by Geoffrey Churchman

The enclave is a legacy of Stalin’s redrawing of the map of Eastern Europe at the end of WW2. Up until then it was the German port city of Königsberg on the Baltic Sea which Stalin saw as a useful addition to St Peterberg (then Leningrad).

Königsberg had been substantially destroyed during the war and unlike in Poland where the downtown areas of the cities of Breslau (Wroclaw), Danzig (Gdansk) and to a lesser extent, Stettin (Szczecin) were rebuilt, the Soviets had little interest in doing so in Kaliningrad as it was renamed. Nevertheless,since 1991 the Russians have shown interest and have rebuilt the cathedral, and even toyed with rebuilding the Schloss (castle) which the communists gnerally didn’t like.

The big issue is that the Germans renounced any claims to Königsberg in 1990 after German reunification. Poland, however, would like to have it, from the way powers existed 1,000 years ago.

Would the Poles, backed by EU forces, drive the Russian citizens out? There are 1 million of them in the enclave, about half of them in the city itself. Would the Poles find that an easy thing to do? Would it be like Gaza, European style?