Questions about Klaipėda Region
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the Klaipėda Region and what is its historical status?
The Klaipėda Region, also called the Memel Territory, is the northernmost part of the former German province of East Prussia, along the Baltic coast. It was separated from Germany by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, passed through French administration, was annexed by Lithuania in 1923, transferred to Nazi Germany in 1939, and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1945. Since Lithuanian independence in 1990, the area forms part of Klaipėda and Tauragė counties.
Why did the Allied Powers separate the Memel Territory from Germany after World War I?
The Allied Powers argued that the district was Lithuanian in population and speech, and that Memel's port was the only sea outlet for Lithuania. Poland's Roman Dmowski, acting on orders from Józef Piłsudski, supported the transfer, with French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's backing. Germany's delegation, led by Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, formally protested on the 9th of May 1919 but was overruled.
How did Lithuania take control of the Klaipėda Region in 1923?
Lithuania occupied the Klaipėda Region on the 9th of January 1923, using militias that entered from Lithuania. The French administration in Memel took no significant counteractive measures, partly because France was simultaneously conducting the Occupation of the Ruhr in Germany. Lithuania formally annexed the region on the 19th of January 1923, and the Conference of Ambassadors confirmed the annexation in 1924.
What autonomy rights did the Memel Territory have under Lithuanian rule?
The Klaipėda Convention, confirmed by a further agreement on the 8th of May 1924, granted the Memel Territory a separate parliament, two official languages, the right to levy its own taxes and customs duties, a separate judicial system, separate citizenship, internal control of agriculture and forestry, and its own social security system. Under the authoritarian rule of Antanas Smetona after his December 1926 coup, the Memel Territory was the only place in Lithuania where civil marriage was legally recognized.
Why did Germany take back the Memel Territory in 1939?
After an oral ultimatum, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys traveled to Berlin and signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Lithuania received a 99-year free zone in Memel's port in exchange. By the 1938 election, the unified German list had captured 87.2% of votes in the local parliament, and the transfer was widely welcomed by the territory's population.
What happened to the population of the Klaipėda Region after World War II?
Nearly the entire population evacuated before the Red Army; when Soviet forces captured the city after the Battle of Memel on the 28th of January 1945, only six people were found there. From 1945 to 1950 about 8,000 former inhabitants were repatriated, but in 1951 the Lithuanian SSR expelled 3,500 more to East Germany. In 1958, when emigration was permitted, most of the surviving population left for West Germany; no property was ever restored to pre-1945 owners.