[edit]
A settlement of Baltic tribes in the territory of the present-day city is said to have existed in the region as early as the 7th century. Klaipėda is the oldest city in modern Lithuania. The Balts initially established Klaipėda as a trading centre for the storage of goods and annual fairs with the Germans.
Teutonic Knights[edit]
In the 1240s, Pope Gregory IX offered King Håkon IV of Norway the opportunity to conquer the peninsula of Sambia.[citation needed] However, after Grand Duke Mindaugas of Lithuania accepted Christianity, the Teutonic Knights and a group of crusaders from Lübeck moved into Sambia.[citation needed] These groups founded a fort in 1252 called Memele castrum (or Memelburg, "Memel Castle"). The fort's construction was completed in 1253, and Memel was garrisoned with troops of the Teutonic Order, administered by Deutschmeister Eberhard von Seyne. Documents for its founding were signed by Eberhard and Bishop Heinrich von Lützelburg of Courland on 29 July 1252 and 1 August 1252.[citation needed]
Preserved historic timber framed architecture
Seal of viceregent in Klaipėda, 13th century
Seal of Klaipėda as of 1409 depicting bell towers of the Churches of St. John, St. Mary and St. Nicholas
Master Conrad von Thierberg used the fortress as a base for further campaigns along the river Neman and against Samogitia. Memel was unsuccessfully besieged by Sambians in 1255, and the Sambians surrendered in 1259. Memel was also colonized by settlers from Holstein, Lübeck and Dortmund. Hence, Memel also being known at the time as Neu-Dortmund, or "New Dortmund". It became the main town of the Diocese of Curonia, with a cathedral and at least two parochial churches, but the development of the castle became the dominant priority. According to different sources, Memel received Lübeck city rights in 1254 or 1258. Following it Klaipėda's status was quite extraordinary as only three cities in the State of the Teutonic Order had Lübeck city rights.
In the spring and summer of 1323, a Lithuanian army led by Grand Duke Gediminas came up the Neman and sieged the castle of Memel, while later he marched to other Prussian, Latvian, Estonian territories controlled by the Order, eventually forcing the Order to sue for a truce in October 1323. While planning a campaign against Samogitia, Memel's garrison of the Teutonic Order's Livonian branch was replaced with knights from the Prussian branch in 1328. Threats and attacks by Lithuanians greatly slowed the town's development; the castle was sacked by Lithuanian tribes in 1360, and in 1379 the reconstructed castle and town were both sacked once again. In 1409, the castle was rebuilt and in 1422–1441 the strengthening of the castle's fortifications continued when eventually its ramparts reached 7 meters height.
After the Battle of Grunwald, the dispute between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Order on Samogitia started. Vytautas the Great wanted the border to be the Neman River, while the Teutonic Order wanted to have Veliuona and Klaipėda in the right side of the river. Both sides agreed to accept the prospective solution of Emperor Sigismund's representative Benedict Makrai in 1413. He decided that the right side of Nemunas (Veliuona, Klaipėda) were to be owned by Lithuania. Makrai is known to have stated:
We find that the Memel Castle is built in the land of Samogitians. Neither Master, nor the Order was able to prove anything opposing.
Nevertheless, no agreement was concluded and fighting continued until the Treaty of Melno in 1422 stabilized the border between the Teutonic Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the next 501 years. However, two miles of Lithuanian territories, including Klaipėda, was left for the Order. In 1454, King Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region into the Kingdom of Poland upon the request of the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation. After the subsequent Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) the Teutonic Order regained authority over the city as a fief of the Polish Crown. The rebuilt town received Kulm law city rights in 1475.
Duchy of Prussia[edit]
Panorama of the city with the Klaipėda Castle and the old town in 1674
Historical illustration of Memel (1684)
Against the wishes of its governor and commander, Eric of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Memel adopted Lutheranism after the conversion of Grand Master Albert of Prussia and the creation of the Duchy of Prussia as a fief of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland in 1525, soon part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since then, Klaipėda has become the county centre within the Duchy of Prussia. It was the onset of a long period of prosperity for the city and port. Klaipėda served as a port for neighbouring Lithuania, benefiting from its location near the mouth of the Neman, with wheat as a profitable export. The Duchy of Prussia was inherited by a relative, John Sigismund, the Hohenzollern prince-electors of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1618. Brandenburg-Prussia began active participation in regional policy, which affected the development of Memel. From 1629 to 1635, the town was occupied by Sweden over several periods during the Polish-Swedish War of 1626–1629.
After the Treaty of Königsberg in 1656 during the Northern Wars, Elector Frederick William opened Memel's harbor to Sweden, with whom the harbor's revenue was divided. Sovereignty of the margraves of Brandenburg over the region was affirmed in the Treaty of Oliva in 1660.
The construction of a fortified defence system around the entire town, initiated in 1627, noticeably changed its status and prospects. In November 1678 a small Swedish army invaded the Prussian territory, but was unable to capture the fortress of Memel.
Kingdom of Prussia[edit]
Spit fortress
By the beginning of the 18th century, Memel was one of the strongest fortresses (Memelfestung) in Prussia, and the town became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. Despite its fortifications, it was captured by Russian troops during the Seven Years' War in 1757.[citation needed] Consequently, from 1757 to 1762 the town, along with the rest of eastern Prussia, was dependent on the Russian Empire. After this war ended, the maintenance of the fortress was neglected, but the town's growth continued.[citation needed]
Memel became part of the newly formed province of East Prussia within the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773. In the second half of the 18th century, Memel's lax customs and Riga's high duties enticed English traders, who established the first industrial sawmills in the town.[citation needed] In 1784, 996 ships arrived in Memel, 500 of which were English. The specialisation in wood manufacturing guaranteed Memel's merchants income and stability for more than a hundred years. During this era, it also normalised its trade relations with Königsberg; regional instability had degraded relations since the 16th century.[citation needed]
Klaipėda Town Hall was the temporary residence of the King Frederick William III of Prussia, his wife Queen Louise and their children.
Memel prospered during the second half of the 18th century by exporting timber to Great Britain for use by the Royal Navy.[citation needed] In 1792, 756 British ships visited the town to transport lumber from forests near Memel.[citation needed] In 1800, its imports consisted chiefly of salt, iron and herrings; the exports, which greatly exceeded the imports, were corn, hemp, flax, and, particularly, timber. The 1815 Encyclopædia Britannica stated that Memel was "provided with the finest harbour in the Baltic".[citation needed]
During the Napoleonic Wars, Memel became the temporary capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. Between 1807 and 1808, the town was the residence of King Frederick William III, his consort Louise, his court, and the government. On 9 October 1807 the king signed a document in Memel, later called the October Edict, which abolished serfdom in Prussia. It originated the reforms of Karl Freiherr vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg. The land around Memel suffered major economic setbacks under Napoleon Bonaparte's Continental System. During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow after the failed invasion of Russia in 1812, General Yorck refused Marshal MacDonald's orders to fortify Memel at Prussia's expense.[citation needed]
During the January Uprising, in June 1863, Polish insurgents made an unsuccessful attempt at a naval landing near the city's harbor.
German Empire[edit]
Panorama of the city from the Curonian Lagoon in 1880
Central Post Office, the former residence of Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and monarchs of Prussia
After the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, Memel became Germany's northernmost city.
The development of the town in the 19th century was influenced by the Industrial Revolution in Prussia, as well as urbanisation. Even though the population of Memel increased fourfold during the 19th century, and had risen to 21,470 by 1910, its pace of development lagged in comparison. The reasons for this were mostly political. Memel was the northernmost and easternmost city in Germany, and although the government was engaged in a very costly tree-planting exercise to stabilise the sand-dunes on the Curonian Spit, most of the financial infusions in the province of East Prussia were concentrated in Königsberg, the capital of the province. Some notable instances of the German infrastructure investments in the area included sandbar blasting and a new ship canal between Pillau and Königsberg, which enabled vessels of up to 6.5 m draughts to moor alongside the city, at a cost of 13 million marks.
Owing to the absence of heavy industry in the 1870s and 1880s, the population of Memel stagnated, although wood manufacturing persisted as the main industry. It remained the central point of the Baltic timber-trade. A British Consul was located in the town in 1800; in 1900 a British Vice-Consul was recorded there, as well as a Lloyd's Agent.
Early 20th-century view of the city featuring the Church of St. John
By 1900 steamer services had been established between Memel and Cranz (on the southern end of the Curonian Spit), and also between Memel and Tilsit. A main-line railway was built from Insterburg, the main East Prussian railway junction, to St. Petersburg via Eydtkuhnen, the Prussian frontier station. The Memel line also ran from Insterburg via Tilsit, where a further direct line connected with Königsberg, that crossed the 4-kilometre-wide (2+1⁄2-mile) Memel Valley over three bridges before its arrival in Memel.
During the second half of the 19th century, Memel was a center for the publication of books printed in the Lithuanian language using a Latin-script alphabet – these publications were prohibited in the nearby Russian Empire of which Lithuania was a province. The books were then smuggled over the Lithuanian border.
The German 1910 census lists the Memel Territory population as 149,766, of whom 67,345 declared Lithuanian to be their first language. The Germans greatly predominated in the town and port of Memel as well as in other nearby villages; the Lithuanian population was predominant in the area's rural districts.
Inter-war years and World War II[edit]
Main article: Klaipėda Region
Lithuanian Army parade in Klaipėda Theatre Square in 1923
Under the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Klaipėda and the surrounding Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) were detached from Germany and made a protectorate of the Entente States. The French became provisional administrators of the region until a more permanent solution could be worked out. Both Lithuania and Poland campaigned for their rights in the region. However, it seemed that the region would become a free city, similar to the Free City of Danzig. Not waiting for an unfavourable decision, the Lithuanians decided to stage the Klaipėda Revolt, take the region by force, and present the Entente with a fait accompli. The revolt was carried out in January 1923 while western Europe was distracted by the occupation of the Ruhr. The Germans tacitly supported the action, and the French offered only limited resistance. The revolt was supported by the Chief Rescue Committee of Lithuania Minor, chaired by Prussian Lithuanian Martynas Jankus, which operated since 22 December 1922 with its centre in Klaipėda. The League of Nations protested the revolt but accepted the transfer in February 1923. The formal Klaipėda Convention was signed in Paris on 8 May 1924 and secured extensive autonomy for the region.
Supreme Commander of the Lithuanian Army Silvestras Žukauskas in Klaipėda, 1925
Two 1920s posters, representing the historical attachment of Klaipėda to Lithuania in 1923
The annexation of the city had significant consequences for the Lithuanian economy and foreign relations. The region subsequently accounted for up to 30% of Lithuania's entire economic production. Between 70% and 80% of foreign trade passed through Klaipėda. The region, which represented only about 5% of Lithuania's territory, contained a third of its industry.
Weimar Germany, under Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, maintained normal relations with Lithuania. However, Nazi Germany desired to reacquire the region and tensions rose. Pro-German parties won clear supermajorities in all elections to the Klaipėda Parliament, which often clashed with the Lithuanian-appointed Klaipėda Directorate. Lithuanian efforts to "re-Lithuanize" Prussian Lithuanians by promoting the Lithuanian language, culture, education were often met with resistance from the locals. In 1932, a conflict between the Parliament and the Directorate had to be resolved by the Permanent Court of International Justice. In 1934–1935, the Lithuanians attempted to combat increasing Nazi influence in the region by arresting and prosecuting over 120 Nazi activists for the alleged plot to organize an anti-Lithuanian rebellion. Despite these rather harsh sentences, the defendants in the Neumann–Sass case were soon released under pressure from Nazi Germany. The extensive autonomy guaranteed by the Klaipėda Convention prevented Lithuania from blocking the growing pro-German attitudes in the region.
Visit of Adolf Hitler following the German annexation of the city, March 1939
As tensions in pre-war Europe continued to grow, it was expected that Germany would make a move against Lithuania to reacquire the region. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop delivered an ultimatum to the Lithuanian Foreign Minister on 20 March 1939, demanding the surrender of Klaipėda. Lithuania, unable to secure international support for its cause, submitted to the ultimatum and, in exchange for the right to use the new harbour facilities as a free port, ceded the disputed region to Germany in the late evening of 22 March 1939. Adolf Hitler visited the harbour and delivered a speech to the city residents. That was Hitler's last territorial acquisition before World War II.
During the war, the Germans operated a forced labour subcamp of the Stalag I-A prisoner-of-war camp for Allied prisoners of war in the city, and expelled Poles from German-occupied Poland were also enslaved as forced labour in the city's vicinity.
1945–present[edit]
Participants' ships of the 2017 Sea Festival in Klaipėda
During World War II, from the end of 1944 into 1945, the Battle of Memel took place. The nearly-empty city was captured by the Soviet Red Army on 28 January 1945 with only about 50 remaining people. After the war the Klaipėda Region was incorporated into the Lithuanian SSR, and the post-1937 German occupation of various regions of Europe, including Klaipėda, was considered illegal.
The Soviets turned Klaipėda, the foremost ice-free port in the Eastern Baltic, into the largest piscatorial-marine base in the European part of the USSR. Shipyards, dockyards and a fishing port were constructed. Subsequently, by the end of 1959, the population of the city had doubled its pre-war population, and by 1989, there were 202,900 inhabitants. Initially, Russian-speakers dominated the city's local government, but after the death of Joseph Stalin, more people came to the city from the rest of Lithuania than from other Soviet republics and oblasts, and Lithuanians became its major ethnic group. Among Lithuanian cities with a population greater than 100,000, however, Klaipėda has the highest percentage of people whose native language is Russian.
Costa Pacifica in Klaipėda
Until the 1970s, Klaipėda was important to the USSR only for its economy, and cultural and religious activity was minimal and restricted. The developers of a Roman Catholic church (Maria, Queen of Peace, constructed 1957–1962) were arrested. The city began to develop cultural activities in the 1970s and the 1980s, such as the introduction of the Sea Festival cultural tradition, where thousands of people come to celebrate from all over the country. Based on the Pedagogical University of Šiauliai and the National Conservatory of Lithuania in Klaipėda, the University of Klaipėda was established in 1991. Klaipėda is now the home of a bilingual German-Lithuanian institution, the Hermann-Sudermann-Schule, as well as an English-language university, LCC International University.
In 2014, Klaipėda was visited 64 times by cruise ships and surpassed the Latvian capital, Riga, for the first time.
