culture and attitudes of the residents of East Prussia, which had been in quick progress during the 19th century. The majority of the Lietuvininkai population has migrated to Germany, together with Germans and now lives there. Prussian Lithuanians spoke in western Aukštaitian dialect, those living by the Curonian lagoon spoke in the so-called "Curonianating" (Samogitian "donininkai" subdialect; there are three Samogitian dialects where Lithuanian "duona" (a bread) is said dūna, dona and douna) subdialect, and small part of them spoke in Dzūkian dialect. Prussian Lithuanians never called themselves and their own language Samogitian. Old Prussians Prussians were the native and main inhabitants of the lands which later became the core lands of the Teutonic Order. After conquest and conversion to Christianity, the Prussian nobility became vassals of the Order and Germanized. The officers of the Order ceased to speak in Prussian with local inhabitants in 1309. After the extinction of the Order and the spread of the Reformation of the church, the lot of Prussians became somewhat better. Three Reformed catechisms in the Prussian language were published between 1545 and 1561. Prussian villagers tended to be assimilated as Lithuanians in the northern half of the Prussia region, and as Germans or Poles in the southern half. There were parts of Prussia where Lithuanians and ethnic Prussians made up the majority of inhabitants. Prussian Lithuanian and German populations were the minority until the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century in the Sambia peninsula. Later, Germans became the ethnic majority in the peninsula, while Lithuanians remained as a minority. The case of Jonas Bretkūnas illustrates the phenomenon of Prussian-Lithuanian bilingualism. The last Prussian speakers disappeared around the end of the 17th century. Germans The percentage of Germans in Lithuania Minor was low prior to 1709–1711. Later, Germans became the numerically dominant ethnic group within Prussia. By 1945, the Soviets had in the winter, the physically fit walked across the frozen bays and anyone who remained at home was eliminated. Poles The Darkehmen (, now Ozyorsk) and Gołdap counties, as transitional counties between Lithuania Minor and the Masuria region to the south, were inhabited by notable numbers of both Poles and Lithuanians. From 1724, new Polish settlement in Lithuania Minor was banned by Frederick William I of Prussia. Despite this, according to Prussian data from 1825, Poles still lived in the more northern counties of the region, with the most numerous