Editing East Prussia (section)

=== Nazi Germany ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2008-0513-501, Königsberg, Adolf Hitler.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Erich Koch]] in Königsberg, 1936]]

After [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power]], opposition politicians were persecuted and newspapers banned. [[Erich Koch]], who headed the East Prussian Nazi party from 1928, led the district from 1932. The Otto-Braun-House was requisitioned to become the headquarters of the SA, which used the house to imprison and torture its opponents. [[Walter Schütz]], a communist member of the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]], was murdered here.<ref>Matull, page 357</ref> This period was characterized by efforts to [[collectivization|collectivize]] the local agriculture and ruthlessness in dealing with his {{clarify|date=January 2024|reason=Whose critics?}} critics inside and outside the [[Nazi Party]].<ref name="wistrich">Robert S. Wistrich, ''Who's who in Nazi Germany'', 2002, pp. 142–143.</ref> He also had long-term plans for mass-scale industrialization of the largely agricultural province. These actions made him unpopular among the local peasants.<ref name="wistrich"/> In 1932 the local paramilitary [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] had already started to terrorise their political opponents. On the night of 31 July 1932 there was a bomb attack on the headquarters of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrats]] in Königsberg, the [[Otto Braun|Otto-Braun-House]]. The Communist politician [[Gustav Sauf]] was killed; the executive editor of the Social Democratic newspaper ''"Königsberger Volkszeitung"'', [[Otto Wyrgatsch]]; and the [[German People's Party]] politician [[Max von Bahrfeldt]] were all severely injured. Members of the [[Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold|Reichsbanner]] were assaulted while the local Reichsbanner Chairman of [[Lötzen]], [[Kurt Kotzan]], was murdered on 6 August 1932.<ref name=Matull>{{cite web |url=http://library.fes.de/breslau/pdf/a20715/a20715_06.pdf |title=Ostdeutschlands Arbeiterbewegung: Abriß ihrer Geschichte, Leistung und Opfer |first1=Wilhelm |last1=Matull |publisher=Holzner Verlag |year=1973 |page=350 |language=de |access-date=14 February 2010 |archive-date=7 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507154014/http://library.fes.de/breslau/pdf/a20715/a20715_06.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>[http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/4374/die_aufrechten_roten_von_koenigsberg.html Die aufrechten Roten von Königsberg] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202213507/http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/4374/die_aufrechten_roten_von_koenigsberg.html |date=2 February 2014 }} Spiegel.de, 28 June 2009 {{in lang|de }}</ref>

In the [[March 1933 German federal election]], the last contested pre-war German election, the local population of East Prussia voted overwhelmingly for [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[Nazi Party]].

Through publicly funded emergency relief programs concentrating on agricultural land-improvement projects and road construction, the "Erich Koch Plan" for East Prussia allegedly made the province free of unemployment: on 16 August 1933 Koch reported to [[Hitler]] that unemployment had been banished entirely from the province, a feat that gained admiration throughout the [[Nazi Germany|Reich]].<ref>{{cite journal |journal=The Journal of Modern History |year=1993 |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=113–151 |title=Fantasy and Reality in Nazi Work-Creation Programs, 1933–1936 |author=Dan P. Silverman |doi=10.1086/244609 |s2cid=143888997 }}</ref> In actuality, the Erich Koch Plan had been a staged propaganda event organized by [[Walther Funk]] and the [[Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda]] to promote the Nazi Party's work creation policies, with East Prussia chosen because it already had relatively low unemployment due to its agrarian economy.{{Sfn|Tooze|2006|p=44-45}} Koch's industrialization plans provoked conflict with [[Richard Walther Darré]], who held the office of the Reich Peasant Leader (''Reichsbauernführer'') and Minister of Agriculture. Darré, a [[Religious aspects of Nazism|neopaganist]] rural romantic, wanted to enforce his vision of an agricultural East Prussia.  When his "Land" representatives challenged Koch's plans, Koch arrested them.<ref name="steigmann-gall">[[Richard Steigmann-Gall]], ''The Holy Reich – Nazi Conceptions of Christianity 1919–1945'', 2004, p. 102.</ref>

In 1938 the [[Nazis]] [[1938 renaming of East Prussian placenames|changed about one-third of the toponyms of the area]], eliminating, Germanizing, or simplifying a number of [[Old Prussian]], as well as those Polish or Lithuanian names originating from [[Settler|colonists]] and [[refugees]] to Prussia during and after the [[Protestant Reformation]]. More than 1,500 places were ordered to be renamed by 16 July 1938 following a decree issued by [[Gauleiter]] and [[Oberpräsident]] [[Erich Koch]] and initiated by [[Adolf Hitler]].<ref>{{cite book |title="Wolfsschanze": Hitlers Machtzentrale im Zweiten Weltkrieg |first=Uwe |last=Neumärker |edition=3 |publisher=Ch. Links Verlag |year=2007 |isbn=978-3-86153-433-4 |language=de |display-authors=etal }}</ref> Many who would not cooperate with the rulers of [[Nazi Germany]] were sent to [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]] and held prisoner there until their death or liberation.

After the [[1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania]], the [[Klaipėda region]] was integrated again into East Prussia.