The site now occupied by Kaliningrad was previously the site of the East Prussian city of K�nigsberg. Founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Knights on the site of the Old Prussian settlement of Twangste (Tuwangste, Tvankste), the city was named in honor of the Bohemian King Ottokar II. Through the periods of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, German culture became dominant, with sizable Polish and Lithuanian minorities. During World War II the city of K�nigsberg was largely destroyed.
Soviet Union
At the end of World War II in 1945, the city became part of the Soviet Union pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement (as part of the Russian SFSR) as agreed upon by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference:
VI. CITY OF K�NIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREA
The Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg and Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic and East Prussia. The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above, subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.
Ruins of the royal castle in the 1950s
The President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement.
K�nigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after the death of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail
