Kaliningrad: the European Amber Region

Pertti Joenniemi, Jan Prawitz

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138324176
• eBook ISBN: 9780429825255
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1998, this book reflects a concern for Kaliningrad. Too little is known about the region, developments in recent years have not been sufficiently covered and it is rarely integrated, in terms of analysis, with the way post-Cold War Europe is viewed more generally.

1 Kaliningrad: Problems and Prospects

INGMAR OLDBERG

Starting-points

When the Baltic states and Belarus became independent in 1991, the Kaliningrad region (oblast in Russian) suddenly became an exclave separated from the rest of Russia. Since then its future has been a common topic of discussion in the states around the Baltic Sea and many questions have been posed: Will it be a forward military bastion of Russia, a "second Cuba", menacing its neighbours, or will it be a free trade area, a "Baltic Hong Kong" contributing to peace and prosperity? Since Kaliningrad is the westernmost part of Russia, it could become a problem to many states on the Baltic Sea, if Russia would start to rearm or if internal problems in the area are not controlled. But its location could also be a blessing, if local ambitions to develop market economy and attract investments from nearby Western states would succeed (Huldt 1996: 6).

Another vital question is whether Kaliningrad can become a bone of contention between Russia, Germany, Poland and Lithuania. Its situation reminds us of former East Prussia, which in 1918 was separated from Germany by a Polish "corridor". In 1939 this became a major pretext for Hitler to unleash the Second World War (Müller-Hermann 1995: 7f). Today's Kaliningrad has been called a "Jerusalem on the Baltic", an almost insolvable problem (Oldberg 1995: 335).

Kaliningrad can also be seen as a test case for more general questions. Its development may give an indication on whether Russia as a whole will stake on armament and confrontation with the West or peace and cooperation, and whether Russia moves toward centralisation or decentralization/disintegration.

This chapter will try to help cast some light on these questions and analyze the arguments for and against the alternatives. In so doing it gives a short survey of the history of the region, an outline of its current military, political, and economic problems and an introduction to its international context.

From Königsberg to Kaliningrad

The history of today's Kaliningrad region and the whole former region of East Prussia is a drama of five peoples, who all to various extents have used history to buttress territorial claims. The first historically recorded inhabitants were the Prussians, the third major Baltic people beside the Latvians and the Lithuanians. They went down in history by lending their name to the area and the German state of Prussia, much like the Tatar Bulgars gave their name to Slavic Bulgaria. In the 13th century the heathen Prussians were conquered and christened by the Teutonic Order, which carried out a crusade on papal commission. The Prussians were then gradually assimilated by German colonizers and their language died out by the 17th century.

The Teutonic Order founded towns and built castles, among them Königsberg (1255) in honour of the crusading Bohemian king Otokar II, and laid the ground for 700 years of German domination.

However, the Germans' farther expansion was resisted by the Lithuanian Grand Duchy, which had its heyday in the 14th century. After Lithuania and Poland were united by royal marriage (1386), the Order was defeated at Grunwald (1410). Its power then declined and many Polish Mazovians and Lithuanians moved into the region. In 1525 the last Grand Master of the Order, Albrecht of Hohenzollern, made Prussia a secular, Lutheran duchy, formally under the Polish (Catholic) crown. In 1544 a university was founded in Königsberg, the oldest in all territories that later became parts of the Soviet Union.

In the 17th century Prussia was gradually taken over by the German state of Brandenburg and shook off Swedish and Polish influence.¹ The Kurfürst of Brandenburg here crowned himself King of Prussia in 1701, When Poland was divided in 1772 and Prussia acquired lands west of the Vistula, East Prussia (as it was called henceforth) was no longer separated from the rest of the state and it played an important role in the German resistance to Napoleon and later.

After Germany's defeat in the First World War and the recreation of Poland, East Prussia again became an exclave and it remained part of Germany only as a result of a plebiscite. Its northernmost part of Memel (Klaipeda) was seized by the resurrected Lithuanian state in 1923 but ceded to Hitler in early 1939.

At the end of the Second World War the Russians definitely entered the stage. Tsarist Russia had occupied East Prussia in 1758-62, partly also in 1915, but the Soviet Union did it more thoroughly after its troops conquered the German stronghold of Königsberg in April 1945. At conferences with his Western allies during and after the war, Stalin demanded Königsberg and the surrounding area on the grounds that the USSR needed compensation for its war losses, wanted an ice-free port on the Baltic Sea, and on the claim that the area originally was Slavic. But he promised to respect Polish independence and ceded the southern two thirds of East Prussia to Poland. Even though the area had never been Slavic, Königsberg is not totally ice-free, and Stalin was not going to respect Polish sovereignty, the Western allies at the Potsdam peace conference in July-August 1945 agreed to Stalin's claim.² The Memel region was soon handed over to Soviet Lithuania by Stalin (Petersen 1992: Iff; Wörster 1995: 156ff; Gnauck 1992: 49ff; Romanov 1995: 42). Thus East Prussia was divided into three parts.

The division of East Prussia also served the Soviet interest in weakening Germany, involving Poland on the Soviet side, and keeping the Baits in check.

The Soviet conquest of Königsberg had far-reaching consequences in the region itself. Firstly, the composition of the population was completely changed. Out of the more than one million German inhabitants, the majority of those who survived the fierce battles fled to Germany, many died from hunger, illness or violence, and the rest were deported to Germany in the late 1940s (Wörster 1995: 160f). Instead of the Germans, mainly Russians but also Belarussians, Ukrainians and others-often people who had lost their homes in the war-were offered a place there. Most of them settled in the towns and all were russified. Nowadays about two thirds of the population are born in the region, but the total figures have not yet reached pre-war levels, which probably is unique in Europe³ (Gnauck 1992: 52f: Zverev 1996: 8f: Zverev & Fedorov 1995: 100ff).

Secondly, the region was quickly sovietized by the imposition of Communist dictatorship and planning economy. In 1946 it became an oblast of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR), and all towns got Russian names. Königsberg was renamed after the deceased Soviet President Mikhail Kalinin. No attempts were made to follow the Polish example in Gdansk and restore the old town of Königsberg, which had been severely damaged by Allied bombing and fierce fighting. Instead plain buildings in the typical Soviet "baracko" style were built. Typically, the remnants of the medieval castle in the city centre were blown up in 1969, and in its place a huge House of the Soviets, generally called the "Monster", was erected but never quite finished.

Finally, the Kaliningrad region became one of the most militarized areas in Europe. After the war it was totally sealed off from Poland and the west, and even Soviet citizens had limited access. The armed forces and the military industry became the biggest employers in the region, and the civilian structure was tailored to military needs, which greatly distorted the economy and hampered its development⁴ (Hoff & Timmermann 1993: 40; Wellmann 1996: 164f).

The changing military importance of Kaliningrad

As already mentioned the Soviet Union took the Kaliningrad region by force and Stalin's primary motive for claiming it obviously was of a military nature. In the postwar period the region was then developed into a base for strategic reserves behind the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in Central Europe in accordance with an offensive strategy, directed mainly against NATO forces in West Germany and the Baltic straits. The headquarters of the Soviet Baltic fleet was moved from Leningrad to Kaliningrad in 1956, and the deep sea port of Baltiysk (formerly Pillau) became a major naval base. The region, which was part of the Baltic Military District, also harboured strong army units, mainly the 11th Guards Army, air and air defence forces, and border troops⁵ (Petersen 1992: 29ff; Nordberg 1994: 85ff).

Soviet President Gorbachev's detente policy since the end of the 1980s, which was continued by Russian President Yeltsin, meant that the Soviet armed forces were shifted to defence and were reduced in accordance with the CFE Treaty of Paris of 1990. When the Baltic states were free, the Soviet (Russian) Baltic fleet lost 80 per cent of its bases, and half its ships and all submarines had to move. Compared with ten years ago, the naval personnel was reduced by half, the number of ships by two thirds, and the air force by 60 per cent. Baltiysk received Western naval visits, and the Baltic fleet in 1994 started to participate in naval exercises with NATO in the Baltic (Yegorov 1995: 128).

Trae, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the withdrawal of Soviet (Russian) troops from the GDR (often by ferry from Mukran to Klaipeda) and in 1992-1994 from the Baltic states, led to the stationing of troops and weapons in the Kaliningrad region, where the forces thus temporarily increased. However, since 1993 the numbers of units and soldiers have gradually sunk. So has weapons strength in most respects, and the figures are now far below the CFE limits.⁶

Another reason for the reduction of forces in Kaliningrad was the economic crisis in Russia. This also had other effects. As elsewhere in Russia, sharp cuts in military spending, especially since 1992, led to a reduction of army and naval exercises and air force training. Sometimes electricity was switched off due to unpaid bills. The officers received less (or sometimes no) salaries, social benefits and pensions than before, and the housing situation was desperate. There was a lack of draftees leaving the army units only half-manned, which meant more work for officers and NCOs. All this contributed to discontent, low morale, corruption and violence, and many officers left for other jobs⁷ (Krasnaia Zvezda, 29 June & 16 September 1995).

However, Kaliningrad retained some military significance for Russia. The retreat from Central Europe and the Baltic states meant that Kaliningrad became its only naval base on the Baltic Sea besides St Petersburg deep in the Gulf of Finland, and it remained a forward base for air and air defence forces in peacetime, even if it was vulnerable to attack in wartime (Huldt 1996: 4; Nordberg 1994: 86f).

Under the impression of growing Russian nationalism and self-assertiveness the Russian military also underlined their interest in the region. In 1994 it became a special defence district under the commander of the Baltic fleet directly subordinated to the Defence Minister. According to the Commander of the Russian naval forces, its tasks now are to defend the region and Russia's territorial integrity, its civilian shipping and economic zone in the Baltic, with support from the rest of Russia (Gromov 1995: 10ff). Despite all problems an exercise with 11,000 men was conducted in 1994. The Baltic naval infantry participated in the war in Chechnya like that of other fleets (Krasnaia Zvezda, 19 March 1994 & 19 May 1995; Segodnia, 6 May 1994).

The naval commander Yegorov moved the target for disarmament in the region from 25,000 men to 40,000-45,000 men, which seems to mean that roughly the present numbers will be maintained. In negotiations with NATO, Russia threatened to increase its forces in Kaliningrad toward the allowed limit, unless the subceilings on Russia's flanks were not raised (Yegorov 1995: 130; Krasnaia Zvezda, 19 April 1994).

All this worried the neighbouring Baltic States and Poland, even though the total Russian threat had diminished. They had only recently liberated themselves from Russia and got rid of Russian troops. The Baltic states had to build up their own armed forces from scratch, and were still weaker than the garrison in Kaliningrad, not to speak of the forces in Russia which back them up. Especially Lithuania felt threatened, situated as it is next to Kaliningrad and Belarus, a state which since 1994 became more and more integrated with Russia militarily and economically. Therefore the Baltic states, separately and jointly, insisted that the Kaliningrad region should be demilitarized, totally or partly.

Even if it is bigger, also Poland worried about Kaliningrad, because its military forces in accordance with the Warsaw Pact military doctrine were deployed in the West. It has decided to redeploy some forces toward the Kaliningrad border. Both the Baltic states and Poland use the Russian troops in Kaliningrad as an argument for being admitted into NATO.

Concerning the attitudes of other states, officially Germany has declared that it is not worried by the Russian troops in Kaliningrad and it has not demanded demilitarization. Germany has in fact reduced its naval forces in the Baltic considerably.

The Russian leadership dismissed all Western concern about its forces in Kaliningrad as unfounded. Then deputy prime minister Shakhrai in 1994 emphasized that demilitarization would limit Russian sovereignty and recommended to expand the naval base. Other officials declared that it is rather Kaliningrad that is threatened. They warned that if the Baltic states and Poland should join NATO, R...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acronyms
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Kaliningrad: Problems and Prospects
• 2 The Social and Economic Development of Kaliningrad
• 3 Kaliningrad - Relevant Options
• 4 Kaliningrad's Military Economy
• 5 Environmental Issues of the Kaliningrad Region
• 6 Kaliningrad: Armed Forces and Missions
• 7 The Region's Security: An Expert View from Moscow
• 8 Kaliningrad as a Security Issue: An Expert View from Poland
• 9 Russia's Exclave in the Baltic Region: A Source of Stability or Tension?
• 10 Kaliningrad: Visions of the Future
• 11 Kaliningrad: A Double Periphery?
• Appendix I: Kaliningrad - Enclave or Exclave?
• Appendix II: Relevant Legal and Political Frame
• Index