East Prussia, Lithuania and the Soviet Union After the First World War: The Foreign Strategy of a German Exclave During the 1920s

Abstract

This paper deals with the foreign strategy of East Prussia after World War I. Special consideration is given to the ways in which East Prussia tried to overcome the political and economic difficulties that had arisen when it found itself surrounded on all sides by foreign countries during the 1920s. After the World War I, East Prussia aimed to re-establish its previous trade relations with the regions of the former Russian Empire. The intensive struggle for survival in which the local and regional governments of Königsberg and its economic representatives were involved resulted from the fact that the province now formed an exclave – a unique situation not only in the history of Prussia, but also in the history of Germany. Owing to the unsolvable territorial conflicts in Eastern Europe, all attempts to come to terms with the situation and its implications were doomed to have only very limited success.