Prussia

For other uses, see Prussia (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Russia.

Prussia Preußen  (German) Prūsija  (Prussian)
1525–1947
State flag (1803–1892) Coat of arms (1701–1871)
Motto: Gott mit uns Nobiscum Deus ("God with us")
Anthem:  (1820–1830) Borussia "Prussia" (1830–1840) Preußenlied "Song of Prussia" Royal anthem:  (1795–1918) "Heil dir im Siegerkranz" ("Hail to thee in the Victor's Crown")
Capital	Königsberg (1525–1701; 1806) Berlin (1701–1806; 1806–1947)
Common languages	Official: German Minorities: Baltic Prussian (until early 18th century) Low German Polish Danish Frisian Swedish Lithuanian Lower Sorbian Kursenieki Kashubian Wymysorys Slovincian (until 20th century)
Religion	Religious confessions in the Kingdom of Prussia 1880 Majority: 64.6% United Protestant (Lutheran, Calvinist) Minorities: 33.8% Catholic 1.3% Jewish 0.2% other Christian 0.1% other
Demonym(s)	Prussian
Government	Feudal monarchy (1525–1701) Absolute monarchy (1701–1848) Federal parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy (1848–1918) Federal semi-presidential constitutional republic (1918–1932) Presidential republic under authoritarian rule by decree (1932–1933) Unitary fascist state under totalitarian dictatorship (1933–1945) Allied-occupied Germany (1945–1947)
Duke
• 1525–1568	Albert I (first)
• 1688–1701	Frederick I (last)
King
• 1701–1713	Frederick I (first)
• 1888–1918	Wilhelm II (last)
Minister President
• 1918	Friedrich Ebert (first)
• 1933–1945	Hermann Göring (last)
Historical era	Early modern Europe to Contemporary
• Duchy of Prussia	10 April 1525
• Union with Brandenburg	27 August 1618
• Kingdom of Prussia	18 January 1701
• Free State of Prussia	9 November 1918
• Abolition (de facto, loss of independence)	30 January 1934
• Abolition (de jure)	25 February 1947
Population
• 1816	10,349,000
• 1871	24,689,000
• 1939	41,915,040
Currency	Reichsthaler (until 1750) Prussian thaler (1750–1857) Vereinsthaler (1857–1873) German gold mark (1873–1914) German Papiermark (1914–1923) Reichsmark (1924–1947)
^ The heads of state listed here are the first and last to hold each title over time. For more information, see individual Prussian state articles (links in above History section). ^ The position of Ministerpräsident was introduced in 1792 when Prussia was a Kingdom; the minister presidents shown here are the heads of the Prussian republic.

Prussia (/ˈprʌʃə/; German: Preußen de; Old Prussian: Prūsija) was a German state centred on the North European Plain. It originated from the 1525 secularization act of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany. Prussia formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947.

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians who were conquered by the Teutonic Knights – an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders – in the 13th century. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Danzig. Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany, and, in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The imposed Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the eastern Duchy of Prussia, a feudal fief of the Crown of Poland until 1657. After 1525, the Teutonic Order relocated their headquarters to Mergentheim, but managed to keep land in Livonia until 1561. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom. It became increasingly large and powerful in the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a major voice in European affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great (1740–1786). At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired rich new territories, including the coal-rich Ruhr. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian elites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.

The Kingdom ended in 1918 along with other German monarchies that were terminated by the German Revolution. In the Weimar Republic, the Free State of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. Subsequently, it was effectively dismantled into Nazi German Gaue in 1935. Nevertheless, some Prussian ministries were kept and Hermann Göring remained in his role as Minister President of Prussia until the end of World War II. Former eastern territories of Germany that made up a significant part of Prussia lost the majority of their German population after 1945 as the Polish People's Republic and the Soviet Union both absorbed these territories and had most of its German inhabitants expelled by 1950. Prussia, deemed "a bearer of militarism and reaction" by the Allies, was officially abolished by an Allied declaration in 1947. The international status of the former eastern territories of the Kingdom of Prussia was disputed until the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in 1990, but its return to Germany remains a cause among far-right politicians, the Federation of Expellees and various political revanchists and irredentists.

The terms "Prussian" and "Prussianism" have often been used, especially outside Germany, to denote the militarism, military professionalism, aggressiveness, and conservatism of the Junker class of landed aristocrats in the East who dominated first Prussia and then the German Empire.

History

In 1226, Polish Prince Conrad of Mazovia (Mazovia is a place in Northern Poland) asked the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania to come to Mazovia. He wanted them to fight the Prussian tribes on his borders. They fought for more than 100 years. Then they created a new state. After some time, this state controlled most of today's Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and parts of northern Poland. In 1466, the Knights were under the King of Poland and Lithuania. In 1525, the leader of the Knights became a Protestant. He made part of the Knights' land into the Duchy of Prussia, which was then part of the Kingdom of Poland.

At that time, the Duchy of Prussia was only the area east of the place where the Vistula River enters the sea. In 1618, the new Duke of Prussia was the Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg. He was also Margrave of Brandenburg. Brandenburg was ruled by the Hohenzollern family. The Duchy of Prussia was important to the Hohenzollern family because it was not part of the Holy Roman Empire. The name for the new state was Brandenburg-Prussia. In the middle of the state was Polish land, but Brandenburg-Prussia was moving away from Poland. Under Frederick William, who was called the Great Elector, Prussia took some new land in Magdeburg and areas west of the Rhine.

Kingdom of Prussia

Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1600–1795

In 1701, the Holy Roman Emperor and Polish King allowed Brandenburg-Prussia to call itself "Kingdom of Prussia" with Frederick I as its king. Under Frederick II ("the Great"), Prussia waged war against Austria and took Silesia. The wars ended in 1763; Prussia was then the most powerful state in eastern Germany. Other parts of Germany, including Pomerania, went to Prussia because of marriage or death.

During this time, the Prussian army got bigger, and so did the administration system. Until 1945, these were at the most important parts of the German state. Between 1772 and 1795, Prussia, Russia and Austria divided Poland into parts (the Partitions of Poland). Prussia controlled land in the far east, including the city of Warsaw.

Frederick William II had Prussia join the war with France in 1792. He lost at Valmy and gave his western land to France. Frederick William III started a new war, but lost at Jena. He gave more land to France at the Treaty of Tilsit.

In 1813, Prussia again started war with Napoleonic France. In 1815, Prussia won back the land it lost in earlier wars and also all the Rhineland and Westphalia and some other land. This land in the west was very important, especially the Ruhr valley. It was the new center of Germany's industrialization and the home of the weapons industry. After the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia was the strongest power in Germany and more powerful than Austria.

In the early 19th century, there were two political groups in Germany. The liberals wanted a democratic system with one strong central government. The conservatives wanted Germany to be made of a group of independent, weak states . In 1848, revolution came to Europe. Frederick William IV was worried. He allowed a National Assembly and a constitution. The new Frankfurt Parliament wanted to give Frederick William the crown of all Germany, but he did not want it. He said that revolutionaries could not name kings. Now Prussia had a semi-democratic constitution, but really the nobility with land (the Junkers) had the power, especially in the east.

Imperial Prussia

Otto von Bismarck

In 1862, Prussian King Wilhelm I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the prime minister of Prussia. Bismarck wanted the liberals and the conservatives to lose. He wanted to create a strong, united Germany, but he wanted to do so under the Junker, not under the western German liberals. So, he started three wars:

• with Denmark in 1864 – this gave Prussia control of the Schleswig-Holstein area
• with Austria in 1869 (Austro-Prussian War) – this allowed Prussia to take Hanover and most other northern German territories that had been ruled by Austria
• with France in 1870 (Franco-Prussian War) - so Bismarck could control Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, and Saxony. After this, these states (but not Austria) became part of a united German Empire, and Wilhelm I took the title of Emperor (Kaiser).

Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918

This was Prussia's high moment. The economic and political future looked good. But after 99 days, in 1888, the state had a new leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II. He fired Bismarck, who lost his job in 1890, and Wilhelm II started a new foreign policy. He made the army bigger, and the navy much bigger, and he took risks. This is part of why Germany entered World War I. When the Germans and their allies lost that war, the Prussian Junkers lost power. The Prussian king and the other German kings had to leave. Germany became the Weimar Republic. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles re-created the Polish state, and Prussia had to give up much of its land. The Polish Corridor was split between East Prussia and Germany.

The end of Prussia

  Territory lost after World War I

  Territory lost after World War II

  Present-day Germany

At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles separated West Prussia from the rest of Germany to make the Free City of Danzig and Polish Corridor, so Poland would have access to the ocean instead of being landlocked. Some people also wanted to break Prussia into smaller states, but this did not happen. Prussia became the "Prussian Free State" (Freistaat Preußen), the largest state in the Weimar Republic. The Prussian Free State made up more than 60% of all the land in the Weimar Republic. The Prussian Free State contained the industrial Ruhr area the city of Berlin, so many people with left-leaning political ideas lived there. The Social Democrats and the Catholic Centre had power for most of the 1920s.

In 1932, Germany's conservative Chancellor Franz von Papen took control of Prussia, ending the state's democratic constitution. It was the end of German democracy too. In 1933, Hermann Göring became Interior Minister of Prussia; he was now very strong. In 1934, the Nazis took the German states' power.

In 1945, the Soviet Union's army captured all of eastern and central Germany (and Berlin). Poland took everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, e.g. Silesia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg, and East Prussia. The Soviet Union took the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad. About ten million Germans had to run away from these areas. Polish and Russian people moved in in their place. Because of this, and because the Communists took control of land in the GDR, also called East Germany, the Junker and Prussia were finished.

In 1947, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union formally agreed the end of Prussia. In the Soviet Zone (which was called the GDR starting in 1949), which included Prussian lands, were now the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. The Prussian parts of Pomerania went to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In 1952, the GDR government stopped using states and used districts instead. In 1990, the end of the GDR, the states returned. In the West, (called the Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany starting in 1949), the Prussian lands went to North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein. Baden-Württemberg took the Hohenzollern land.

The idea of Prussia is not completely dead in Germany. Some people want to put together the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin and call them Prussia. But German politicians are not interested in the idea. The constitution of Berlin allows for Berlin and Brandenburg to become one state, but the people of Berlin voted against doing this on May 5, 1996.

Other websites

• "Cartographica Neerlandica Background for Ortelius Map No. 56". orteliusmaps.com. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
• "Le Miror du Monde, Seite 70". uni-mannheim.de. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
• 1660 map of Prussia 1660 Archived 2006-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
• map of Prussian Provinces
• Part Map of Prussia by Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive cosmographica., Amsterdam 1594Archived 2005-02-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Part Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629Archived 2005-02-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th century.Archived 2005-02-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Map of Prussia by K. HennebergerArchived 2005-02-04 at the Wayback Machine in: Christoph Hartknoch, Alt- und neues Preussen..., Frankfurt 1684
• Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.Archived 2004-04-06 at the Wayback Machine
• Map of East PrussiaArchived 2005-02-04 at the Wayback Machine K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogów ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles