Memel Timeline

 

Memel is today known as Klaipeda, Lithuania.  Klaipeda, Lithuania's port city on the Baltic Sea, is the third largest town in the country. It is located on the very southern seashore of the Baltic Sea, at a strait connecting the Kursiu Marios lagoon with the sea.  Here I have compiled the best of the stuff I found on the Web, as well as some of my own resources.  I hope that you will find use in this!

Translated and adapted from Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen e.V.

 

1 A.D. - Historians maintain that a settlement of ancient Balts, the ancestors of modern Lithuanians stood on the coats of the Kursiu Marios lagoon at the estuary of the Dane river.
1230 - The first Lithuanian state was established by the Grand Duke Mindaugas
1252 - Klaipeda was founded.  The Livonian Order of Germany built a wooden castle at the mouth of the Danges River and called it Memelburg.
1254 - A town grew around the castle, Klaipeda was granted the Lübeck rights; a port, as well as shipping and commerce, expanded.
1328 - The first Livonan Order granted from Livonia.
1410 - Even after the victory at Zalgiris, Klaipeda remained under Germans.
1422 - Area north of the Memel River given to Lithuania. 
1540 - Fire in Klaipeda.  After this, the fortress in Memel was built.
1541 - The first time ships are built in Memel  
1567 - The first time Jews were mentioned in Memel.
1593 - commercial shipbuilding started.
1629-35 - Klaipeda occupied by Swedes.
1678 - Klaipeda devastated by fire set by the Swedes.  The renovation of the city takes decades.
1709 - Big loss of population due to the Plague in northern Prussia.  The loss is made up by the religious emigrants (hugenots, salzburg emigrants). 
1723 - Memel is constructed with the department Gumbinnen.  The first mayor is mentioned.   Friedrich Wilhelm I forces the building of the fortress in Memel.
1757-62 Klaipeda occupied by Tsarist Russia
1807 - Klaipeda became the residence of Prussian Kings after the French army occupied Berlin (fleeing from Napoleon).
January 1, 1817 - Friedrich Wilhelm Horch published his paper "Memelschen Wochenblatt"
1818 -78 - Klaipeda belongs to the city district Königsberg.
1849 - The first edition of the Memler Dampfboot (a popular Memel Newspaper) is printed.
October 4 & 5, 1854 - the town was devastated by fire. Read about it here!

Koenig Wilhelm Kanal
1863 - The building of the King Wilhelm Canal started
1871 - The establishment of the Second Reich gave an impetus for a speedy Germanization of all national minorities living on the territory.
1873 - The King Wilhelm Canal finished

The Memel Post Office
1893 - Memel receives a new Post Office.  Telephone line Memel-Berlin available!  Read about it here!
1909 - The Wannagger Church in Wannaggen (outskirts of Memel) was finished!
June 28, 1919 - Treaty of Versaille was signed.  After the defeat of Germany in World War I, the town and the whole region of Klaipeda was placed under the protectorate of the Entente states. Notgeld after WWI
February 13, 1920 - Klaipeda was administrated by the French occupation forces until 1923.
December 1923 - Big uprising was organized, with the assistance of Lithuanian government. The uprising determined the future of the Klaipeda region. All the territory and the sea-port were returned to Lithuania with the right of self-government

Memel in the '20s
March 23, 1939 - Klaipeda, the only sea-port of Lithuania, was seized by Nazi Germany.
1940 - Soviets occupy Lithuania
1941 - Lithuania overrun by Nazi Germany. The republic was briefly re-established in the interval between the two calamities, which saw tens of thousands deported to Siberia and the near disappearance of the Jewich community in Hitler's "final solution".
January 28, 1945 - Klaipeda was liberated.
March 11, 1990 - Republic was again proclaimed.
Feb. 14, 1993 - Lithuanians turned out to vote for Algirdas Brazauskas, making him the first directly elected president of Lithuania.