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Show Soio Spot, JJcmcl Makes lul)lc Again new , y Eurpean merman-border sore spot. Laying along the northeast l-inrt T " irrcSular slider of 1-md covcrme an area of about 1 000 ,d ""le-raisme region, it has a More than 700 years ago, before the town of Memel was founded, its sue was a battleground between Uhuanian tribes and invading Teutonic Teu-tonic Knights, a military and religious re-ligious order of German crusaders. Destroying the Lithuanian fortress winch stood guard against Baltic Pirates, the Knights built their own stronghold, following it with the town of "Memelburg." As an early trade center, Memel grew and prospered, but found little Peace. In the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries, it was attacked at-tacked and burned time and again n a three-cornered tug-of-war between be-tween Lithuanians, Poles and Teutons, Teu-tons, the latter winning out in the Peace of Melno in 1422. For a short time in the 1600s, the Swedes called Memel theirs; later it was occupied by Russian troops. After sacking and burning the town they left it to the mercy of a deadly plague. But the stubborn city again struggled to its feet. As a thriving Prussian town, it became, until the World war, Germany's northernmost northern-most Baltic port. Lithuania's Window on the Sea. Today Memel is the Lithuanian republic's only good port. Modernized Modern-ized by the government, with new wharves, warehouses, docking machinery, ma-chinery, grain elevators, and cold storage equipment, the old city has been given a new lease on life, not only as a timber center, but as a general transit port for foreign and domestic trade. Regular shipping service links it with British, Polish and Latvian ports; rail and airplane lines connect it with Berlin and Moscow. Mos-cow. Much of Lithuania's commerce flows through Memel, including imports im-ports of textiles, coal, machinery, and cement; and exports of bacon, butter, eggs, lumber and skins. To its protected harbor, which, unlike many other Baltic ports, never freezes over, nearly 1,400 ships came in 1936. A Non-Melting Pot. Sandwiched between East Prussia and Lithuania, both the territory and town of Memel are mixtures of German and Lithuanian influence. Like that other border region of Su-detenland, Su-detenland, where German population popula-tion is largely centered in the cities, with the Czechs in the country, Memelland's Teutonic concentration is urban; the Lithuanians are predominant pre-dominant in rural districts. Memelland has not only Lithuania's Lithu-ania's sole port but also four-fifths of its already limited seaboard with a teeming fishing industry. While Memelland is not especially fertile, particularly in the sandy regions near the shore, it holds the lower and navigable section of Lithuania's chief river, the Nemunas, a vital economic artery of the country. Map showing MemeVs strategic stra-tegic position as a Baltic out-lot out-lot for Lithuania, also its contiguous con-tiguous position to German Prussia. population of about 150,000 people and includes the long-contested and vital Baltic port of Memel "Klaipeda" "Klai-peda" to the Lithuanians. Given up by Germany under the Versailles treaty, Memelland was administered by the Allied powers for several years after the World war. In 1924, following Lithuania's action of the previous year in taking over the area, Memel territory with certain autonomous rights was legally ceded to that country in a League of Nations pact signed by Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Lithuania. Since then Memel has periodically rated news space as one of Europe's problem children. chil-dren. An International Football. Such dramatic events as it has seen since the war, however, are mild compared with the bloody past of this strip of land on the crossroads cross-roads of international history. |