East Prussia

East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen, pronounced [ˈɔstˌpʁɔʏsən]; Latin: Borussia orientalis; Russian: Восточная Пруссия) was a province of Prussia from 1773–1829 and 1878–1945. Its capital city was Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad). It was the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast.

East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. The indigenous Balts who survived the conquest were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles and Lithuanians formed minorities. From the 13th century, East Prussia was part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights. After the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 it became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1525, with the Prussian Homage, the province became the Duchy of Prussia. The Old Prussian language had become extinct by the 17th or early 18th century.

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабоче-крестьянская Красная армия; РККА, or Raboche-krest'yanskaya Krasnaya armiya: RKKA, frequently shortened in Russian to Красная aрмия; KA, in English: Red Army) was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution (Red October or Bolshevik Revolution). The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Beginning in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army" (Russian: Советская Армия (СА)/Sovetskaya Armija), until its dissolution in December 1991.

The Red Army is credited as being the decisive land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces (Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS) deployed in the war.

East

East is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. East is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of west and is perpendicular to north and south.

Etymology

The word east comes from Middle English est, from Old English ēast, which itself comes from the Proto-Germanic *aus-to- or *austra- "east, toward the sunrise", from Proto-Indo-European *aus- "to shine," or "dawn". This is similar to Old High German *ōstar "to the east", Latin aurora "dawn", and Greek ēōs or heōs.Ēostre, a Germanic goddess of dawn, might have been a personification of both dawn and the cardinal points.

Navigation

By convention, the right hand side of a map is east. This convention has developed from the use of a compass, which places north at the top.

To go east using a compass for navigation, set a bearing or azimuth of 90°.

Cultural

East is the direction toward which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the Sun appears to rise. The practice of praying towards the East is older than Christianity, but has been adopted by this religion as the Orient was thought of as containing mankind's original home. Hence, most Christian churches are oriented towards the east.

East Prussian Offensive

The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (World War II). It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May. The Battle of Königsberg was a major part of the offensive, which ended in victory for the Red Army.

The East Prussian Offensive is known to German historians as the Second East Prussian Offensive. The First East Prussian Offensive (also known as the Gumbinnen Operation), took place from 16–27 October 1944, and was carried out by the 3rd Belorussian Front under General I.D. Chernyakhovsky as part of the Memel Offensive of the 1st Baltic Front. The Soviet forces took heavy casualties while penetrating 30–60 km (19–37 mi) into east-northern part of Poland, and the offensive was postponed until greater reserves could be gathered.

The East Prussian Offensive

The main thrust of the offensive was to be conducted by the 3rd Belorussian Front under Ivan Chernyakhovsky. His forces were tasked with driving westwards towards Königsberg, against the defensive positions of the 3rd Panzer Army and 4th Army, the northern armies of General Georg-Hans Reinhardt's Army Group Centre.

Prussia

Prussia (German:  Preußen ) (Polish: Prusy) was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centered on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 moved to Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, a state of Germany from 1918 until 1933. From 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its "Gleichschaltung" laws in pursuit of a unitary state. With the end of the Nazi regime, the division of Germany into allied-occupation zones and the separation of its territories east of the Oder–Neisse line, which were incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Union, the State of Prussia ceased to exist de facto in 1945. Prussia existed de jure until its formal liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No. 46 of 25 February 1947.