What is "konigsberg"

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia, renamed Kaliningrad in 1946.

Königsberg may also refer to:

Regierungsbezirk Königsberg was a Regierungsbezirk, or government region, of the Prussian province of East Prussia from 1815 until 1945. The regional capital was Königsberg (since 1946, Kaliningrad).

Königsberg (until 1946 officially: Königsberg in Preußen) was a city in the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany until 1946. After being largely destroyed in World War II by Allied Forces and then annexed by the Soviet Union thereafter, the city was renamed Kaliningrad, and few traces of the former Königsberg remain today.

The literal meaning of Königsberg is 'King’s Barrow'. In the local Low German dialect, spoken by many of its German former inhabitants, the name was Königsbarg . Further names included Russian: Кёнигсберг (Kyonigsberg), Old Prussian: Kunnegsgarbs, Knigsberg, and .

Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement Twangste by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named in honour of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. A Baltic port, the city successively became the capital of their monastic state, the Duchy of Prussia (1525-1701) and East Prussia (until 1945). Königsberg remained the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy though the capital was moved to Berlin in 1701. It was the easternmost large city in Germany until it was captured by the Soviet Union on 9 April 1945, near the end of World War II.

A university city, home of the Albertina University (founded in 1544), Königsberg developed into an important German intellectual and cultural centre, being the residence of Simon Dach, Immanuel Kant, Käthe Kollwitz, E. T. A. Hoffmann, David Hilbert, Agnes Miegel, Hannah Arendt, Michael Wieck and others.

Between the thirteenth and the twentieth centuries, the inhabitants spoke predominantly German, but the multicultural city also had a profound influence on the Lithuanian and Polish cultures. The city was a publishing centre of Lutheran literature, including the first Polish translation of the New Testament, printed in the city in 1551, the first book in Lithuanian language and the first Lutheran catechism, both printed in Königsberg in 1547. Under Nazi rule, the Polish and Jewish minorities were classified as Untermensch and persecuted by the authorities. The city housed thousands of interned Jews who were forced to undertake tasks under the most deplorable conditions during the Second World War.

By the end of the war, Königsberg was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during its siege in 1945. The city was captured and occupied by the Soviet Union. Its German population was expelled, and the city was repopulated with Russians and others from the Soviet Union. Briefly Russified as Kyonigsberg , it was renamed "Kaliningrad" in 1946 in honour of Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin. It is now the capital of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave bordered in the north by Lithuania and in the south by Poland.

The Königsberg is a neighbouring peak of the Brocken and, at 1033.5 m above sea level the third highest elevation in the Harz mountains. It lies on a long ridge that runs from southeast to northwest about 1.5 km south of the Brocken's summit. Near its summit on the northwest side is the rock formation of Hirschhörner (max. ). To the east the land descends to the Schwarze Schluftwasser, a small tributary of the Kalte Bode which flows south of the mountain. To the east on the far side of the Schwarzer Schluftwasser is the Heinrichshöhe , another subpeak of the Brocken.

The 435 m high Königsberg is a hill in the Harz mountains in central Germany, southwest of Goslar between the Grane Reservoir and the Steinberg. On its summit are the ruins of an old tuberculosis convalescent home, later a children's home, the Königsberg Sanatorium.

Category:Hills of the Harz Category:Goslar Category:Hills of Lower Saxony