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  • Welcome to the East Prussian State Museum with its Baltic German Section and the Luneburg Brewery Museum

  • The "Prußen" (Old Prussians) – only the name remained

  • The country of the Teutonic Order (1231-1525) – warriors, monks, sovereigns

    • The myth of invincibility – the fighting Order

    • Mary and missionary work – the Christian credo of the Teutonic Order

    • How did the land of the Teutonic knights work?

    • The downfall of the Teutonic Order in Prussia

  • Literature

    • Simon Dach (1605 Memel - 1659 Königsberg)

    • Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 Mohrungen - 1803 Weimar)

    • Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 Königsberg - 1822 Berlin)

    • Ernst Wiechert (1887 Kleinort bei Sensburg - 1950 nahe Zürich)

    • Agnes Miegel (1879 Königsberg - 1964 Bad Salzuflen)

    • Siegfried von Vegesack (1888 Gut Blumbergshof, Livonia - 1974 Weißenstein, Bavaria)

    • Arno Surminski (born in 1934 in Jäglack near Rastenburg)

    • Music in and from Königsberg

    • Arno Holz (1863 Rastenburg - 1929 Berlin)

    • Hermann Sudermann (1857 Matzicken in Memel territory - 1928 Berlin)

    • Werner Bergengruen (1892 Riga - 1964 Baden-Baden)

    • Siegfried Lenz (1926 Lyck - 2014 Hamburg)

    • Johannes Bobrowski (1917 Tilsit - 1965 Berlin)

  • Amber – "Gold of the Baltic Sea"

    • Amber – a million years old, but not a stone

    • Fascinatingly versatile

    • Processing of amber

  • East Prussia's natural wealth

    • Animals and plants in East Prussia – numerous and diverse

    • Moose – biology and symbolic value

    • Lagoon and spit – created by the interplay of wind and water

    • Masuria – lakes and mixed coniferous forests

    • Romincka Forest – a special relic of the "Great Wilderness"

  • The rise of Prussia

    • From Grand Master to Duke – Albert of Prussia (1490-1568)

    • Prussian sovereignty – Frederick William III, the "Great Elector" (1620- 1688)

    • Masters of the Baroque period – goldsmiths and amber carvers

    • The ascent to the throne – Frederick III/I and the coronation in Königsberg in 1701

    • Frederick William I (1688-1740) – the reformer of Prussia

    • The migration of the "Salzburg Protestants"

    • Prussia becomes East Prussia – Frederick II "the Great" (1712-1786)

  • Prussia’s crisis, Prussia’s liberation – the war against Napoleon

    • From the peace of Tilsit to the Convention of Tauroggen

    • "The most noble, most perfect human being that may ever have trodden the earth" – the myth of Louise

  • Trakehnen – home of the oldest pure-breed stud farm

    • The importance of horse farming in East Prussia

    • Origin of the Trakehner breed – breeding in the past and today

    • The Trakehnen stud farm – a special class of horse breeding farm

    • The end of Trakehner horse breeding in East Prussia and the new beginning in the west

  • "Macht hoch die Tür, die Tor macht weit" (Lift up your Heads, ye Mighty Gates!)  communities of faith in East Prussia

    • "To the Knights of the Teutonic Order that they should avoid false chastity" – Protestantism in East Prussia

    • Warmia – the Roman Catholic part of East Prussia

    • Jewish life in East Prussia

    • Of baptists, traditionalists and freethinkers

  • "Those who believe and receive baptism will find salvation" – Christianity for beginners

  • Königsberg – a centre of science and scholarship

    • The Albertus University Königsberg (Albertina) 1544-1945

    • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) – the turn to modernity

    • Philosopher from Königsberg – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

    • "Our science, which we loved the most... appeared to us like a flowering garden" – natural scientific Königsberg

    • Archaeological treasures – the fate of the Königsberg Prussia collection

  • Change and growth – the "long" 19th century

    • Nobility bourgeoisie "…to resolve the disharmony that reigns among the people" – from a Prussian subject to citizen

    • East Prussia under steam

    • SteinHardenberg

    • Old customs – East Prussia during the Biedermeier era

    • "Insatiable – where the empire ends" – East Prussia as part of the German Empire since 1871

    • Off to America!

    • "Border country East Prussia" – the province as a military location

    • The emperor’s ceramics – "Majolica" from Cadinen (today’s Kadyny)

    • "Jostenbands" (Baltic style patterned woven bands) and traditional costume – textile folklore

  • Picturesque East Prussia

    • Teachers of graphic design at the academy of fine arts in Königsberg

    • The art academy in Königsberg in the 19th century

    • The art academy in Königsberg in the 20th century

    • Sculptors in Königsberg

    • Fascination landscape – the artist colony Nidden

  • First World War 1914-1918 – the "Forgotten War" in the east

    • Hindenburg – the "Saviour of East Prussia"

    • Damage, debris and solidarity – reconstruction

    • The 1920 plebiscite

  • Cut off from the Reich – East Prussia during the Weimar Republic

  • Expensive Tilsit cheese – economic crises during the Weimar Republic

    • The "Osthilfe" (Eastern Aid) – support programmes for East Prussia's agricultural crisis

  • Grain, potatoes, clover and crucian carps – agricultural East Prussia

    • "... of enormous diversity" – fishing in East Prussia

    • East Prussia's agriculture – only estates?

    • Fields and cattle

    • "Coralle", "Fee" and Mennonite cheese – milk production at the highest level

    • Shipyards, railways and timber – trade and industry of East Prussia

    • "Off to East Prussia" – discovery of a travel destination

  • Hunting paradise East Prussia

    • Rare and large animal species

    • Romincka Forest – a very special hunting ground

    • Hunting traditions

  • Hunting today – a special form of the love of nature

    • The hunting exam – learning to hunt

    • Game keeping on the hunting grounds – care and observation

    • Raised stand hunt or moving hunt

  • East Prussia under the swastika, 1933-1945

    • The way to the dictatorship – East Prussia voting for National Socialists

    • Economic miracle in East Prussia National Socialist "Mustergau" (model NSDAP district)?

    • "Little children fled across the street in panic" – terror and murder in National Socialist East Prussia

    • Destruction and downfall – the Second World War in East Prussia

  • The fall of German East Prussia

    • Refugee camp in Denmark from 1945 to 1949

    • Traumas "For us there is war every day..." – the trauma of refugees yesterday and today.

    • The first expulsions

    • Flight of the East Prussians autumn 1944 to April 1945

    • "Wild expulsions" – "orderly transfer"

  • The arrival of refugees in Lower Saxony and Luneburg

    • Poverty, confinement, improvisation – post-war refugee hardships

    • Finding each other in chaos – churches and tracing services

    • No roof over your head and next to nothing on your plate - measures against hardship

  • How to integrate millions of refugees – the displaced persons policy 1949-1970

    • Integration programmes – equalisation of burdens and housing construction

    • Tedious path – professional and social integration

    • Displaced persons in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR

    • Change through rapprochement

    • Saving what can be saved – attempts to preserve traditions and customs

    • The East Prussian State Museum in Luneburg

  • Controversial memory of the "German East"

  • Mansions – stately residences and architectural pearls

  • Who are the Baltic Germans?

  • The Baltic Germans from the Middle Ages to the Russian conquest (1710-1721)

    • The German Hanseatic League in the Baltic States

    • The Hanseatic League as a cultural area

    • Missionary work and land seizure

    • Changes in Livonia

    • From Swedish to Russian domination of the Baltic Sea

  • The knighthoods

  • Urban life – centres of trade, politics, culture and science

    • Urban equals estate? Hierarchies in towns and cities

    • Medieval networks – the guilds of merchants and craftsmen

    • Science and university life

    • Art and artists in the Baltic States

    • All kinds of distractions

    • Varenye and samovar – Baltic German table culture from the 18th century onwards

    • Living like God in France? Baltic living culture in the 18th – 19th century

  • "A Christian admonition to the people in Livonia"

    • Pastors in the Baltic States – teachers, landlords, enlighteners

    • "Pagans", Orthodox Christians and Jews

  • The Baltic provinces on the Baltic Sea as the "Window to the West"

    • Count Burchard Christoph von Münnich (1683-1767)

    • Baltic Germans in Russian service

  • Estonians and Latvians in the country – from free farmers to serfs

  • Kant

    • Kant 300.

    • Kant – a star?

    • Kant’s Life (1724-1804)

    • Kant’s Königsberg

    • Kant’s Ideas

    • Family and childhood

    • University student and house tutor

    • Kant’s works

    • Professor Kant

    • Sociable Kant

    • Everyday life at an advanced age

  • From the leading elite to a minority

    • Between the fronts – Baltic Germans in the First World War

    • Exemplary minority protection!

    • Turning point – land reforms in Estonia and Latvia

    • The Hitler-Stalin pact and the consequences – the resettlement of the Baltic Germans

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