three heavy artillery divisions, an antiaircraft artillery division, a mechanized army corps and a rocket launching brigade.

The 3rd Belarusian Front had the support of the 1st Baltic Front consisting of: 4 Shock Army ; 83rd Rifle Corps ; Army Rifle Corps of the Guard No. 2- 22 – 23 – 103 ; 43 Army; 1st – 6th – and 92nd Rifle Corps; 1st Armored Army Corps ; 3 Air Army The goal of the Soviet units was the destruction of German forces along the Tilsit line – Insterburg east of Konigsberg, which was then to be besieged and conquered. The Soviet armies were opposed in addition to the 4th Army by the German 3rd Armored Army, which then consisted of : XXXIInd Army Corps: 281 Infantry Division, Stettin Fortress Division, 549 Division Volksgrenadier, Kampfgruppe Voigt; XXXXVIth Armored Army Corps: 389 and 227 Infantry Divisions, 4 Armored Division, Sperrbrigade 1 (barrage brigade) ; IIIrd Armored Army Corps of the Waffen SS (Germanic ): 103 SS Heavy Tank Battalion on Konigstiger, 28 SS Freiwilligen Division Wallonien, 27 SS Freiwilligen Granadier Division Langemarck, 23 SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division Nederland ; Tenth Waffen SS Army Corps : 5 Jager Division, 163 Infantry Division .

On January 12, 1945 the final offensive began with the Soviet armies moving toward the Vistula, the 3rd Belorussian Front attacked on January 13 between Gumbinnen and Insterburg in a foggy atmosphere and with the roads covered with ice and high snow: the Prussian population fell into panic and prepared to flee despite the Nazi party’s prohibitions in -20 degree temperatures, the columns of refugees headed for Konigsberg and the port of Pillau but not all of them succeeded as some were joined by Soviet armored columns and suffered their fury and thirst for revenge, in their march they were accompanied by prisoners of war, mostly French, who often placed themselves at the head of the wagons and who did not trust the Soviets much after hearing many stories told to them by Polish and Ukrainian workers.
The 3 Byelorussian Front launched its main attack in the direction of Pilkannen and Insterburg however on January 16 the German 3 Armored Army managed to launch a counterattack that blocked the opponent until January 20, then had to give up due to heavy losses, which allowed the Soviets to reach Tilsit where they wiped out the remaining units of the Volkssturm.
On January 21, the Soviets reached Tannenberg where the memorial had been erected in remembrance of the German victory over the Tsar’s Russians in 1914, but by that time Field Marshal Hindenburg’s wife’s coffins had been moved to the west and German sappers had proceeded to blow it up, so the Soviets found only ruins.
Meanwhile, more and more refugees were arriving in Konigsberg intending to embark on German ships to the west; on January 22 the Soviets had occupied Insterburg, and the next day the 5th Armored Guard arrived at Elbing on the southern side of the Frischess Haff, which was totally occupied on the 24th: this meant that East Prussia was cut off separated from the rest of the Reich.
At that time in the area were the remnants of the divisions of the German 2 Army namely : 31 Volksgrenadier Division, 4 SS Police Division, 7 Armored Division, 83 Infantry Division, 4 Armored Division, 252 Infantry Division, 12 Luftwaffe Field Division, 18th Mountain Army Corps (Gebirgskorps): 7 Alpine Division, 26th Army Corps, 5 Armored Division, remnants of 561 Volksgrenadier Division, Infantry Divisions 21- 1 – 58, 28 Jager Division , 9th Army Corps, Infantry Divisions 94 – 95 -14, 551 Volksgrenadier Division, armored tactical group of Armored Army Corps Grossdeutschland, 50 Infantry Division, 6th Army Corps Infantry Divisions 129 -170 – 69 – 367 , 548 Volksgrenadier Division, 10 Jager Brigade,
Volksgrenadier Divisions 542 – 377, Infantry Divisions 73 and 389, remnants of 2 Fallschirmpanzerdivision Hermann Goring, 24 Armored Division, Infantry Divisions 292 – 131 – 56, 562 Volksgrenadier Division.
These ragtag units were unable to stop the Soviet advance, which continued toward Braunsberg trapping the Germans in the Heligenbeil pocket, but no one in Konigsberg really knew what was going on as the Prussians’ westward escape continued, but by Jan. 26 the Soviets had reached the city gates.

Konigsberg Fortress

By the end of January 1945, the city was home to about 300. 000 refugees who crowded together with the soldiers among the ruins and under the cellars of the buildings and the harbor, many animals that had been used to pull the wagons were killed either because of the impossibility of feeding them or to obtain food for the population. At that time, the city’s defenses consisted of a series of defensive walls, forts , ramparts and other works built between 1626 and 1859: the first and second defensive belts had been erected during the Swedish-Polish War however the second line was in poor condition, a third line was built that included twelve ramparts, three revetments, seven embankments and two forts surrounded by land left purposely swampy, there were ten brick gates that served to cross the defensive belts and there were then movable bridges.
The fortifications had become largely vulnerable to artillery fire however were reactivated in time for the Soviet assault they were: Astronomical Bastion named so because it was located near the astronomical observatory:
after the war, its remains were demolished and barracks for Russian riot control units (OMON) were built there;
Fort Bronsart ( Bronsart bei Mandhein) built in 1975-80 that was named after General Paul Bronsart von Schellendorf: today it is in good condition Dohna Tower (Dohna Turm) the last to surrender built in 1858 and dedicated to Friedrich
Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna Schlobitten today is in good condition and houses a museum Fort Friedrich Wilhelm I° heavily damaged and never restored was the largest in the city Fort Gneisenau named after the Prussian general of Napoleon’s time heavily damaged and never restored Bastion Grolmann Citadel of Pillau built in the 17th century Fort Stein Fort Bannnekow
Then there was the castle built in the time of the Teutonic Knights which was totally destroyed by the British bombardment in August 1944 but whose ruins served as defensive works, after the war its remains were totally eliminated
When the city was completely isolated Soviet planes began flying at low altitude hitting anything moving men or vehicles and causing numerous casualties among civilians, the temperature had dropped to -28 degrees, food and fuel were becoming scarce, and Soviet artillery had begun a continuous bombardment.
For the next ten weeks despite the Soviet encirclement the outer forts remained in German hands, who indeed managed to get a minimum of supplies to the population, meanwhile the SS and military police continued the hunt for good men and deserters: those who refused to go to the line were immediately executed, while many weary soldiers demanded and obtained civilian clothes from the population with the hope of hiding among the refugees and escaping that hell.
General Otto Lasch was appointed commander of Fortress Konigsberg on Feb. 5, 1945 he tried by all means to bring order to the chaos that had been created by ordering the regrouping of all straggling soldiers and forcing 16-year-olds to enlist in the Volkssturm: those who refused risked the death sentence.
Konigsberg was one of the towns designated by Hitler as a fortress and the garrison was ordered to defend it to the last man, Lasch installed his command in the Paradeplatz and from here tried to organize the defense although he was short of troops having at his disposal only the remains of four divisions as well as scattered units of the SS and military police, it was for this reason that he obliged the young men of the Hitlerjugend to join the military units: there were then 10.000 lightly wounded soldiers of the 4th Army and these were also ordered to return to the front lines on pain of death, in addition the Volkssturm units were ordered to hand over some of their weapons to the regular units and to build additional fortifications outside the city including foxholes, minefields and barbed wire barrages.
The main line of defense was created by uniting the twelve forts , reinforcing the innermost ones and also using the castle ruins; in addition, the banks of the Pregel River were fortified. On Feb. 20, 1945, the first siege of the city ended, and it was broken by German units who reoccupied the Samland Peninsula, while the city’s garrison recaptured the suburb of Metgehem, and it was here that the German soldiers had further proof of the Soviet vengeance that had come upon the civilian population.
Over the next three weeks thousands more wounded German civilians and servicemen left the city in the direction of Pillau under constant Soviet aerial and artillery bombardment, and apparent normalcy seemed to have returned to the city itself: electricity and gas were reactivated but it was only the calm that preceded the storm as in mid-March the Soviets began to prepare for the final assault which they believed would be one of the most difficult since Stalingrad and it was for this reason that mixed groups of infantry and tanks supported by guerrilla squads and artillery pieces were created , house-to-house combat was expected: this same tactic would later be used during the Battle of Berlin. Aerial reconnaissance had shown the solidity of the German defenses, and it was for this reason that the operation was planned in three phases : the destruction of the remains of the German 4th Army, the attack on the city proper, and the elimination of all German forces on the Samland Peninsula.
By now the Germans in Konigsberg were only waiting for the final attack which began on March 13, 1945 when the 3rd Belorussian Front broke through to the south of the town pushing the German 4th Army to the seashore, then the Soviets directed their attack against the town subjecting it to a furious artillery and air bombardment against the outermost fortifications, the infantry troops were
moved on April 6 with the support of tanks and rocket launchers in addition to planes strafing at low altitude. The Soviets employed 137,000 men, 530 tanks and 2,400 aircraft; they were opposed by 35,000 Germans with 50 tanks including Panther and Konigstiger tanks of the Waffen SS, but while the Soviets were well armed the Germans lacked weapons and ammunition and furthermore their units were only remnants of those that had borne the brunt of the opposing attacks since October of the previous year, in addition, communication between German units was difficult and civilians often obstructed their movements.
After three days of furious house-to-house fighting with considerable casualties on both sides the Soviets broke through and it was then that Lasch realized that surrender was inevitable despite Hitler’s orders, he wanted to spare further suffering to both his soldiers and the civilians who increasingly put white flags on the crumbling walls of houses and asked the
soldiers to surrender even going so far as to fire on the SS and military police: the Volkssturm units began to disintegrate as the Soviets advanced until they reached the center of the city.
Some men of a German armored division defended for some time the area of Gross Friedrichsberg where the gauleiter Koch had built his summer villa: here the Heer soldiers found considerable amounts of food and ammunition, and their fury against the Nazi party increased when a section of SS tried to forcefully obtain some of the ammunition: the soldiers reacted and fired at them. It was at that point that the Waffen SS realized the hatred they had aroused among the army soldiers and therefore withdrew to avoid further trouble.
On April 7, the battle reached its climax with Soviet planes attacking at low altitude causing further casualties among civilians, while hospitals were increasingly crowded although by then they had run out of medicines and cloth bandages that were replaced by paper ones .
On April 8, the Soviets crossed the Pregel River, cutting the center of the city in two, and so even the Nazi authorities realized that the surrender was near, General Lasch was contacted so that he could begin negotiations with the Soviets, and an attempt was made to organize a further evacuation of civilians to the harbor but it was a failure, by then 90 percent of the city was destroyed. The surrender was signed on the 9th
April 1945 by General Lasch whom Hitler sentenced to death in absentia by sending his family to concentration camp; at the time of the surrender there were still about 35,000 German soldiers,
15,000 foreign workers and over 100,000 civilians. However, a small group of SS and military police soldiers held out for three more days in the ruins of the castle and the university until they were all eliminated: only then was Konigsberg finally in Soviet hands.
On the morning of April 10, 1945, the Soviets ordered all civilians to assemble in the main square while the NKVD hunted down German stragglers and Soviet deserters who remained hidden in the ruins.The civilians were divided into groups and sent to the Samland Peninsula as the Pillau drama, which lasted until April 26, 1945, also ended. Surrender meant for both civilians and military personnel deportation to labor camps in Central Asia or Siberia from which very few returned.
After the end of the war the Russification of the city began immediately with the change of all German names replaced with those written in Cyrillic, in the following winter an epidemic of typhoid and smallpox hit the city which further aggravated the already tragic situation of the civilian population, by this time all of former East Prussia had become part of the Soviet Union and Konigsberg assumed the name Kaliningrad: the first Soviet citizens arrived in the summer of 1946, and the remaining Germans were all expelled by 1947: the remains of the castle were razed as well as those of the university, and little remained of the German past.
After the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union Kalinigrad and all of the former East Prussia were separated from the rest of the Russian Federation due to the independence of the Baltic republics and thus had to endure a significant economic crisis, in addition about 500 villages once inhabited by Germans were left abandoned. In recent years under the new
international political climate and stronger political and economic ties between unified Germany and the Russian Federation about 10,000 Germans returned permanently to the land that had been theirs for generations: there are neither German nor Russian memorials to that battle, nor are there any German military cemeteries this is because the Soviets after the war intended to erase all traces of the German past that in their eyes represented an image of destruction and death.

Conclusion

The Battle of Konigsberg constitutes one of the final and most tragic episodes of World War II, but it should be framed in the events of the Eastern Front, which was the one in which the largest and bloodiest battles of the conflict were fought.
For historical truth the violence suffered by the German population should perhaps be seen as a retaliation for that committed by Hitler’s armies on Soviet soil, but still should not be justified although in order to understand it one must immerse oneself in the logic of that tragic time so the reader is left free to draw his own conclusions, an attempt has been made to set forth the facts as accurately as possible despite the scarcity of sources

Bibliography

• Altner H., Berlin Dance of Death Staplehurst 2002
• Beevor A., Berlin 1945 Rizzoli Milan 2002
• Bellamy G., Absolute War Einaudi Turin 2010
• Bodderer G., Die fluchtlinge. Die vertribung der deutschen in osten Munich Herbig Verlag 1980
• Bulreigh Michael, The Third Reich a New History Rizzoli Milan 2003
• Diecken K-Grossmann H., Der kampf um Ostpreussen, 1960
• Deichelmann H., Ich Sah Konigsberg sterben Dortmund 2000
• Denny I., The fall of Hitler’s Fortress city- the battle for Konigsberg 1945, Greenhill Books
  London 2011
• Fritz Stephen G., Front soldaten: the german soldier in world war two, The University Press of
  Kentucky, Lexington 1995
• Glantz D. – House J., The Great Patriotic War of the Red Army, Gorizia Publishing Bookshop,
  Gorizia 2010
• Glantz D. – House J., When Titans Clashed. How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, Kansas University
  Press, Lawrence 1995
• Hastings M., German Apocalypse, Mondadori, Milan 2006
• Knopp Guido., Germans on the Run, Corbaccio Editore, Milan 2004
• Knopp Guido., Wehrmacht, Corbaccio Editore, Milan 2010
• Lass E., Die flucht Ostpreussen 1944-45, Friedberg Pozdun, Verlag 196