After Seven Hundred Years
Neal Ascherson: Ghosts of East Prussia, 24 May 2012
Forgotten Land: Journeys among the Ghosts of East Prussia
by Max Egremont.
Picador, 356 pp., £9.99, April 2012,978 0 330 45660 9 Show More
by Max Egremont.
Picador, 356 pp., £9.99, April 2012,
“... As the Soviet tanks drew closer, the East Prussian aristocracy took charge of ‘their people’ for the last time. In the bitter winter of 1945, ignoring Nazi orders to stand firm, they mustered their tenantry, farmhands and servants, and in long columns of horse-drawn wagons set off for the west. Many didn’t get there. The country roads were jammed with retreating soldiers, wounded stragglers and thousands of civilian families, as eastern Germany melted, crumbled and took flight ... ”