The Flight Across the Ice

The Escape of the East Prussian Horses
By Patricia Clough

It is the bitterly cold winter of 1944/45. The Red Army is advancing on Eastern Prussia, the easternmost province of Germany, at the start of its inexorable advance towards Berlin. Millions of East Prussians are desperate to flee, but the Nazis order them to stay and fight. Finally, with the Russian guns in earshot, they are allowed to leave. They soon realise that they are surrounded, cut off from the rest of Germany. Many of them take the perilous route over a frozen lagoon, the only route left open. With them are thousands of the most superb horses in the world, the Trakehner, bred over the past two centuries in East Prussia. They flee in large herds or are harnessed to waggons or sleighs and face the same dangers as their guardians and owners. With little to eat, the target of Soviet bombers and tanks, many of them die on the way.

Only a few hundred reached the West. They had saved their owners, and their owners had saved them – rarely has there been such a bond between men and horses. But the story is not over. Given the harsh conditions, the hunger, deprivation and poverty of the immediate post-war years, can the breed be built up again?

Patricia Clough is a writer and former foreign correspondent for The Times and The Independent. Her previous publications include English Cooking, A Reputation Disproved and Umbria, published by Haus in its Armchair Traveller series in 2009. She lives in Umbria.

Review from the American Trakehner Society:

'The flight of the East Prussian horses has been described twice before, first by Dr. Fritz Schilke in 'Trakehner Horses – Then and Now' from a collection of fascinating and gripping accounts by participants in the trek, and then by Daphne Machin Goodall in 'The Flight of the East Prussian Hoses' which is based on the same series of letters. Clough’s account, written at a later time, is based on contacts with survivors of the trek that were still alive and, most likely, on various historical documents, although she does not provide a bibliography.

The most interesting part of the book for this reviewer is the description of the political situation in Germany during World War II and particularly the actions and fate of East Prussia’s Gauleiter (Governor) Erich Koch. All of this is most likely difficult to understand for someone who did not live through it – but that’s the way it was!

The actual 'flight across the ice' is given somewhat short shrift, covering barely four pages. To me, the situation was described more grippingly, and almost unbearably, in the letters published by Schilke. Perhaps the reason is that this was the first time I read about it.

Maps of Each Prussia at the end of the book are only of some help since not all the place names mentioned in the book are shown, and it is sometimes difficult to follow the routes the various refugee groups traveled.

All in all though, this is an educational book of interest to Trakehner breeders who wish to learn more about the history of their breed. Since all of our present-day Trakehners evolved from the few that reached the safety of the West, the breed is a testament to the theory of 'survival of the fittest.''  - Helen K. Gibble