Forgotten Land (21 page)
Authors: Max Egremont
All this accompanied a resurgence in Masuria, the East Prussian region that included the Tannenberg Memorial. Increases in agricultural prices coincided with rearmament, a fall in unemployment and an unashamed nationalism; one newspaper evoked a glorious return of the Teutonic Order; Hitler declared that no district of the Reich was more loyal to his ideals. Nazi officials broke the grip of the landowners and the old Prussian bureaucracy. It seemed now as if a route to the top was open, as long as you joined the party. In 1939, Polish was banned as an official language in East Prussia and children were soon denouncing their parents and grandparents for speaking Polish or Lithuanian. The year before, the Nazi Gauleiter Erich Koch had set up a commission to rename places, even flowers, in German.
The Nazis proclaimed the symbolic worth of the borderland. In 1935 a series of stamps was produced to show East Prussia’s principal monuments, journeys to East Prussia from the west
were subsidized, and from 1936 until 1939 an exhibition about the province, with particular focus on the Tannenberg Memorial and victory, toured Germany. The Baedeker guide of 1936 gave East Prussia much more space than had the edition of 1913, describing the Tannenberg monument – ‘where President Hindenburg rests beside his fallen comrades’ – as ‘a place of national pilgrimage.’
were subsidized, and from 1936 until 1939 an exhibition about the province, with particular focus on the Tannenberg Memorial and victory, toured Germany. The Baedeker guide of 1936 gave East Prussia much more space than had the edition of 1913, describing the Tannenberg monument – ‘where President Hindenburg rests beside his fallen comrades’ – as ‘a place of national pilgrimage.’
To an English tourist, visiting the monument in September 1938, the eight brick towers linked by arcades with commemorations of the fallen, many of them (he thought) local men, seemed to be ‘one of the noblest war memorials in Europe’. Bernard Newman the travel writer, who was touring the Baltic on his bicycle, found many visitors wandering round the complex; among them a group of schoolmasters from central Germany, all (they told Newman) National Socialists. They believed that the German-speaking Sudetenland should be taken from Czechoslovakia and were certain that the Führer would make no further territorial demands. Surely, they asked, England would not go to war to prevent this act of national self-determination; no one in Germany wanted war with England, for the true enemy had always been France. Why hadn’t Newman responded with ‘Heil Hitler’ when they had saluted him at the memorial? He protested that when they came to England they weren’t expected to say ‘Heil Chamberlain’. But, after leaving Tannenberg, Newman felt reassured. He’d heard that East Prussia was a bastion of German militarism, the home of the dreaded Junker class. Instead he had found a fear of war, as had no doubt (he thought) existed for centuries in this anxious place.
A year later, in 1939, celebrations had been planned for Tannenberg’s twenty-fifth anniversary but at the last minute – after the Anglo-Polish pact of mutual assistance had been announced – these were cancelled. Soon, after the Polish campaign of September, there was yet another German victory to commemorate. In April 1941 the Krügers made plans for the decoration of one of the memorial’s towers with busts of the commanders and
politicians who had brought about the defeat of Poland – Göring and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and others – and tablets inscribed with extracts from Hitler’s speeches dominated by a full-length statue of the Führer, like that of Hindenburg; but this never came about. The last state ceremonies at the Tannenberg Memorial were the funerals of two generals killed by Colonel von Stauffenberg’s bomb in July 1944.
politicians who had brought about the defeat of Poland – Göring and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and others – and tablets inscribed with extracts from Hitler’s speeches dominated by a full-length statue of the Führer, like that of Hindenburg; but this never came about. The last state ceremonies at the Tannenberg Memorial were the funerals of two generals killed by Colonel von Stauffenberg’s bomb in July 1944.
The end had a symbolic irony. When the Red Army advanced on the memorial, Oskar von Hindenburg was stationed in Königsberg, in command of the East Prussian prison camps, including the cruel regime at Stalag 1 B at Hohenstein where many had died. He was therefore on hand for the drama which began with the order from Hitler on 21 January 1945 that the Tannenberg Memorial should be destroyed before the invading Slavs reached it. Only a few days before the Soviets captured Hohenstein, the massively heavy lead coffins of the Field Marshal and his wife were taken with some of the regimental standards, like sacred relics, to Königsberg. They then went by sea from Pillau to Stettin, accompanied by Oskar, and by lorry to Potsdam.
Bombs were falling on the Potsdam barracks, parks and palaces of the Hohenzollerns whom Hindenburg had hoped to restore. The safest place was thought to be in a bunker beside the coffins of Frederick the Great and Frederick William I that had already been removed from the Garrison Church. When Potsdam came within range of the Soviets, these relics of Prussian glory went to a salt mine near Bernterode in Thuringia – from where American troops took the Hindenburgs to Marburg, to a castle owned by the Hesse family. In Marburg, they were buried quietly, with Allied permission, on 25 August 1946 – the thirty-second anniversary of Tannenberg – in the Elizabeth Church. Here they remain, marked by a commemorative stone, in a dim, dark aisle.
Hitler’s order had been only partly carried out. Hindenburg’s tomb and two of the towers were destroyed but a large part of the monumental structure had survived. The Soviets burned most of Hohenstein but, for some reason, left much of the memorial;
there was even a report that they had set up their own small monument within it. After the war ended, however, the destruction began again. The metal – the bronze or iron from the reliefs and tablets – was looted, the stone and bricks were used in the rebuilding of what had been Hohenstein and was now Olsztynek and the granite went for the Soviet war memorial in Olsztyn or to Warsaw for the new Communist Party headquarters. By the 1980s, almost all traces of the Tannenberg Memorial – once not only a building but a gesture of defiance – had gone.
there was even a report that they had set up their own small monument within it. After the war ended, however, the destruction began again. The metal – the bronze or iron from the reliefs and tablets – was looted, the stone and bricks were used in the rebuilding of what had been Hohenstein and was now Olsztynek and the granite went for the Soviet war memorial in Olsztyn or to Warsaw for the new Communist Party headquarters. By the 1980s, almost all traces of the Tannenberg Memorial – once not only a building but a gesture of defiance – had gone.
Under the post-war German Federal Republic, Tannenberg became a symbol of a bad Prussia. In the 1980s teachers at the Berlin Tannenberg School (in the Ostpreussendam) wanted the name changed. But there’s still a miniature copy of the Krügers’ monolith, symbolically discreet for the new age – a memorial dedicated in 1995 at Oberschleissheim near Munich to the East and West Prussian dead of the two world wars. The architect Dietrich Zlomke was born in Königsberg; his design is a much smaller, lower version of the eight towers linked by walls, not in brick but in concrete, dominated by an oak cross twenty feet high with a much more modest, smaller iron cross on the low pale wall behind it. Initiated by East and West Prussian groups of
Vertriebene
(expelled people), it was built under the patronage of the conservative Bavarian state government to show a lingering of memory in a quiet place, appropriate for private mourning and regret.
Vertriebene
(expelled people), it was built under the patronage of the conservative Bavarian state government to show a lingering of memory in a quiet place, appropriate for private mourning and regret.
East and north from Olsztyn, you enter the lakeland, reaching the resort of Mikołajki with its masted boats on the waterfront, summer tourists and winter emptiness. German papers and books about the old times are on sale all year round in the shops, including a guide to the route of Marion Dönhoff’s 1941 ride. Away from the lake, off the road from Olsztyn and Mragowo, is the austere evangelical church, said to have been designed by the Prussian neo-classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
The German Frank Dombrowski has taught in Mikołajki since 1991, in a private school named after Marion Dönhoff which she visited most years. We met some years ago, not long after he’d moved east. Frank Dombrowski said he loved the region and this was why he’d come, avoiding any suggestions of German guilt or duty or wish to escape. It was the history that moved him – did I know that Mikołajki was on an old Hanseatic route that led to Vladivostok? East Prussia had been fought over for centuries. You could learn about European history just by being here.
Dombrowski had been born in Königsberg, too late to remember the German city well. But he felt he had to tell me that the region had gone back since 1945 – mostly because the communists had wrecked it. Tourism seemed to be the best hope. People were open and kind – the children easier and more disciplined than in Germany and France where he’d also taught. Summer was wonderful but winter went on and on, with not enough to do – apart from some ice sailing and skating. The Russians came to Poland because there was more money, sometimes waiting for days to get across the frontier.
Frank Dombrowski was speaking in 1992, and now it’s better or at least different. I’ve crossed the border by train and by bus and had no trouble, as a rich tourist from the west – and what Dombrowski said
has
happened: tourism is still the hope. Farming and forestry don’t employ enough people because the farming companies that have moved in are highly mechanized, using seasonal rather than permanent labour. There’s a huge spa hotel outside Mikołajki and the streets are lined with restaurants, most open (and empty) even in the winter snow. Venice seems not so far away on the bridge over a wide grey canal that links two lakes – but the channel that runs into the huge Spirdingsee or Polish Jezioro
niardwy points to a distant wilderness, quite different to the Adriatic or its shores. Lorenz Grimoni thinks that East Prussia now offers one of the wildest parts of Europe.
has
happened: tourism is still the hope. Farming and forestry don’t employ enough people because the farming companies that have moved in are highly mechanized, using seasonal rather than permanent labour. There’s a huge spa hotel outside Mikołajki and the streets are lined with restaurants, most open (and empty) even in the winter snow. Venice seems not so far away on the bridge over a wide grey canal that links two lakes – but the channel that runs into the huge Spirdingsee or Polish Jezioro
niardwy points to a distant wilderness, quite different to the Adriatic or its shores. Lorenz Grimoni thinks that East Prussia now offers one of the wildest parts of Europe.The tourist trail re-shapes the past. Red-brick castles have become hotels and restaurants at Ryn and Nidzica or museums at K
trzyn and Lidzbark Warmi
ski; fields have camping sites and woodland has been cleared for a theme park about the original Prussians (not their German conquerors). Signs in German point to Hitler’s eastern headquarters – the Wolfsschanze or Wolf’s Lair, where massive slabs of tumbled concrete form chambers of ghostly significance. Here the Poles have built one of the world’s least inviting hotels, letting visitors walk after closing time through the hideous complex and think – there it is, sniff the air and catch it quickly: the stench of evil.
trzyn and Lidzbark Warmiski; fields have camping sites and woodland has been cleared for a theme park about the original Prussians (not their German conquerors). Signs in German point to Hitler’s eastern headquarters – the Wolfsschanze or Wolf’s Lair, where massive slabs of tumbled concrete form chambers of ghostly significance. Here the Poles have built one of the world’s least inviting hotels, letting visitors walk after closing time through the hideous complex and think – there it is, sniff the air and catch it quickly: the stench of evil.In fact Hitler loathed the damp East Prussian climate and flat landscape, yearning for the Bavarian Alps and the south. The Wolf’s Lair was on the land of one of those aristocratic families that he despised, partly because most of them fell easily before him. About six or seven miles to the south-east, through fields and shelter belts of oak trees, on a broad peninsula between two lakes, is Steinort, now the Polish Sztynort, once the residence of the third family of that East Prussian cousinhood, the Lehndorffs.
Hans von Lehndorff, the house’s last German owner, said that he was happy to have lost everything – the estate, the house, the
isolated world, the wealth – in the upheaval that had been, in spite of its horror, ‘one of God’s blessings’ and the start of a better life. But what he writes about his loss has a sense of recollected beauty, even celebration; like Marion Dönhoff he wanted to uncover a different country to the post-war ruin and shame.
isolated world, the wealth – in the upheaval that had been, in spite of its horror, ‘one of God’s blessings’ and the start of a better life. But what he writes about his loss has a sense of recollected beauty, even celebration; like Marion Dönhoff he wanted to uncover a different country to the post-war ruin and shame.
Lehndorff didn’t grow up at Steinort and was aged ten in 1920, the year of his first summer visit. He went by train to Angerburg before a two-hour journey in a horse-drawn wagon over muddy roads towards the house on the lake. It’s still a Nordic landscape, the woods a mix of oaks and conifers, darkly thick, before the ancient oaks that line Steinort’s one street and shelter the big house at the end. The approach to the symbol of ancestral power is still theatrical, although it leads to a smaller place than Schlobitten or Friedrichstein – to a French-château-like building of plaster over brick, now patched and boarded up, with side pavilions, looking out on ruined temples and tea houses scattered across an overgrown park. Now it’s a tourist marina that brings life to Steinort (or Sztynort), not the Lehndorffs.
The family had come east with the Teutonic Knights, settling near Königsberg before buying Steinort at the start of the sixteenth century. Like the Dohnas and the Dönhoffs – with whom they intermarried – the Lehndorffs served the kings of Poland and the Hohenzollerns across shifting frontiers before Bismarck’s wars brought incredible victories; a Lehndorff was briefly
préfet
of Amiens after the Prussians beat the French in 1870. When the young Hans came there, the house was chaotic; rickety beds sometimes collapsed during the night, windows were blocked by sprouting vegetation, water cascaded from primitive cisterns while Prussian royal portraits or the mangy heads of long-dead elks looked down from damp walls hung with faded Gobelins tapestries. Carol Lehndorff, Hans’s bachelor cousin and Steinort’s owner, welcomed guests from a first-floor balcony, holding a billiard cue, offering a glass of port and matches for the bedroom lamps. One guest who changed the tune of a clock that played melodies on the hour was thrown out by the host, who could
suddenly be autocratic, even censorious. Once Carol admonished Alexander Dohna for flirting with a woman.
préfet
of Amiens after the Prussians beat the French in 1870. When the young Hans came there, the house was chaotic; rickety beds sometimes collapsed during the night, windows were blocked by sprouting vegetation, water cascaded from primitive cisterns while Prussian royal portraits or the mangy heads of long-dead elks looked down from damp walls hung with faded Gobelins tapestries. Carol Lehndorff, Hans’s bachelor cousin and Steinort’s owner, welcomed guests from a first-floor balcony, holding a billiard cue, offering a glass of port and matches for the bedroom lamps. One guest who changed the tune of a clock that played melodies on the hour was thrown out by the host, who could
suddenly be autocratic, even censorious. Once Carol admonished Alexander Dohna for flirting with a woman.
Carol liked cards and obvious jokes; he invited the teachers from the school in Rastenburg (now K
trzyn) to Steinort and locked them in a room so that the pupils could have the day off. When alone, he lived in two rooms on the warm south side of the house, contemplating his collection of Prussian coins. Gradually the porcelain became chipped and beetles crawled more daringly over the gilded empire furniture and the fine library. Only in summer did the place revive, sometimes with more than twenty guests, often those whom Carol had met on his winter travels. He didn’t always come to meals; when he did preside, these could last a long time, with prodigious quantities of food and drink that occasionally made him so hot and agitated that he would ask the woman sitting next to him to wipe his brow.
trzyn) to Steinort and locked them in a room so that the pupils could have the day off. When alone, he lived in two rooms on the warm south side of the house, contemplating his collection of Prussian coins. Gradually the porcelain became chipped and beetles crawled more daringly over the gilded empire furniture and the fine library. Only in summer did the place revive, sometimes with more than twenty guests, often those whom Carol had met on his winter travels. He didn’t always come to meals; when he did preside, these could last a long time, with prodigious quantities of food and drink that occasionally made him so hot and agitated that he would ask the woman sitting next to him to wipe his brow.Its eccentric owner’s neglect seemed to burnish the myth of the great wilderness, taking it further outside time. Hans von Lehndorff, writing after the cataclysm, recalled an island near Steinort on the Mauersee, where a house and primeval woodland were completely removed from the modern world and the sportsmen had lunch during the summer duck shoots – an alcoholic feast without vegetables, for they upset Carol’s stomach. To Lehndorff, Steinort was beautiful in the winter when you waited for deer or wild boar in the woods, cut through by the cold, or went to the ice-sailing regatta at Angerburg, where the sparkling ice seemed to burn into your eyes.
The boy grew up further west – where his father was director of the German national stud at Graditz, on the River Elbe. It could sometimes seem that horses ruled the family’s life; so tedious had Hans’s grandmother found the talk about them at meals that she once put oats into the bowls instead of soup. But the atmosphere of the large household – there were six children, five boys and one girl – was Lutheran, austere. Moreover the highest calling for a Prussian must be to serve the King, or the Emperor, as a soldier. After war broke out, Lehndorff’s mother, at
Christmas 1914, dressed up her three oldest sons in little field-grey uniforms, only to destroy them when the slaughter grew worse. Hans was delicate, suffering from asthma and fevers, and his adored mother would come often to his childhood sickbed – a more yielding presence compared to the remote, respected father. The boy dreamed often, with immense vividness: terrifying nightmares about the house in flames and his mother being murdered by a crowd of violent men.
Christmas 1914, dressed up her three oldest sons in little field-grey uniforms, only to destroy them when the slaughter grew worse. Hans was delicate, suffering from asthma and fevers, and his adored mother would come often to his childhood sickbed – a more yielding presence compared to the remote, respected father. The boy dreamed often, with immense vividness: terrifying nightmares about the house in flames and his mother being murdered by a crowd of violent men.
Steinort: what remains.
The Countess von Lehndorff was a daughter of the old conservative politician Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau. To go east by train across the Vistula and then in a horse-drawn cart to Januschau seemed an enchantment to Hans – touching a subconscious part of him, like the nightmares of murder and fire but thrilling rather than fearful. His mother came from here; his father’s family had been in East Prussia, in the great wilderness, for five hundred years; and after the victory at Tannenberg it seemed safe again, for ever. Hans von Lehndorff, as a small boy, shook Hindenburg’s hand. He recalled, over thirty years later, an impression of the old man’s deep humanity. The move east
became permanent when, in 1922, his father was made director of the famous Trakehnen stud.
became permanent when, in 1922, his father was made director of the famous Trakehnen stud.
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