Prussia
Early Baltic history
At the beginning of Baltic history, the Prussians were bordered by the Vistula and the Neman with a southern depth to about Torun, which was Prussian, and the line of the River Narew. The Kashubians were on the west, the Poles on the south, the Sudovians on the east, the Curonians on the northeast and the Lithuanians on the northwest. The Sudovians began at about
Suwalki.
East Prussia was located on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea and was bordered by Poland and Lithuania. In the mid-2nd century, it was colonized by the Goths, who were a Scandinavian tribe. They moved south to the Black Sea, pillaged Asia Minor and the Balkans, and fought against the Roman Empire. This territory derived its name from the Baltic tribe of the Prussen, who settled this region until the Teutonic Knights colonized it in 1200, during their eastward expansion to the Baltic; and in their effort to convert the natives to Christianity at the end of a sword, the Teutonic Knights wound up depopulating the area. Polish and Lithuanian rulers eventually took control of this area, prized for its rich agricultural soil and its mineral resources.
The Prussians, like the other Balts of the times, were organized into a tribal structure. This structure is most fully attested in the Chronicon terrae Prussiae of Peter of Dusburg, a priest of the Teutonic Order. The work is dated to 1326. He lists 11 lands and 10 tribes, which were named on a geographical basis. These were :
Pomesania, Varmia, Pogesania, Natangia, Sambia, Nadruvia, Bartia, Skalovia, Sudovia and Galindia. Peter noted that the 11th land, Kulm, to the southwest of Pomesania, was nearly uninhabited. After the German conquest of Prussia, the country was divided along almost these exact lines, although the Germans added a 12th land, which they called Sassen, centered at Tannenberg. Those names are not exhaustive. Many of the names appear in ancient and mediaeval sources, but the spelling and to some degree the physiology vary. Dusburg preferred Latin names, such as the Pomesani, Pogesani, Varmienses, etc.
Koenigsberg, which was the capital of East Prussia, was founded in 1255, by the Teutonic Knights. Since 1457, Koenigsberg was the seat of the Order's Hochmeister, or grand master, and the Prussian Kings were crowned in this ancient city. Koenigsberg became the intellectual center of the east. At the university in Koenigsberg, intellectuals such as Copernicus, who made the revolutionary discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, studied the sciences and humanities.
The region that was Prussia is made up mainly of low-lying land, drained by several rivers, notably the Rhine, the Weser, the Oder and the Elbe which divided the state into roughly equal eastern and western parts.
Medieval history
The Old Prussians were a peaceful people. However, because they were pagan, the Catholic popes ordered them to be converted or killed. Thus, in the 13th century, Prussia was slowly and painfully overrun and subdued by Crusades. Baptized Prussians were educated at the diocese in Magdeburg and many western Germans, and a large number of Dutch people, moved to Prussian lands. Meanwhile, the Lithuanians utilized the time bought by the blood of the Prussians to form the grand duchy of Lithuania, the first Baltic state as such.
The grand duchy of Lithuania united all the duchies and made one duke the grand duke. This polity grew in power and influence over a few hundred years under several grand dukes, allying with Poland and carving out an empire in Russia. Under Vytautas the Great, it turned suddenly on its original enemies, the Teutonic Order, and defeated its army at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.
By way of settlement (The Treaty of Lake Melno, 1422), the border was established between Prussia and Lithuania and remained so until the 20th century. People from Poland moved to western Prussia with the Reformation and Counter Reformation. Significant pockets of Old Prussians were left in a matrix of Germans in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad Oblast), and remained under the Teutonic Order government until 1525, when it became a Duchy.
Prussia
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the lands that later became the powerful state of Prussia were inhabited by various Germanic tribes. In the medieval era, the borders of the Prussian territories changed frequently, but Prussia was roughly divided between the regions of Brandenburg-Prussia, East Prussia and West Prussia. After the mid-10th century, Brandenburg and West Prussia were incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, but East Prussia remained separated from the rest of Germany by Poland.
The people from whom the name Prussia is derived were usually called Prussi, or Borussi, in the earliest sources. They were related to the Lithuanians and inhabited the region between the Vistula and lower Niemen rivers. The Saxons, a Teutonic people, entered eastern Europe in the 10th century and failed in their attempts to convert the Prussians to Christianity. In 997, the Bohemian bishop and Saint Adalbert was martyred as a missionary in Prussia. The Christian faith was not established until the middle of the 13th century when the Teutonic Knights, a military religious order, conquered the land and subdued the country. During this conquering, the Prussians were largely exterminated. The Knights effected the Germanization of Prussia. The Knights then brought German and Dutch settlers into the conquered territory. By the end of the century the region was completely subjugated. Thereafter it was ruled by the Teutonic Knights as a papal fief.
The Teutonic Knights were eventually overthrown by the Prussians with help from Poland and Lithuania in 1454. Prussia was divided into Royal Prussia in the west and Ducal Prussia in the east. Royal Prussia was incorporated into Poland providing it with a corridor to the Baltic Sea (the "Danzig Corridor"). [Danzig, which was the capital city of West Prussia from 1878 to 1919, was its most important city. Danzig was a city that dated to 997, and was a part of the Empire of the Teutonic Knights. As a center of commerce and shipbuilding, Danzig was also a member of the trading association known as the Hanseatic league. Known as the "Venice of the North," Danzig was a center of culture, renowned for its Renaissance and Baroque architecture.] Ducal Prussia became a Polish territory. At this time, the port city of Danzig (modern day Gdansk) was designated a "free city."
West Prussia was situated on the Vistula River, between Brandenburg-Prussia and East Prussia. Similar to East Prussia, West Prussia was originally a Prussian territory under the duchy of Pomerelien, but it was incorporated into the Empire of the Teutonic Knights, in 1309. The knights built several fortified castles, the most famous being Marienburg which was the seat of the Knights Hochmeister, or grand master. In the Teutonic Knight's Empire, the tribes were converted to Christianity.
During the 15th century, the Knights were driven out of West Prussia and many of the Prussian lands west of Vistula River were again brought under Polish rule. In 1466, West Prussia became a class state, a state that had a form of government that worked by mutual agreement between the different levels of society under the Polish monarch: the nobility, church, the citizens, and the free landholders. In 1569, a large part of West Prussia came completely under Polish domination, but, in 1772, it became a province of Prussia.
Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia
Prussia in its modern meaning came into existence only in 1701, when the elector of Brandenburg assumed the title "king in Prussia." Before then Prussia meant only the flat, sandy region later known as East Prussia (excluding the bishopric of Ermeland), separated from Brandenburg by a part of Poland (later known as West Prussia) and bordering on the Baltic Sea.
The margraviate of Brandenburg was created when the Holy Roman Empire conquered the area in the 12th century. Its first margrave was Albrecht the Bear who belonged to the house of Askanien, he and his descendants expanded Brandenburg through marriage, purchase and war so it became one of the most important principalities in the Holy Roman Empire. During the 13th century the margrave of Brandenburg was also elevated to the rank of elector, which meant that he was one of seven princes that had the right to participate in the election of the German kings. But when the House of Askanien died out 1319 a period of decline followed when Brandenburg was a part of the possessions of the powerful dynasties of Wittelsbach and Luxembourg, during that period the government of Brandenburg was neglected and its territory decreased.
During the second half of the 14th century, strong opposition to the Germans developed in eastern Europe. In 1386 Poland and Lithuania entered into a dynastic union, and in 1410 a Polish and Lithuanian army defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Tannenberg.
A turning point came in 1415 when Emperor Sigismund granted Brandenburg as fief to Friedrich of Hohenzollern. He also possessed Ansbach and Bayreuth in southern Germany and these areas were united with Brandenburg 1415-1440 and 1470-1486 but they were lost to collateral branches of the Hohenzollern dynasty. In Brandenburg the Hohenzollern electors strengthened the central power and regained territories that had been lost during the previous period.
After a further period of warfare, the terms of the second Peace of Thorn, in 1466, left the Knights in possession of the eastern part of Prussia, which it held as a fief of the Polish crown. Western Prussia was ceded to Poland, becoming known as Polish Royal Prussia. Eastern Prussia became a secular duchy, known as East Prussia or Ducal Prussia, under the last grand master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Hohenzollern (1490-1568), a Lutheran, who created himself 1st duke of Prussia in 1525.
Albrekt of Hohenzollern, who belonged to a collateral branch of the dynasty, became 1510 Grand Master of the Teutonic Order and was thereby also regent of the Polish fief Prussia. In 1525 he secularized the fief and transformed it into a hereditary and Protestant duchy. At the same time the Protestants were persecuted by Joachim I in Brandenburg , but his son Joachim II converted to Protestantism in 1539.
Through the secularization (1525) of the domain of the Teutonic Order by the grand master Albert of Brandenburg, the domain became a hereditary duchy under Polish suzerainty, ruled by a branch of the Hohenzollern dynasty of Brandenburg. In 1618 the duchy of Prussia passed through inheritance to the elector of Brandenburg, and in 1660, by the treaty of Oliva, full independence from Polish suzerainty was confirmed to Frederick William, the Great Elector. In the course of the 17th cent. the electors of Brandenburg directed themselves westward, acquiring the duchy of Cleves, together with the counties of Mark and Ravensberg (1614) and the bishoprics of Minden, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt (1648). In the east, Brandenburg gained (1648) Farther (i.e., eastern) Pomerania, which connected it with the Baltic Sea but not with Prussia.
The Protestant Reformation in the early to mid 1500s saw most Prussians convert to Protestantism whereas Poland remained, and still remains, solidly Roman Catholic. In 1525 Ducal Prussia became a hereditary duchy under Albrecht Hohenzollern, the last grand master of the Teutonic Knights.
Because of the childless duke Albrecht Friedrich’s insanity became Brandenburg’s elector Johann Sigismund regent over Prussia in 1605, and eleven years later he also succeeded Albrecht Friedrich as duke whereby the historically significant union between Brandenburg and Prussia was a fact. Before that he had also acquired the duchy of Kleve and the counties of Mark, Ravensberg and Ravenstein in western Germany. As a result of these acquisitions the Brandenburg state was now made up of three separate geographical regions which the following electors and kings would spend much effort to unite.
In 1618 the duchy, still a vassal state of Poland, passed to John Sigismund (1572-1619), a Hohenzollern; his grandson, Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, secured ducal Prussia's independence of Poland at the Peace of Oliva in 1660. Frederick William centralized the administration of the duchy and assumed governing powers that were formerly exercised by the nobility and the town oligarchies.
Brandenburg held a wavering position during the Thirty Years’ War 1618-1648 and its territory was therefore ravaged by both Swedish and Imperial armies. Even though Brandenburg was one of the largest principalities in the Holy Roman Empire its army was not big and few could realize how powerful Brandenburg would become during Friedrich Wilhelm’s reign 1640-1688. He was successful in defending Brandenburg’s interests at the Peace of Westphalia. He had a legitimate claim to Swedish-occupied Pomerania but was only given the eastern half, as compensation for that he obtained the dioceses of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Minden and Kammin, although Magdeburg would not be incorporated with Brandenburg until its administrator died, which happened 1680.
Rise of the Prussian State
The electorate with its dependencies had become a major German state by the end of the 17th century, a position that it owed largely to the secularization of church lands during the Reformation and to its successful diplomacy at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In 1701, Elector Frederick III had himself crowned "king in Prussia" at Königsberg (present-day Russian Kaliningrad) and styled himself King Frederick I. He remained a prince of the Holy Roman Empire by virtue of his rank as margrave and elector of Brandenburg and his holdings within the empire, but not as king of Prussia, which lay outside the imperial boundaries. This technicality gave the kings of Prussia a measure of independence from the emperor not possessed by the other princes of the empire.
Friedrich Wilhelm, or the Great Elector that he soon came to be called, spent the years after the Peace of Westphalia rebuilding his war-torn country. Absolutist rule was introduced gradually in all parts of the Brandenburg state and a large standing army was raised. In the Northern War 1655-1660 between Sweden and Poland, with allies Brandenburg, once again displayed a wavering position, but this time it was much more successful and Friedrich Wilhelm managed to obtain sovereignty from Poland for the duchy of Prussia and gain Polish territory along the border to Germany.
Fredrich Wilhelm´s son Friedrich III’s reign, 1688-1713, fall in the shadows of both his father’s and his son’s reigns, despite of that it was he who got the emperor’s permission to proclaim himself as king of Prussia in 1701, whereby the Brandenburg state changed its name to Prussia. Through purchase, he expanded this state with Quedlinburg (1698) and Tecklenburg (1707) and through inheritance after William III of Orange -- which were the counties of Mörs and Lingen (1702) and Neuchatel with Valangin (1707) incorporated with Prussia. The latter area was located outside the Holy Roman Empire in present day Switzerland. The participation in the War of the Spanish Succession was reworded with a part of Obergeldern in the Netherlands Kingdom of Prussia.
Frederick William's son, Frederick I, became king of Prussia in 1701, receiving royal recognition in exchange for a promise of military aid to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. Frederick's son, Frederick William I, greatly increased the size of the Prussian army and rebuilt the organization of the state around the military establishment. To his son, Frederick II, the Great, he left enormous financial reserves and the best army in Europe. Through the military genius of Frederick the Great, Prussia became a major power in Europe. In 1740 he invaded the Austrian province of Silesia and precipitated the War of the Austrian Succession.
Friedrich’s son , Friedrich Wilhelm, had, unlike his father, no cultural interests but he was economical and hardworking. Under his reign 1713-1740 the Prussian finances and its agriculture and industry were greatly improved. Friedrich Wilhelm’s greatest interest lay, however, in his army which was large for a country like Prussia already when he ascended the throne. In spite of that he increased the army from 38,000 men to 83,000 and drilled it so hard so it became the best in Europe. But Friedrich Wilhelm preferred peace and participated only in one war, The Great Northern War 1715-1720, in which he conquered the southern half of Swedish Pomerania.
In 1720, as a result of the Northern War, Prussia gained the eastern part of Swedish Pomerania, including Stettin. In the following 20 years, however, King Frederick William I, the true creator of the Prussian state, avoided military ventures and used diplomacy in order to create a unified state. He fully developed the features that had distinguished Prussia since the time of the Great Elector. The army, necessary to defend Prussia's scattered lands, was also the chief force in unifying and shaping the state. In order to build a strong army in their relatively poor country, Prussia's rulers developed a government-controlled economy and an obedient central bureaucracy (the Generaldirektorium). The landed aristocrats, the Junkers, were brought into military and state service and in turn were left free to enserf their peasants.
When Friedrich the Great succeeded his father as King of Prussia 1740 he inherited a large and well-trained army which he, unlike his father, would use frequently. The same year Maria Theresia inherited the Habsburg lands, her father Karl VI had to use acquired guarantees for her succession in all parts of the Habsburg empire. Friedrich the Great was the first who challenged her inheritance when he started the First Silesian War 1740-1742, and this move encouraged other states to attack Austria whereby the War of the Austrian Succession broke out. Friedrich the Great’s successes forced Maria Theresia to conclude peace with Prussia by ceding Silesia in 1742. But Friedrich feared an attack from Maria Theresia when Austria’s fortunes of war against her other enemies turned. He decided, therefore, to attack first and start the Second Silesian War (1744-1745). The Prussian army was once again successful and Prussia’s possession of Silesia was secured in the following peace, but the price for that conquest was a long-lasting animosity between Prussia and Austria. A more peaceful territorial gain at the same time was the inheritance of the county of Ostfriesland.
In 1744, Austria had not given up the hope to regain Silesia and Maria Theresia forged a powerful coalition against Prussia consisting of Austria, Russia, France, the Holy Roman Empire and Sweden. Prussia’s only allies were Great Britain with Hanover and a few small German principalities, but Friedrich the Great also possessed the Prussian army that was widely admired in Europe for its capabilities. In 1756 he forestalled his enemies by attacking Saxony, which he hoped to incorporate with Prussia. But unlike the Silesian Wars Friedrich failed to deliver a quick decisive blow to the Austrian army. Instead for the expected short war the conflict developed into a seven year long war of attrition in which the Prussian army, despite several successive battles, were shrinking fast and gradually pressed back. The only thing that saved Prussia was the dissolution of the enemy coalition as a result of Friedrich’s admirer Peter III’s ascension to the Russian throne.
By the end of the Seven Years' War, in 1763, Prussian territory included Silesia, and in 1772 Frederick annexed Polish Royal Prussia, thus linking his kingdom of Prussia in the east with Brandenburg and the main body of his German possessions in the west. Frederick's regime was noted as a model of "enlightened despotism."
In 1657, after an invasion by Sweden, Poland surrendered sovereignty over Ducal Prussia which then became the Kingdom of Prussia headed by the Hohenzollern line. Prussia's power grew and, in 1772 under King Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), consisted of the provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Danzig, West Prussia and East Prussia (modern day East Germany, northern Poland, and a small portion of the Soviet Union).
After the peace of 1763, Friedrich was forced to spend much effort to rebuild his war-torn kingdom and severely depleted army. But a new significant territory was gained when Prussia participated in Poland’s first partition in 1772 with Austria and Russia, whereby the land between the original Prussian duchy and Brandenburg was incorporated. Friedrich the Great was also successful in frustrating Austria’s attempts to expand in Germany, which was the cause of the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-1779). When Friedrich died in 1786, he left a kingdom that was considerably larger than the one he had inherited and which possessed incredible prestige in Europe, most of all for its 200,000-man strong army.
Friedrich Wilhelm II’s reign (1786-1797) was, despite territorial expansion, marked by a weakening of Prussia’s power. Poland’s second and third partition (1793 and 1795), together with the inheritance of the margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth, meant a great increase of Prussia’s territory but it could not hide the fact that its finances and the quality of its army was deteriorating. This was shown in the Polish campaigns and the Revolutionary War in which Prussia lost all lands west of the Rhine to France 1795.
Prussia was fortunate to possess, at this low ebb in its history, such able and energetic reformers as Karl vom und zum Stein, Karl August von Hardenberg, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. These men helped transform Prussia into a progressive state by abolishing serfdom and nobiliary privileges, introducing agrarian and other social and economic reforms, and laying the groundwork for an exemplary system of universal education. Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August, Graf von Gneisenau at the same time put the Prussian army on a modern basis.
The successes of Napoleons were at first beneficial for Prussia which remained neutral but relatively friendly towards France. The redrawing of the map over Germany meant that several smaller principalities, imperial cities and church lands were confiscated and redistributed primarily to the medium-sized principalities. Prussia gained the dioceses of Hildesheim and Paderborn, parts of Münster and Mainz, the imperial cities of Nordhausen and Goslar and other areas. In 1805 were Neuchatel, Ansbach and Kleve exchanged for Hanover, which Napoleon had occupied. This brought Prussia into a conflict with Great Britain who’s king was also elector of Hanover, most of Prussia’s merchant fleet was therefor sunk by the British navy.
The year 1806 is the darkest year in Prussia’s history. After Napoleon had forced the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia became an independent state. But when France promised to return Hanover to the British king in exchange for peace Friedrich Wilhelm III (1797-1840) made the fatal decision to declare war against France. In the dual battle of Jena and Auerstädt the Prussian army was crushed and French troops occupied most of Prussia. It was only pressure from Russia that prevented Napoleon to dissolve the Prussian State altogether. But when peace was concluded in 1807, Prussia was reduced to a second rate nation. When Napoleon’s Russian campaign ended in disaster 1812 Prussia joined France’s enemies again and its status as great power was restored at the Congress of Vienna. Its population and territory were roughly the same size as before 1806, but the territory had shifted to the south-west and a greater proportion of its population was therefore of German nationality in a greater extent. The German Confederation was created at the same time as a replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire, this institution would however with time be more and more regarded as temporary solution only. The issue of Germany’s unification would dominate the next half century.
Prussian Dominance in Germany
After the negotiations at the Congress of Vienna, Prussia emerged as the major German power of Western Europe. By 1844 almost all German states were economically linked with Prussia. Under King William I and his prime minister and imperial chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck, Prussia became the largest kingdom of the German Empire, containing two-thirds of the German population.
Supremacy of Prussia
In 1861, William I (regent since 1858) became king, and in 1862 he appointed, as premier, Otto von Bismarck who directed the destiny of Prussia and (after 1871) of Germany until 1890. Bismarck effected the elimination of Austria from German affairs and the union of Germany under Prussian hegemony by means of three deliberately planned wars. The first war (1864) was fought in alliance with Austria against Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein. Its settlement furnished a pretext for the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, in which Prussia quickly and thoroughly defeated Austria and its allies and gained additional territory by the annexation of Hanover, Electoral Hesse, Nassau, Schleswig-Holstein, and the free city of Frankfurt am Main. The German Confederation was dissolved and the Prussian-led North German Confederation took its place. Finally, in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), the North German Confederation overwhelmed France, and, in 1871, William I of Prussia was proclaimed emperor of Germany.
The feud over Schleswig-Holstein’s future proved to be hard to solve, the main reason to this was Prussia’s unwillingness to compromise. Austria offered Holstein to Prussia in exchange for a corresponding territory in Silesia, but Prussia, led by chancellor Bismarck, refused to accept that offer. Instead, they resumed the old issue of Germany’s unification, but the German princes voted down Prussia’s proposition. When the majority in the German Confederation took side with Austria, Prussia responded by declaring its secession from the Confederation whereby war became unavoidable. Although Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria and other German states supported Austria in the war, the Prussians triumphed. The well-equipped Prussian army used with great skill the railroad to move its troops fast and was victorious on all fronts. Vast territories were conquered, including all of Hanover, and the German Confederation was dissolved and replaced by the North German Confederation that was completely dominated by Prussia when Austria and the southern German states were left out.
Prussia’s growth of power was regarded with disapproval by France’s emperor Napoleon III. He considered the possibility of a unified Germany as a great threat to France but the war of 1866 ended before he could intervene. Napoleon III was, however, determined to repair his mistake as soon as possible and an insignificant diplomatic dispute in 1870 was used as pretext to declare war against Prussia. But to his surprise, the southern German states joined the war on Prussia’s side and the French army was decisively defeated. At Versailles the victors declared the unification of Germany with the Prussian king as its emperor (1871). France was forced to cede Alsace-Lorraine, which was to be administrated jointly by the German part-states as an Imperial territory.
After 1871, the history of Prussia is identical with Germany’s since it comprised nearly two thirds of Germany's population and territory and the Prussian king and head of state were also Germany's emperor and chancellor. A major event in German history was the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, making Germany a world power. It was during this war that, in 1870, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck orchestrated the unification of the German states. The German Empire was established under Prussian leadership with Bismarck as Chancellor. Wilhelm II, the last of the Hohenzollern dynasty, became Emperor of Germany (Kaiser) in 1888 and ruled until Germany's defeat in World War I.
After World War I, Prussia lost special status and became a regular German part state. The weakening of Prussia's power was largely due to the fact that the territories Germany was forced to cede, after the First World War, were predominately Prussian -- West Prussia was lost to Poland, and East Prussia was separated from the rest of German Prussia in 1919, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, by a strip of formerly Prussian territory known as the Polish Corridor designed to give Poland an outlet on the Baltic Sea. Prussia was, however, because of its large population, still the dominating part state of the Weimar republic.
The Prussian constitution adopted in 1850, and amended in the following years, was far less liberal than the federal constitution of the empire. The house of lords was largely controlled by the conservative Junkers who held immense tracts of generally poor land east of the Elbe (particularly in East Prussia). Endowed with little money and much pride, they had continued to form the officer corps of the army. The rising industrialists, notably the great Rhenish and Westphalian mine owners and steel magnates, although their interests were often opposed to those of the Junkers, exerted an equally reactionary influence on politics. The Prussian constitution was liberalized after Prussia became a republic in 1918 and the Junkers lost many of their estates through the cession of Prussian territory to Poland. However, both the Junkers and the Rhenish industrialists continued to exert much power behind the scenes, and when Franz von Papen became German chancellor and commissioner for Prussia in 1932, they came into their own. In July 1932, Papen suspended the Prussian parliament and ousted the Social Democrat Otto Braun, who had been premier of Prussia (with brief interruptions) from 1920.
Early in 1933, Adolf Hitler seized power and made Hermann Goering premier of Prussia; Hitler's rise had been aided by the Rhenish industrialists. By a decree of Hitler, issued in January 1934, the German states ceased to exist as political units, and it was no longer possible to differentiate clearly between Prussia and the rest of Germany.
Industrially and politically the most prominent state of Germany prior to World War II, Prussia was partitioned among the four Allied occupation zones after 1945. In 1947 the Allied Control Council for Germany formally abolished the state of Prussia. This action not only confirmed an accomplished fact; it was also intended as a blow against the spirit of German militarism and aggression, long held to be connected with Prussia. Most of the former Prussian provinces became part of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany and of the German Democratic Republic (now reunified). The USSR annexed the northern part of East Prussia; Poland acquired the rest of East Prussia, as well as all Prussian territory east of the Oder and Neisse
rivers.
Rulers of Prussia and Germany
| Name |
Born |
Ruled1 |
|
Name |
Born |
Ruled1 |
| Kings
of Prussia |
German
Federal Republic (West) Chancellors |
| Frederick
I2 |
1657 |
1701–1713 |
Konrad
Adenauer |
1876 |
1949–1963 |
| Frederick
William I |
1688 |
1713–1740 |
Ludwig
Erhard |
1897 |
1963–1966 |
| Frederick
II the Great |
1712 |
1740–1786 |
Kurt
Georg Kiesinger |
1904 |
1966–1969 |
| Frederick
William II |
1744 |
1786–1797 |
Willy
Brandt |
1913 |
1969–1974 |
| Frederick
William III |
1770 |
1797–1840 |
Helmut
Schmidt |
1918 |
1974–1982 |
| Frederick
William IV |
1795 |
1840–1861 |
Helmut
Kohl |
1930 |
1982–1990 |
| William
I |
1797 |
1861–18713 |
German
Democratic Republic (East) |
| Emperors
Of Germany |
Wilhelm
Pieck5 |
1876 |
1949–1960 |
| William
I |
1797 |
1871–1888 |
Walter
Ulbricht8 |
1893 |
1960–1973 |
| Frederick
III |
1831 |
1888–1888 |
Willi
Stoph9 |
1914 |
1973–1976 |
| William
II |
1859 |
1888–19184 |
Erich
Honecker9 |
1912 |
1976–1989 |
| Weimar
Republic |
Egon
Krenz9 |
1937 |
1989–1989 |
| Friedrich
Ebert5 |
1871 |
1919–1925 |
Manfred
Gerlach9 |
1928 |
1989–1990 |
| Paul
von Hindenburg5 |
1847 |
1925–1934 |
Sabine
Bergman-Pohl9 |
1946 |
1990–1990 |
| Third
Reich |
German
Federal Republic Chancellors |
| Adolf
Hitler6, 7 |
1889 |
1934–1945 |
Helmut
Kohl |
1930 |
1991–1998 |
| Karl
Doenitz6 |
1891 |
1945–1945 |
Gerhard
Schröder |
1944 |
1998–2005 |
|
|
|
Angela Merkel |
1954 |
2005– |
|
1. Year of end of rule is also that of death, unless otherwise indicated.
2. Was Elector of Brandenburg (1688–1701) as Frederick III.3. Became Emperor of Germany in 1871.
4. Died 1941.
5. President.
6. Führer.
7. Named Chancellor by President von Hindenburg in 1933.
8. Chairman of Council of State. Died 1973.
9. Chairman of Council of State. |
