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Prussia
*** Shopping-Tip: Prussia
Image:ac.preussen.jpg thumb|230px|The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918
'''Prussia''' ({{lang-de|Preußen}} ({{Audio|Preußen.ogg|pronunciation}}),
Old Prussian language Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'',
Polish language Polish: ''Prusy'',
Lithuanian language Lithuanian: ''Prūsai'',
Latin language Latin: ''Borussia'', ''Prutenia'') was, in its most recent context, a historic state originating in
East Prussia, which for centuries had a substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of Prussia was Berlin. However, in the course of its history, Prussia has had various meanings:
*The land of the
Prussian people Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern
Lithuania, the
Kaliningrad exclave of
Russia, and north-eastern
Poland);
*The
Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights;
*Part of the lands of the Polish Crown called
Royal Prussia;
* A
fief known as
Ducal Prussia ruled by the
Hohenzollern margrave and electors of
Brandenburg, first under the sovereignty of Poland, then Sweden;
* The entire Hohenzollern realm, whether within or outside Germany proper;
* An independent kingdom from
1701 until
1867 or
1871, the
Kingdom of Prussia, which was also the largest constituent kingdom of the united
German Empire until its dissolution in
1918;
* The largest territorial and administrative unit within unified
Germany from
1867 to
1945.
Prussia as a state was ''
de facto'' abolished by the
Nazism Nazis in
1934, ''
de jure'' by the Allied Powers in
1947. Since then, the term's relevance has been limited to historical, geographical or cultural usages.
The name Prussia derives from the
Old Prussians, a
Balts Baltic people related to the
Lithuania Lithuanians.
Ducal Prussia was a dependency of the Kingdom of Poland (see
Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569) and
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) from
1525 to
1656, then of the king of Sweden, and
Royal Prussia remained an independent part of the crown of Poland until
1772. With the growth of German cultural
nationalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most German-speaking Prussians came to consider themselves to be part of the German nation, often underlining what were seen as the Prussian virtues: perfect organization, sacrifice, rule of law, obedience to authority and militarism. From the late
18th century the expanded Prussia dominated North Germany politically, economically and in terms of population size, and was the core of the unified
North German Confederation formed in
1867, transformed into the
German Empire in
1871.
Geography
Image:ac.prussiaflag.jpg thumb|300px|The flag of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1894-1918
Prussia began its existence as a small territory in what was later called West and East Prussia, which is now northern
Poland, the
Kaliningrad exclave of
Russia and part of today's
Lithuania. The region was populated by
Prussians. The area later became subject to German
colonization. By the time of its abolition, it stretched across the
North German Plain from the
France French,
Belgium Belgian and
Netherlands Dutch borders on the west to the
Lithuania Lithuanian border and to territories which are now in eastern
Poland. At its greatest extent before
1918, it included much of western Poland as well. For a period between
1795 and
1807, Prussia also controlled most of central Poland, including
Warsaw.
Before its abolition, Prussia included, as well as what might be called "Prussia proper" (the regions of
West Prussia and
East Prussia, which now lie in Poland, Lithuania and
Russia), the regions of
Pomerania,
Silesia,
Brandenburg,
Lusatia,
Province of Saxony (now state of
Saxony-Anhalt in Germany),
Hanover,
Schleswig-Holstein,
Westphalia, parts of
Hesse, the
Rhineland, and some small detached areas in the south such as
Hohenzollern, the home of the Prussian ruling family and in Switzerland. However there were some regions even in northern Germany that never became a part of Prussia, such as
Oldenburg,
Mecklenburg, and the
Hanse city-states.
Because Prussia was predominantly a northern and eastern
German states German state, it had a large
Protestant majority, although there were substantial
Roman Catholic populations in the
Rhineland, while a number of districts in
Province of Posen Posen,
Silesia,
West Prussia, and the
Warmia regions of
East Prussia had populations of predominantly Catholic Poles. East Prussia's region of
Masuria (earlier in Ducal Prussia) was largely made up of Germanized protestant
Mazurian ethnic group Masurs. This, in part, explains why the Catholic south-German states, especially
Austria and
Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long. Despite its overwhelmingly German character, Prussia's annexations of Polish territory, due to
Partitions of Poland collapse and resignation of the last Polish king in the late 18th century, brought a large Polish population that resisted the German government, and in several areas constituted the majority of the population, as, for example, in the
Provinz Posen (62% Polish, 38% German). In
1919, as a result of the
Treaty of Versailles, a large portion of the formerly Polish areas were given to the newly reconstructed
Second Polish Republic Polish state, including some areas with a majority German population.
Early history
In
1226 Conrad of Mazovia invited a German order of
crusade crusading knights, the
Teutonic Knights Order of the Teutonic Knights from
Transylvania, to conquer the Prussian tribes on his borders. However, during sixty years of struggles against resistance from the Prussians, they created a semi-independent state, which came to control Prussia plus most of what are now
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania, as well as parts of today's northern Poland. Eventually defeated, the Knights had to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of Poland and Lithuania from
1466. The Teutonic Order State was subject to the pope and the emperor, who did not sanction the 1466 Thorn agreement. In
1525 the Master of the Order became a
Protestant and converted part of the Order's territories into the
Duchy of Prussia, the first Protestant State.
''For more on Prussia's early history see
Origins of Prussia,
Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights,
Prussian Confederation,
Duchy of Prussia.''
The territory of the Duchy was at this time confined to the area east of the mouth of the
Vistula, near the present border between Poland and the Russian
Kaliningrad Oblast enclave of Kaliningrad. In
1618 the Duchy was inherited by the
Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, who was at the same time ruler of Prussia and
Brandenburg, a German state centered on
Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the
Hohenzollern dynasty. For Hohenzollern, the newly acquired state was very important, since it spread outside the reach of the
Holy Roman Empire. This state, known as
Brandenburg-Prussia, although divided into two parts separated by Polish territory, was steadily drawn out of the orbit of the declining Polish state. Under
Frederick William I of Brandenburg Frederick William, known as "the Great Elector," Prussia steadily acquired territories, including
Magdeburg and enclaves west of the
Rhine.
''For more on this period, see
Brandenburg-Prussia and
Royal Prussia.''
Kingdom of Prussia
Image:ac.prussiamap2.gif thumb|300px|right|Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia
In
1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the '''Kingdom of Prussia''' under
Frederick I of Prussia Frederick I, with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor and Saxon Elector August the Strong, king of Poland. Under Frederick II (
Frederick II of Prussia Frederick the Great), Prussia seized the province of
Silesia from
Austria, and defended it through the
Seven Years' War which ended in
1763 with Prussia as the dominant state of eastern Germany. Prussia also acquired various territories in other parts of Germany through marriage or inheritance, including
Pomerania on the
Baltic Sea Baltic coast.
During this period the great Prussian military machine and efficient state bureaucracy were established, institutions which were to form the foundations of the German state until
1945, and (in some respects) of the
GDR after that. Prussia greatly expanded its territories to the east during the collapse of the
Polish kingdom Kingdom of Poland,
Partitions of Poland, between
1772 and
1795 (see
New East Prussia and
South Prussia), which brought territory as far east as
Warsaw under Prussian rule.
Frederick William II of Prussia Frederick William II led Prussia into war with revolutionary
France in
1792, but was defeated at
Battle of Valmy Valmy and was forced to cede his western territories to France.
Frederick William III of Prussia Frederick William III resumed the war, but suffered disaster at
Battle of Jena Jena and withdrew from the war after ceding yet more territory at the
Treaty of Tilsit.
Image:ac.prussiamap3.gif thumb|300px|right|Expansion of Prussia 1807-1871
In
1813 Prussia renounced this treaty and rejoined the war against
Napoléon Bonaparte Napoléonic France. Her reward in
1815 at the
Congress of Vienna was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the
Rhineland and
Westphalia and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the
Ruhr valley, centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation, and particularly of the arms industry. These territorial gains also meant the population of Prussia doubled. Prussia emerged from the Napoléonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival
Austria, which had given up the German Imperial Crown in 1806. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of
Congress Poland under
Russian Empire Russian sovereignty.
The first half of the 19th century saw a prolonged struggle in Germany between the forces of
liberalism, which wanted a united federal Germany under a democratic constitution, and the forces of conservatism, which wanted to keep Germany as a patchwork of weak independent states, with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. In
1848 the liberals got their chance when
revolutions of 1848 revolutions broke out across Europe. An alarmed
Frederick William IV of Prussia Frederick William IV agreed to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution. But when the
Frankfurt Parliament offered Frederick William the crown of a united Germany, he refused, on the grounds that revolutionary assemblies could not grant royal titles. Prussia obtained a semi-democratic constitution, but the grip of the landowning classes (the ''
junkers'') remained unbroken, especially in the eastern parts.
''For more on this period see
Kingdom of Prussia.''
Imperial Prussia
Image:prussiamap.gif thumb|300px|right|Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918
In
1862 Prussian King
Wilhelm I of Germany William I (Wilhelm I) appointed
Otto von Bismarck as
Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was determined to defeat both the liberals and the conservatives by creating a strong united Germany but under the domination of the Prussian ruling class and bureaucracy, not the western German liberals. He achieved this by provoking three successive wars, with
Denmark in
1864 (
second war of Schleswig), which gave Prussia
Schleswig-Holstein, with
Austria in
1866 (
Austro-Prussian War), which allowed Prussia to annex
Hanover and most other north German territories who had sided with Austria, and with
France in
1870 (
Franco-Prussian War), which allowed him to force
Mecklenburg,
Bavaria,
State of Baden Baden,
Württemberg and
Saxony to accept incorporation into a united
German Empire (which excluded Austria, however), of which William I assumed the title of Emperor (
Kaiser).
This was the high point of Prussia's fortunes, and had the state continued to have wise leaders, Prussia's economic power and political status might have peacefully made her the centre of European civilization.
Friedrich III, German Emperor Emperor Frederick III may have been such a man, but he was already terminally ill when be became Emperor for 99 days in
1888. He was married to Victoria, the first daughter of
Queen Victoria, but their first son suffered physical and maybe mental damage during birth. At the age of 29,
Wilhelm II (William II) became Emperor after a difficult youth and conflicts with his British mother. He turned out to be a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views and poor judgement. Despite or maybe due to being a close relative to the Royals in Britain and Russia, "Willy" became their rival and ultimately their enemy. After dismissing Bismarck in
1890, who had forged alliances, Wilhelm embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into isolation and the disaster of
World War I. As the price of withdrawing from the war, Russia was forced to concede control of large regions of the western Russian Empire to Germany, some of which bordered Prussia, in the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (
1918). However German control of these territories only lasted for a few months.
Image:Prussia (political map before 1905).jpg thumb|700px|center|Prussian provinces before 1905
The end of Prussia
The Prussian ''junkers'' and generals dominated the conduct of World War I, so when it ended in defeat in
1918 they had to accept responsibility. The Prussian monarchy was overthrown along with all other German monarchies, and Germany became a republic. The
Great Poland Uprising, and the
Treaty of Versailles in
1919, recreated the Polish state and forced Germany to return territories annexed by Prussia during the
Partitions of Poland, as well as parts of
Upper Silesia inhabited by Poles.
East Prussia found itself again cut off from the rest of Germany by the
Polish Corridor.
The idea of breaking up Prussia into smaller states was considered by the German Government, but eventually traditionalist sentiment prevailed and Prussia became the "Prussian
Free state (government) Free State" ''(Freistaat Preußen),'' by far the largest state of the
Weimar Republic, comprising 60% of its territory. Since it included the industrial
Ruhr and "
left-wing politics Red Berlin", it became a stronghold of the left, being governed by a coalition of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany Social Democrats and the
Catholic Centre Party Catholic Centre for most of the
1920s. Most historians regard the Prussian government during this time as far more capable and successful than that of Germany as a whole.
Prussia's democratic constitution was suspended in
1932 as a result of a
coup d'état coup by Germany's conservative
Chancellor Franz von Papen, marking the effective end of German democracy. In
1933 Hermann Göring became Interior Minister of Prussia, a position he used to suppress all democratic opposition. In
1934 the
Nazi Germany Nazi regime abolished the autonomy of all the German states. ''De jure'', Prussia continued to exist as a territorial unit until the end of
World War II, but in practice the "
Reichsgau Gaue" of the Nazi Party organization were the building blocks of the Nazi state.
In
1945 the armed forces of the
Soviet Union occupied all of eastern and central Germany (including
Berlin). Everything east of the
Oder-Neisse line, including
Silesia,
Pomerania, eastern
Brandenburg and
East Prussia, was included within the new borders of
Poland (with the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now
Kaliningrad, going to the Soviet Union; today it is a Russian
exclave between
Lithuania and
Poland). An estimated ten million Germans fled or were expelled from
Historical Eastern Germany these territories as a part of the
German exodus from Eastern Europe. These expulsions, together with the
nationalisation of land by the
Communist regime in
East Germany, destroyed the ''junkers'' as a class and marked the effective end of Prussia as a social and political entity; the East German bureaucracy is seen by many as a "Red" continuation of the Prussian tradition, however.
Prussia was formally abolished by a proclamation of the four occupying powers in Germany in
1947. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, which became
East Germany in
1949, the former Prussian territories were reorganised into the states of
Brandenburg and
Saxony-Anhalt, with the remaining parts of Pomerania going to
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These states were abolished in
1952 in favor of districts, but recreated after the fall of communism in
1990. In the western zones of occupation, which became
West Germany in
1949, they were divided up among
North Rhine-Westphalia,
Lower Saxony,
Hesse,
Rhineland-Palatinate and
Schleswig-Holstein (with
Baden-Württemberg taking the territory of Hohenzollern).
The idea of Prussia is not entirely dead in Germany. Since the
reunification of Germany in
1990, suggestions to amalgamate the states of
Brandenburg,
Mecklenburg and
Berlin into one identified as Prussia have arisen though without much enthusiasm, even among German conservatives. The left-wing parties, who govern both nationally and in these three states at present, are firmly opposed to it. However some grassroots groups have sought to encourage a celebration of Prussian history and culture. In
1996 a proposal to merge Berlin and Brandenburg was rejected by Brandenburg voters, even though this was not seen as a decision relating to the revival of Prussia as a state but rather as an attempt to restore the old Brandenburg, since Berlin had never been a city-state before 1945.
Since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, a small number of ethnic Germans from
Kazakhstan have begun to settle in the
Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad exclave of the
Russian Federation, once northern
East Prussia, as part of the migration influx into the area, which was previously a restricted area (see "
closed city"). As of 2005, about 6,000 (0.6% of population) ethnic Germans, mostly from other parts of Russia, live there. Most
Russian Germans preferred to leave for
Germany, see
History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union.
See also
*
Otto von Bismarck
*
Carl von Clausewitz
*
Origins of Prussia
*
Prussian people
*
Prussian Secret Police
*
Brandenburg
*
Brandenburg-Prussia
*
Ducal Prussia
*
Royal Prussia
*
East Prussia
*
Franco-Prussian War
*
Hohenzollern
*
List of Kings of Prussia
*
List of provinces of Prussia
*
Masuria
*
Nadruvia
*
New East Prussia
*
Prime Minister of Prussia
*
Prussian Minister of War
*
Southern Prussia
*
Warmia
*
West Prussia
*
Crusader states
*
Drang nach Osten
External links
-
Preussen.de
-
East and West Prussia Gazetteer
-
1570 map of Germany and Prussia plus details
-
Map of Pomerania and Prussia 1598
-
1660 map of Prussia 1660
-
map of Prussian Provinces
-
Partial Map of Prussia by Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive cosmographica., Amsterdam 1594
-
Partial Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629
-
Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th c.
-
Map of Prussia by K. Henneberger in:
Christoph Hartknoch, ''Alt- und neues Preussen...'', Frankfurt 1684
-
Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.
-
Map of East Prussia K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogów ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles removed Memel area from Germany.
-
Prussian Army
-
Reconstruction of Prussian language
-
Prussian language discussion forum
-
Kingdom of Prussia: Constitutional charter for the "Prussian State" ("Revised Constitution" of 31th January 1850, in full text)
-
Constitutional charter for the "Prussian State" ["Imposed Constitution of 5th December 1848, in full text)
Category:Former monarchies Prussia
Category:Kingdom of Prussia
Category:Former countries in Europe
Category:States of the Holy Roman Empire
Category:History of Prussia
ca:Prússia
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{{catmore}}
See also:
:Category:Kingdom of Prussia
Category:History of Germany
cs:Kategorie:Prusko
de:Kategorie:Preußen
fr:Catégorie:Prusse
ja:Category:プãƒã‚¤ã‚»ãƒ³
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