The Former Eastern Territories in German History
The former eastern territories were the scene of numerous events noted in German history, but generally viewed in modern-day Poland as being of 'foreign' rather than local interest. These include battles such as Frederick the Great’s victories at Mollwitz in 1741, Hohenfriedeberg in 1745, Leuthen (1757) and Zorndorf (1758), and his defeats at Gross-Jägersdorf in 1757 and Kunersdorf in 1759. Historian Norman Davies describes Kunersdorf as "Prussia's greatest disaster" and the inspiration for Christian Tiedge's Elegy to "Humanity butchered by Delusion on the Altar of Blood". In the Napoleonic Wars the Pomeranian town of Kolberg was besieged in 1807 (inspiring a Second World War propaganda film) while the French Grande Armée was victorious at Eylau in East Prussia in the same year. In World War I, Hindenburg won critical victories at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, ejecting Russian forces from East Prussia.
Numerous figures in German history were either born or resident in the former eastern territories. The list includes politicians, statesmen and national leaders such as Friedrich von Gentz, Adalbert Falk, Ferdinand Lassalle and Eduard Lasker; Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia; Augusta Victoria, last German Empress; Chancellors Leo von Caprivi and Georg Michaelis and the jurist Helmuth James Graf von Moltke. Field Marshals Paul von Hindenburg, Hermann von Eichhorn and Günther von Kluge were born in the east, as were Generals Erich von Falkenhayn and Heinz Guderian, SS-men Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and Kurt Daluege, fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen and his uncle, the geographer and explorer Ferdinand von Richthofen. Scientists from the former eastern provinces include the physicists and mathematicians David Hilbert, Max Born, and Walther Nernst, and immunologist Paul Ehrlich. Philosophers and theologians such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, and historians Heinrich Graetz and Gottfried Bernhardy. The east was home to poets Martin Opitz, Angelus Silesius, Andreas Gryphius, Friedrich von Logau, and Ewald Christian von Kleist. Eminent cultural figures from the region included the collector of folk songs Johann Gottfried Herder and the singer, pianist, conductor and composer George Henschel; novelists and dramatists Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Gustav Freytag, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Arnold Zweig, Gerhart Hauptmann and Günter Grass; painters Karl Friedrich Lessing and Adolph Menzel.
Carl Gotthard Langhans, the architect who designed the Brandenburg Gate, a national icon of present-day Germany, was born and died in the east (Silesia).
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