On This Day
Published: 9 April 2020
9 April is a very significant day in the history of this city and region. It was the last day of a siege that had begun in January 1945 as a successor to heavy bombing by the RAF in August 1944; it was also the first day of Königsberg’s last day ~ if not in spirit, at least in form.
Battle of Königsberg
The actual Battle of Königsberg lasted four days only, but it was a bitter and bloody battle. The encircled German forces put up stiff resistance bolstered by Königsberg’s formidable fortifications, a defence system comprising three rings of forts which had been constructed at the end of the 19th century, some modernised and reinforced, and all heavily supplemented with anti-tank systems and landmines.
The assault began at dawn on 6 April 1945. Intense artillery shelling, which followed several days of bombing by the Soviet air force, was the immediate precursor to the first stage of the city’s invasion. By the fourth day of the attack, 9 April 1945, the Soviet army had breached the enemy’s main defences and in a punishing feat of urban warfare ~ building by building, street by street ~ was bearing down on what remained of the enemy entrenched at the heart of the city. Although both in numbers and fire power German resources were not yet totally depleted, Otto Lasch, Fortress Commandant of Königsberg, in direct contradiction of Hitler’s orders, realising that all was lost, initiated his army’s surrender. Negotiations were implemented and the surrender of the defenders of Königsberg and Königsberg itself was finally ratified just before midnight in Otto Lasch’s control bunker.
Battle of Königsberg
By the time the assault was over, 80 per cent of the city had been obliterated, partly as a result of earlier aerial bombing raids, later soviet artillery action and the urban warfare that followed. Whilst statistical records differ it is widely held that the Germans suffered between 40,000 and 50,000 casualties and between 80,000 and 90,000 Germans were taken prisoner. Of Königsberg’s civilian population, estimated pre-war at 300,000, 200,000 survived but were subsequently forced to leave the city and region. Soviet casualties over the four-day assault is said to number around 4000.
Kaliningrad 9 April 2020
It is hard to believe as I sit here on this beautiful spring day in Kaliningrad, buds and leaves returning to the trees, flowers in first bloom, azure blue sky above, birds singing, that 75 years ago the very building that I occupy and the cobbled streets outside would have been ringing with the sounds of gunfire, the last fading echoes of a seemingly apocalyptic onslaught which had left thousands dead, dying and maimed, hundreds of years of history shattered, a once grand city reduced to ruins and an entire culture and its adherents teetering on the brink of expulsion.
Some say history repeats itself, others that it never goes away. One thing is sure, the present is with us a lot less longer than the past. In less than two hours from now, Otto Lasch will put his signature to a document the contents of which will seal the fate of this city and change the course of history here forever.
Copyright © [Text] 2018-2020 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.