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No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

Besides, that, Germany got into posession of that piece of land by way of ethnic cleansing. It is not a part of the 'native german homeland'. And as there are now very few ethnic Germans living in Kaliningrad Oblast, Germany has zero claim to the area.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Besides, that, Germany got into posession of that piece of land by way of ethnic cleansing.

And yet you're in the Ukraine thread arguing that Crimea totally is a legitimate part of Russia.

Further, I'd really like you to provide a source for the claim that Germany only came to posess Kaliningrad through "ethnic cleansing", seeing as the Teutonic Order was there as early as the 1200's.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

You really, REALLY don't want to go down the path of comparing Hitler to Stalin in terms of lives lost.

 Kain wrote:
Kaliningrad is about as German as Goulash

You leave Goulash out of this

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Besides, that, Germany got into posession of that piece of land by way of ethnic cleansing.

And yet you're in the Ukraine thread arguing that Crimea totally is a legitimate part of Russia.

Further, I'd really like you to provide a source for the claim that Germany only came to posess Kaliningrad through "ethnic cleansing", seeing as the Teutonic Order was there as early as the 1200's.

I figured that part of Europe... ya'll are mutts??!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

You really, REALLY don't want to go down the path of comparing Hitler to Stalin in terms of lives lost.

AFAIK nothing about the Kaliningrad Oblast is German anymore. Virtually nothing remains of the original city, either of the population or the infrastructure. Those residents who survived the battle to take the city were expelled (and very few remain alive today), and virtually nothing was left intact after the battle. For all intents and purposes, it's a new city with a new population and a new language and culture which would not be suited in the least to administration by Germany. Furthermore, it would face the same situation with Germany that it does with Russia, it would be an isolated enclave.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

While not wanting to detract from the atrocities of the Nazi's, lets not forget that the Soviets committed many of the same acts here, the starving millions of Ukrainians in the 1930's, millions more killed by security forces and in gulags, mass killings in eastern european nations as the Red Army swept through, etc. The Soviets killed millions of non-combatants too, possibly more than the Nazi's (most just happened to be their own people rather than from conquered states), don't get too carried away with victor's justice there

I mean, otherwise, there's a whole lot of places with equally legitimate claims against the Soviet Union/Russia. I mean, we could talk about Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, etc

If we want to get into who owes what for who they killed when, it's not like the Germans are alone there by any means

Besides, that, Germany got into posession of that piece of land by way of ethnic cleansing. It is not a part of the 'native german homeland'.

You can make that claim about probably every piece of land on the planet (be it Germany, Russia, the US, Britain, France, Spain, China, anywhere in the Middle East, etc), at some point one group of people killed another group of people on the land they're living on now almost everywhere. That said, the city itself was founded by Teutonic Knights in the mid 13th century it was a Germanic/Baltic Prussian city for roughly seven hundred years if not more by the time of the second world war, so lets not be too disingenuous

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

I already stated that I think Kaliningrad belongs to the people living there, which currently means it belong to Russia. But I simply can not resist pointing out how absurd your argument is. That Stalin took Kaliningrad didn't bring back 28 million Russians either, so that can hardly be a justification for it. I'd also have a word or two to say about the kind of "salvation" that Stalin's USSR brought Europe, but I don't want to run afoul of Dakka's various rules of courtesy, which I would. The last sentence of the part I quoted is simply ironic, considering the same could be said about Russia "after everything the Soviets inflicted on the world".

Having been to Russia and being lucky enough to call a few Russians friends, I would never say something so ridiculous, though.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Besides, that, Germany got into posession of that piece of land by way of ethnic cleansing.

And yet you're in the Ukraine thread arguing that Crimea totally is a legitimate part of Russia.

Further, I'd really like you to provide a source for the claim that Germany only came to posess Kaliningrad through "ethnic cleansing", seeing as the Teutonic Order was there as early as the 1200's.

Crimea is a legitimate part of Russia because the population consists mostly of ethnic Russians who support the reunification with Russia. The population in Kaliningrad does not consist primarily of Germans, and neither do the people of Kaliningrad want to be reunified with Germany.

Probably best not to compare two infamous dictators known for their body counts and try and find which one is 'better'.

The interesting thing about this thread is that the Germans don't want it back and the Russians are fine keeping it. Why does anyone care?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prussia, the area in which Königsberg/Kaliningrad lies, was originally inhabited by the Prussians, a baltic people. The Prussians, being pagan, were not very well liked by christian rulers from the West. There were numerous unsuccesful attempts to conquer Prussia and convert the people, but in the end, the Teutonic Order succeeded in subjugating Prussia. They founded the city of Königsberg on the ruins of the Prussian city of Twangste and did a very extensive ethnic and religious cleansing of the native Prussian people. Those that were not exterminated were assimilated by German colonists. The effectiveness of their ethnic cleansing is clear, seeing as that the Prussians were completely exterminated. The Teutonic Order was little more than a puppet of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a predecessor of the modern German state. Also, the Ostsiedlung did not end with the rule of the Teutonic Order. Later German states who came to rule Prussia continued and finished the process.

Setting aside the fundamental disagreement over whether Old Prussians were "exterminated" as opposed to a more likely scenario of gradual population assimilation and blending (to mention nothing of the roles of the Lithuanian and Poles in the same region over several hundred years also assimilating much of that population), we're still talking about the city having been founded by those Teutons, and being German for 700 years until the end of WW2. That's about as "historically ethnic" as one can really get in Europe.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Did I mention Stalin? I don't think I did.
Stalin's crimes have little to do with all this, and unlike Hitler, Stalin also did a lot of very good things. He is the lesser of two evils.

If you're going to say the Germans deserved what they got under Hitler and say the Soviets deserved what they got, and pretend Stalin is unrelated, that's being silly. Also, it's entirely possible to argue that Hitler did lots of very good things before WW2 for the German nation, such as dragging Germany out of economic depression, and (at the time this was viewed largely positively by both peoples) unifying Germany and Austria. Yes, Stalin was probably the lesser of two evils, but lets be honest, that's not saying much. I'd rather have my legs and my reproductive parts cut off while getting robbed than get slowly run over by a steamroller, but neither option is good.


Ultimately what we're talking about is one expansionistic xenophobic dictator vs an less expansionistic omniphobic dictator, and one of them lost.

 purplefood wrote:
Probably best not to compare two infamous dictators known for their body counts and try and find which one is 'better'.

Hitler laid much of the work/ is responsible for the Autobahn. Point, Set, Match

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Probably best not to compare two infamous dictators known for their body counts and try and find which one is 'better'.

Hitler laid much of the work/ is responsible for the Autobahn. Point, Set, Match

Well, Stalin transformed Russia from a rural backwater into an atomic superpower, while also winning the largest war in the history of mankind. And if that is not enough, you only need to look at the difference between Stalin's and Hitler's moustaches to see who is superior.

I don't think anyone would argue Stalin had superior facial hair. The hitlerstache is the 1930's equivalent of the Soul Patch.

Vaktathi wrote:AFAIK nothing about the Kaliningrad Oblast is German anymore. Virtually nothing remains of the original city, either of the population or the infrastructure. Those residents who survived the battle to take the city were expelled (and very few remain alive today), and virtually nothing was left intact after the battle. For all intents and purposes, it's a new city with a new population and a new language and culture which would not be suited in the least to administration by Germany. Furthermore, it would face the same situation with Germany that it does with Russia, it would be an isolated enclave.

I agree with that.
The only things in Kaliningrad that remind of the German past are a few buildings that survived the war or were rebuilt, a lot of statues of Immanuel Kant and the fact that many people in Kaliningrad like to refer to their city as Kyonnigsburg. There is even a movement to rename the city to that.

Vaktathi wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Königsberg was given to Russia by international treaty as compensation for the damage Germany did to Russia in WW2.
So unless Germany brings back to live the 28 million Russians killed in WW2 and restores all other damage, they will never get it back. This suggestion is utterly preposterous and an insult to all that Russia has given to save the world from nazism.
And Germany may count itself lucky that it has any land left at all and was not wiped out entirely, after everything the nazis inflicted on the world.

While not wanting to detract from the atrocities of the Nazi's, lets not forget that the Soviets committed many of the same acts here, the starving millions of Ukrainians in the 1930's, millions more killed by security forces and in gulags, mass killings in eastern european nations as the Red Army swept through, etc. The Soviets killed millions of non-combatants too, possibly more than the Nazi's (most just happened to be their own people rather than from conquered states), don't get too carried away with victor's justice there

Putin would call blasphemy on this, but I am not Putin. I acknowledge that the Red Army also did bad things. I could go to great lenghts to justify it, but in the end, that is just the way of war. The British and Americans committed their fair share of warcrimes as well.
I do vehemently disagree with the notion that the Soviets killed more non-combatants than the nazis though. The famine in the Ukraine can not be blamed entirely on the Soviets, and it was before WW2. The Nazis were actively trying to ethnically cleanse the populations of the regions they conquered to replace them with Germans. The Germans massacred tens of millions of French, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Russians, as well as huge numbers of Germans, Austrians, Dutch and Danes who were murdered in both political and war-related cleansings during the War. And that is without counting the Jews and Gypsies etc. The Soviets don't even come anywhere close to that.
Most of the victims of the Soviets were political rivals or people who refused to go along with Stalin's system. That is very different from the murder of millions of innocent children and other fully innocent civilians that the nazis commited

Vaktathi wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prussia, the area in which Königsberg/Kaliningrad lies, was originally inhabited by the Prussians, a baltic people. The Prussians, being pagan, were not very well liked by christian rulers from the West. There were numerous unsuccesful attempts to conquer Prussia and convert the people, but in the end, the Teutonic Order succeeded in subjugating Prussia. They founded the city of Königsberg on the ruins of the Prussian city of Twangste and did a very extensive ethnic and religious cleansing of the native Prussian people. Those that were not exterminated were assimilated by German colonists. The effectiveness of their ethnic cleansing is clear, seeing as that the Prussians were completely exterminated. The Teutonic Order was little more than a puppet of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a predecessor of the modern German state. Also, the Ostsiedlung did not end with the rule of the Teutonic Order. Later German states who came to rule Prussia continued and finished the process.

Setting aside the fundamental disagreement over whether Old Prussians were "exterminated" as opposed to a more likely scenario of gradual population assimilation and blending (to mention nothing of the roles of the Lithuanian and Poles in the same region over several hundred years also assimilating much of that population), we're still talking about the city having been founded by those Teutons, and being German for 700 years until the end of WW2. That's about as "historically ethnic" as one can really get in Europe.

The eventual disappearance of the Prussians is indeed the result of assimilation, altough it can be argued that the Ostsiedlung, which caused that, constituted a policy of ethnic cleansing. The assimilation was far from peaceful in any case.
It is also almost undeniable that the Teutonic Knights did often pursue a policy of ethnic (or rather religious, but that is as good as the same in this case) cleansing. It was in fact, the very reason why they conquered Prussia.

Also, the Teutonic Knights did not 'found' Königsberg. They built a new city on the ruins of Twangste, just as Kaliningrad was built on the ruins of Königsberg.
If anything, with this argument, the Germans would even have less claim to Kaliningrad, as according to this argument, Kaliningrad was founded by the Russians.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think anyone would argue Stalin had superior facial hair. The hitlerstache is the 1930's equivalent of the Soul Patch.

HERESY! Stalin's moustache was the supreme epitome of manliness!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Soviets don't even come anywhere close to that.
Most of the victims of the Soviets were political rivals or people who refused to go along with Stalin's system. That is very different from the murder of millions of innocent children and other fully innocent civilians that the nazis commited.

Nice pair of rose-tinted glasses you got there.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, Stalin transformed Russia from a rural backwater into an atomic superpower, while also winning the largest war in the history of mankind. And if that is not enough, you only need to look at the difference between Stalin's and Hitler's moustaches to see who is superior.

An antagonistic (depending on your point of view) "superpower" or the worlds greatest highways? Yeah, I love driving fast. And besides, that was only one highlight off the top of my head. I'm sure if i looked more on it, there was more stuff hitler did that was good (besides invading France, again)

Europe should go back to the 1914 borders and then not have any more world wars.

 Col. Tartleton wrote:
Europe should go back to the 1914 borders and then not have any more world wars.

Going back to 1914 borders would require a world war first

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Col. Tartleton wrote:
Europe should go back to the 1914 borders and then not have any more world wars.

Going back to 1914 borders would require a world war first

Well we're due one so someone may as well get the ball rolling.

 purplefood wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Col. Tartleton wrote:
Europe should go back to the 1914 borders and then not have any more world wars.

Going back to 1914 borders would require a world war first

Well we're due one so someone may as well get the ball rolling.

Who begins ?

An Austrian. It's a tradition.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

HERESY! Stalin's moustache was the supreme epitome of manliness!

oh don't get me wrong, I'm agreeing with you, I was pointing out how dumb the hitlerstache looked. Stalin clearly had the superior 'stache.

 Allod wrote:
An Austrian. It's a tradition.

How about that Conchita Wurst fellow. She ought to rouse the Slavs to great and terrible anger.

I wouldn't mind seeing it returned, but that's not going to happen for many reasons already explained in this thread.

I'd also like to point out that the modern German state bears little resemblance to Prussia or the Prussian dominated German empire. Prussia was always a unique and separate state from Germany, they formed Germany because they were the only nation strong enough to do so with German heritage, but culturally I would make distinctions between Germans and Prussians.

The German states are diverse enough as well so that members of the states might consider themselves German, but they might not consider the individual histories of other "German" states part of their own history.

 Col. Tartleton wrote:

 Allod wrote:
An Austrian. It's a tradition.

How about that Conchita Wurst fellow. She ought to rouse the Slavs to great and terrible anger.

More like great and terrible laughter.
Now the Eurovision Song Contest is being won by bearded manwomanthings. How did it come to this?
This is even funnier than Finland winning

He's a good singer and by Austrian standards he's fairly normal.