Table of Contents

Beginnings: The Teutonic Knights * Old Prussia: Finding the Way * Marienburg: Crusades and the Birth of Prussia * Danzig: Drive to the East * Gruenwald: The Knights Repulsed * Frauenburg: Polish Inroads Consolidation: The Hohenzollern Dynasty * Grosse Werder: The Great Elector * Neudeck: The Soldier-King * Eylau: Napoleonic Disaster Blood and Iron: Bismarck and Wilhelm * Cadinen: Rush for Glory * Tannenberg: The Siamese Twins * Gross Ptzdorf: Weimar Interlude Extinction: World War II * Suwalki: War * The River Memel: Into Russia * Sutthof: Final Solutions * Rastenberg: Madness, Assassination, Honor * Ostpreussen: Along Country Roads * In the West: Survivors

About the Author

James Charles Roy has been a peripatetic "independent scholar" since 1970, when he left Time Inc. He has written innumerable articles on Irish history and five distinguished books, including The Fields of Athenry and Islands of Storm, a Book-of-the-Month and History Book Club selection. He divides his time between Moyode Castle in County Galway and his home in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Roy traveled through what used to be the ancient kingdom of Prussia, the cradle of modern Germany, contrasting what he saw and heard from current Polish citizens with the memories of former German residents. The forced relocation of millions of Germans who had lived there for more than 700 years certainly added to the misery of 1945. What makes this book interesting is that few readers know much of the "Great Trek" during the winter of 1944-45 that turned Danzig into Gdansk and K”nigsberg into Kaliningrad. Many readers have heard of the alleged connection of Prussian militarism to Hitler's rise, but for those who lack an understanding of Prussia's cultural history, such allegations are meaningless. Roy, whose previous books have all dealt with Ireland, presents a solid popular history of Prussia but adds nothing new in the final chapters on the war. The book relies too heavily on secondary sources to be of use to academics, though it has a good bibliography for those unfamiliar with Prussia. Recommended for undergraduate collections and public libraries.ÄRandall L. Schroeder, Wartburg Coll. Lib., Waverly, IA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.