It would have been a soviet puppet state. So they would have a authoritorian communist government forced upon. Them.
No way the Soviets would have tolerated anything else. As a result of which Jewish people wouldnt move there. Which means the soviets would have to deport the Jewish population of Eastern Europe into it.
It might be a little more successful than the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, on account of not being in Siberia, but you're right that it wouldn't attract as many migrants as Israel.
Where that might change is in the post-Soviet era. There was a large migration of Russian Jews to Israel in the 1990s. If the Soviets have largely transported this population to Kaliningrad, and thereby created a local majority, then there might be less inclination to leave this state for Israel.
Perhaps there's still a spike in the early 1990s in the post-Soviet recession, but if its recovery resembles that of the other Baltic states then this probably tapers off by the late 1990s.
Also the state would most definitely fail, with socialist decline, ruined infrastructure and massively unpopular. It would move literally been the European version of the Autonomous Jewish Oblast, a failed Jewish project. I will never understand why people are so obsessed with moving Israel anywhere else on the world map BUT their actual homes in the Middle East.
It wouldn't necessarily fail: Kaliningrad is a much better territory to work with than the territory of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast even despite its condition after the war. A landlocked territory on the other side of Siberia is just harder to work with than somewhere on the Baltic coast which had historically done a lot of trade.
But it wouldn't replace Israel, because it would only gain independence ~42 years after Israel does. So if it were established, then it might lead to two Jewish-majority states instead of one. If the Soviets pushed Russian Jews to move there after the German expulsion, then it might today sustain a population of about 1 million - similar to IRL Kaliningrad.
Putin was born in 1952, so he could not have been a Soviet politician in 1945, because 1. he wasn't born yet, and 2. Soviet Raions (equivalent of local council) required candidates to be 18 before they'd be eligible to appear on the ballot
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u/Remarkable-Pin-8352 4h ago
Yiddishland? Yiddishland?