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The Vanished Kingdom: Travels Through The History Of Prussia
Twice in this century, Germany initiated wars of unimagined terror and destruction. In both cases, defense of the “Prussian” realm, the German homeland, was the perceived and vilified perpetrator. Few today understand with any precision what “Prussia” means, either geographically or nationalistically, but neither would they deny the psychic resonance of the single word. To most, it means unbridled aggression, the image of the goose-stepping Junker.But what was once Prussia is now a significant portion of Eastern Europe, a contested homeland first won by Christian knights of the Teutonic Order. For centuries thereafter its terrain has been crisscrossed by war and partitioned by barbed wire. In its final catastrophe of 1945, nearly two million German refugees fled the region as Russian armies broke the eastern front, perhaps the greatest dislocation of a civilian population at any time during World War II. With the Berlin Wall now a memory and the Soviet Union in a state of collapse, this remains a geography in shambles. Modern travelers can now, for the first time in decades, see and ponder for themselves what Prussia really was and now is.James Charles Roy and Amos Elon, two writers noted for their inquisitive natures, have gone to search through the rubble themselves. They intermingle present-day observations with moving vignettes from the German and Prussian past, sketching a portrait of the Europe we know today. The story is spiced with interviews and reminiscences, unforgettable in their sadness, of people looking back at a life now gone, a life full of turmoil and heartache, memories both fond and tragic. The final result: a far deeper understanding of the tattered lands of today’s Eastern Europe.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 21, 2015
I read James Charles Roy's The Vanished Kingdom because I have German family who fled from East Prussia during the end of World War II, and wanted to learn more about their experience and Prussian history. Without question, this book taught me many things I didn't know about before: the Teutonic Knights, the Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg, the Polish Corridor, etc. It also contained several personal accounts from Germans who lived in East Prussia through WWII, thereby giving me additional perspective on the stories I've been told about the evacuation. As there aren't many books about Prussia out there, I value The Vanished Kingdom for that knowledge, although I probably could have found it just as easily on Wikipedia.
The Vanished Kingdom unquestionably merits only one star, however, because of its painfully obvious slant -- its pro-Prussia/Junker and anti-Polish sentiment is simply appalling. Mr. Roy seems to believe that Prussia is inherently German, and deserves to be taken from Poland/Russia and returned to unified Germany. He talks about the pride the Junkers took in maintaining their land, while consistently portraying Polish citizens as drunk, mean, suspicious, and incapable. He talks about how Prussia is inherently German, while skimming over the historical periods in which it was Polish. Worst of all, he spends ample time sharing stories of Polish anti-Semitism, while not telling stories about German anti-Semitism to the same extent. While I don't doubt that Polish people did plenty of evil things during WWII, highlighting those atrocities while neglecting to portray those of the Prussian Germans is clearly selection bias.
Some of the more troubling statements in The Vanished Kingdom come from Germans Mr. Roy interviewed, not himself. One interviewee, for example, literally calls Polish people "sub-human." A Jewish person claims he feared the Poles more than the Germans. Now, I don't believe we should hide from statements such as these, and pretend that such attitudes do not exist. The problem with The Vanished Kingdom, however, is that Mr. Roy never challenges them or place them within any sort of context. He simply lets these statements stand, and never attempts to shine a critical light on them. Morally, I find that unacceptable.
Published in 1999, The Vanished Kingdom is also showing its age. Mr. Roy seems to be setting up a future where a conflict between Germany and Poland/Russia over the former East Prussia simmers and ultimately erupts. Of course, this was before 9/11 and before Vladimir Putin planned to hold World Cup games in Kaliningrad. Still, predictions of the future that do not account for international terrorism or Putin strike this reader as coming from a time of innocence and naivete, without much relevance for a contemporary reader. Furthermore, the areas Mr. Roy visited have also advanced considerably. Berlin is modern and has a thriving arts scene. In 2009, Poland was the only EU country that did not slip into recession. German family of mine who have visited Poland have expressed how delightful they found it.
The Vanished Kingdom does have merit. That merit, however, is limited to the historical facts and personal accounts it contains, even though the facts can be incomplete and the accounts distasteful. Any further worth, however, is its worth as an example of bias, selective reporting, and historical whitewashing. I'd even almost recommend it on that ground alone, as I believe it's important to learn how history can be spun. This one will leave you dizzy.
The Vanished Kingdom unquestionably merits only one star, however, because of its painfully obvious slant -- its pro-Prussia/Junker and anti-Polish sentiment is simply appalling. Mr. Roy seems to believe that Prussia is inherently German, and deserves to be taken from Poland/Russia and returned to unified Germany. He talks about the pride the Junkers took in maintaining their land, while consistently portraying Polish citizens as drunk, mean, suspicious, and incapable. He talks about how Prussia is inherently German, while skimming over the historical periods in which it was Polish. Worst of all, he spends ample time sharing stories of Polish anti-Semitism, while not telling stories about German anti-Semitism to the same extent. While I don't doubt that Polish people did plenty of evil things during WWII, highlighting those atrocities while neglecting to portray those of the Prussian Germans is clearly selection bias.
Some of the more troubling statements in The Vanished Kingdom come from Germans Mr. Roy interviewed, not himself. One interviewee, for example, literally calls Polish people "sub-human." A Jewish person claims he feared the Poles more than the Germans. Now, I don't believe we should hide from statements such as these, and pretend that such attitudes do not exist. The problem with The Vanished Kingdom, however, is that Mr. Roy never challenges them or place them within any sort of context. He simply lets these statements stand, and never attempts to shine a critical light on them. Morally, I find that unacceptable.
Published in 1999, The Vanished Kingdom is also showing its age. Mr. Roy seems to be setting up a future where a conflict between Germany and Poland/Russia over the former East Prussia simmers and ultimately erupts. Of course, this was before 9/11 and before Vladimir Putin planned to hold World Cup games in Kaliningrad. Still, predictions of the future that do not account for international terrorism or Putin strike this reader as coming from a time of innocence and naivete, without much relevance for a contemporary reader. Furthermore, the areas Mr. Roy visited have also advanced considerably. Berlin is modern and has a thriving arts scene. In 2009, Poland was the only EU country that did not slip into recession. German family of mine who have visited Poland have expressed how delightful they found it.
The Vanished Kingdom does have merit. That merit, however, is limited to the historical facts and personal accounts it contains, even though the facts can be incomplete and the accounts distasteful. Any further worth, however, is its worth as an example of bias, selective reporting, and historical whitewashing. I'd even almost recommend it on that ground alone, as I believe it's important to learn how history can be spun. This one will leave you dizzy.
March 19, 2025
My four stars is probably fair, indeed this book maybe a five star book, but it didn't 'sing' for me. That may be because I had already read two superb books on Prussia:
'Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia' by Max Egremont
and
'Prussia: The Perversion of an Idea' by Giles MacDonogh
Of course neither are definitive, it is just that I found more in them than this book. Others may differ but for me there is something lacking Roy's 'Vanished Kingdom' that I found in those by Egremont and MacDonagh.
'Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia' by Max Egremont
and
'Prussia: The Perversion of an Idea' by Giles MacDonogh
Of course neither are definitive, it is just that I found more in them than this book. Others may differ but for me there is something lacking Roy's 'Vanished Kingdom' that I found in those by Egremont and MacDonagh.
November 30, 2022
I think he would have had a better time visiting Poland if he didn't hate the inhabitants quite so much. His smug demeanor about how uncivilized the Poles are overshadows the historical tidbits to a boiling point about halfway through the book, which is where I had to all it quits. Sunk-cost fallacy is not enough to get me to finish this one.
February 10, 2010
Interesting exploration of a Prussian nation that shaped european history and that has now been obliterated from the map. very readable, blends opinion, historical facts, and interviews with Germans and Poles.
November 3, 2017
A Dark and Bloody Ground
They say that "Kentucky" meant "dark and bloody ground" in some Native American language. That may or may not be true, but in world bloodshed sweepstakes, that American state probably does not deserve the name. We humans have excelled in turning all sorts of places into "dark and bloody grounds". The Caucasus and eastern Anatolia come to mind, as do Afghanistan and the Balkans. We are hard at work creating more candidates. One such place which does not immediately spring to mind today is that part of eastern Germany now lying split between Poland and Russia, the area once known as East Prussia. The original Prussians were a pagan people neighboring the Poles and Lithuanians. Over some centuries bloody campaigns against them wiped them off the map. Their name was usurped eventually by those Germans (and a few others) who conducted yearly crusades against the pagan Baltic peoples. This group of northern crusaders became known as the Teutonic Knights, a kind of Knights Templar or Knights of Malta. They had their own organization and knights from all over Europe, bored or zealous, flocked to their standard to engage in killing and pillage among the Balts. They fought the Catholic Poles on occasion. The Lithuanians converted to Catholicism and united with Poland. The Teutonic Knight leaders accumulated vast estates and finally became rulers or nobles. They lost a giant key battle with the Poles. Prussia emerged as a new kingdom on the map of Europe, uniting with Brandenburg and Berlin. Their rulers became the Hohenzollerns, a series of warlike, Protestant kings culminating in Frederick the Great who died in 1786, but they continued ruling a united Germany till the end of WW I. Prussia helped partition Poland, was conquered by Napoleon, and finally merged with the other German states in 1871, Prussians were famous for iron discipline and being very conservative politically. Perhaps incorrectly, their name got associated with German atrocities and militarism in the 20th century.
Roy had an interesting idea. That was, travel around the Polish areas taken over from Germany that used to be East Prussia and around the isolated enclave of Kaliningrad which used to be the city of Konigsberg and environs. Together with the travel impressions, he would bring the long, bloody history of the area alive. In his work, I would say he was halfway successful. Up to the 19th century, we follow everything very well. We understand that we are learning about Prussia---the kings, the battles, the Junkers (country squires more or less). But then, we are launched off into long digressions on German motives, behavior and achievements in WW I, in the Weimar Republic, and during Hitler's rule and WW II. Prussia sort of recedes into the distance, though the travel part keeps going. We get long sections on the Holocaust and Nazi soldiers' experiences. These are not new, they are not really connected to "A Vanished Kingdom". The black and white photos provided are very blurry, the maps poor (no map shows how the former East Prussia was divided), and the focus is on military history and the suffering of Jews, Germans, Poles and even Russians. Everything else is cut short. I was rather disappointed.
My own paternal grandparents emigrated illegally from Russia, worked in Konigsberg, and sailed from that city to America in 1905. Thank God they did.
They say that "Kentucky" meant "dark and bloody ground" in some Native American language. That may or may not be true, but in world bloodshed sweepstakes, that American state probably does not deserve the name. We humans have excelled in turning all sorts of places into "dark and bloody grounds". The Caucasus and eastern Anatolia come to mind, as do Afghanistan and the Balkans. We are hard at work creating more candidates. One such place which does not immediately spring to mind today is that part of eastern Germany now lying split between Poland and Russia, the area once known as East Prussia. The original Prussians were a pagan people neighboring the Poles and Lithuanians. Over some centuries bloody campaigns against them wiped them off the map. Their name was usurped eventually by those Germans (and a few others) who conducted yearly crusades against the pagan Baltic peoples. This group of northern crusaders became known as the Teutonic Knights, a kind of Knights Templar or Knights of Malta. They had their own organization and knights from all over Europe, bored or zealous, flocked to their standard to engage in killing and pillage among the Balts. They fought the Catholic Poles on occasion. The Lithuanians converted to Catholicism and united with Poland. The Teutonic Knight leaders accumulated vast estates and finally became rulers or nobles. They lost a giant key battle with the Poles. Prussia emerged as a new kingdom on the map of Europe, uniting with Brandenburg and Berlin. Their rulers became the Hohenzollerns, a series of warlike, Protestant kings culminating in Frederick the Great who died in 1786, but they continued ruling a united Germany till the end of WW I. Prussia helped partition Poland, was conquered by Napoleon, and finally merged with the other German states in 1871, Prussians were famous for iron discipline and being very conservative politically. Perhaps incorrectly, their name got associated with German atrocities and militarism in the 20th century.
Roy had an interesting idea. That was, travel around the Polish areas taken over from Germany that used to be East Prussia and around the isolated enclave of Kaliningrad which used to be the city of Konigsberg and environs. Together with the travel impressions, he would bring the long, bloody history of the area alive. In his work, I would say he was halfway successful. Up to the 19th century, we follow everything very well. We understand that we are learning about Prussia---the kings, the battles, the Junkers (country squires more or less). But then, we are launched off into long digressions on German motives, behavior and achievements in WW I, in the Weimar Republic, and during Hitler's rule and WW II. Prussia sort of recedes into the distance, though the travel part keeps going. We get long sections on the Holocaust and Nazi soldiers' experiences. These are not new, they are not really connected to "A Vanished Kingdom". The black and white photos provided are very blurry, the maps poor (no map shows how the former East Prussia was divided), and the focus is on military history and the suffering of Jews, Germans, Poles and even Russians. Everything else is cut short. I was rather disappointed.
My own paternal grandparents emigrated illegally from Russia, worked in Konigsberg, and sailed from that city to America in 1905. Thank God they did.
July 13, 2015
Perhaps August 2010 was a month for books about “places you can’t go back to,” as along with Constantinople's fall in 1453 I also read this excellent examination of Prussia. There is still a Prussia in modern Germany, of course, but much of what was Prussia before World War II has been “written over” a good deal more effectively than even Christian Constantinople. The Vanished Kingdom mixes a history of Prussia with the author’s explorations of the now thoroughly Polish region, and conversations with some of its former German inhabitants.
I did have one quibble with this otherwise excellent work, however, that being Roy’s attempt toward the end of the book to introduce the old “has Germany truly reformed, might not the old instincts toward aggression threaten peace once again” bogeyman. This notion always baffles me.
I suppose it must have been fairly reasonable when John LeCarré, for example, repeatedly worried over this idea in his novels 50 years ago. Yet he was still doing so in 1990, placing him very atypically in the company of Margaret Thatcher, among others. Roy’s book was only published in 1999 and he still would not let the ghosts of World War II rest. Perhaps it’s just some generational difference, e.g. the notion of Germany as a serious, persistent threat just will not loosen its grip on those born prior to 1970 or so, while for those of us born since the notion seems a delusional paranoia. I don’t know.
[Edit, 7/13/15: Or maybe LeCarré, Roy et al. were on to something, and I have been naive. Sadly, this looks increasingly likely.]
I did have one quibble with this otherwise excellent work, however, that being Roy’s attempt toward the end of the book to introduce the old “has Germany truly reformed, might not the old instincts toward aggression threaten peace once again” bogeyman. This notion always baffles me.
I suppose it must have been fairly reasonable when John LeCarré, for example, repeatedly worried over this idea in his novels 50 years ago. Yet he was still doing so in 1990, placing him very atypically in the company of Margaret Thatcher, among others. Roy’s book was only published in 1999 and he still would not let the ghosts of World War II rest. Perhaps it’s just some generational difference, e.g. the notion of Germany as a serious, persistent threat just will not loosen its grip on those born prior to 1970 or so, while for those of us born since the notion seems a delusional paranoia. I don’t know.
[Edit, 7/13/15: Or maybe LeCarré, Roy et al. were on to something, and I have been naive. Sadly, this looks increasingly likely.]
September 7, 2012
I've gotten interested in genealogy, and my maternal grandmother's side of the family was Prussian. (FYI: total nightmare trying to find genealogy records for countries that no longer exist or were absorbed by other countries.) Prussia started out as simply a geographic designation on a map to me. Then one day I called my grandmother up to help me with my research and I asked her what Prussian signified - was it German? Was it Polish? What exactly was it? She answered: "Eh. It is what it is. Prussia is...... Prussia was undefinable." And that's how Prussia became a mystery to me that I wanted to solve. This book helped me understand it a little bit better.
January 8, 2012
The book is a little outdated (copyright 1999) so some of the author's thoughts about the future are obe. That being said, this book gave me a much better understanding of German history and especially that the Prussia. Highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of Germany and Europe.
December 24, 2012
Who knew European military history could be so interesting?
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews