Prussia
(
;
German
:
Preußen
,
pronounced
[?p???sn?]
(
listen
)
,
Old Prussian
:
Pr?sa
or
Pr?sija
) was a series of countries. Originally it was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525. Mostly, the name is used for the Kingdom of Prussia, which was in northern
Europe
. It was part of
Germany
for a while, and it included land in
Poland
,
France
, and
Lithuania
. The name "Prussian" has had a lot of different meanings in the past and now:
In
1934
, Germany stopped using the name Prussia for that area, and in
1947
the
Allies
abolished the state of Prussia and divided its territory among themselves and the new
States of Germany
. Today, the name is only for historical, geographical, or cultural use.
The name Prussia comes from the Borussi or Prussi people who lived in the
Baltic
region and spoke the
Old Prussian language
.
Ducal Prussia
was a
fiefdom
of the
Kingdom of Poland
until
1660
, and
Royal Prussia
was part of Poland until
1772
. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most German-speaking Prussians started thinking of themselves as part of the German nation. They thought the Prussian way of life was very important:
- Perfect organization
- Sacrifice (giving other people something you need)
- Obeying the law
From the late
18th century
, Prussia had a lot of power in northern Germany and throughout central Europe; it was the strongest in politics and economics, and it had the most people. After Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
dissolved the
German Confederation
, Prussia annexed almost all of northern Germany. In
1871
, after the
Franco-Prussian War
, von Bismarck created the
German Empire
, and Prussia was the center of the empire, with the Kings of Prussia being the Emperors of Germany.
Prussia's borders have changed over time. It has not always been the exact same place. Mostly, Prussia was a small part of what is today northern
Poland
. After a small number of Prussian people moved there to live, Germans came to live there too. In 1934, Prussia's borders were with
France
,
Belgium
,
Luxembourg
, the
Netherlands
,
Denmark
, and
Lithuania
. Some parts of Prussia are in eastern Poland. Before 1918, a lot of western Poland was also in Prussia. Between 1795 and 1807, Prussia also controlled
Warsaw
and most of central Poland.
Before 1934, these regions were also in Prussia:
However, some regions were never part of Prussia, such as
Oldenburg
,
Mecklenburg
, and the
Hanse
city-states
.
Northeast Germany was
Protestant
, so Prussians were mostly Protestant. But there were a lot of
Catholic
people in the Rhineland, East Prussia,
Posen
, Silesia, West Prussia, and
Ermland
. The states of south Germany (especially
Austria
and
Bavaria
) were Catholic, so they did not want Prussians to rule them. Prussia was mostly German, but in the late 18th century, the new Polish areas had a lot of Polish people too. In 1918, these Polish areas were given to Poland, and in 1945, Pomerania and East Prussia were given to Poland. Northern East Prussia, specifically
Kaliningrad
, was given to Russia.
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
.
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
[
source?
]
. 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.
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:
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.
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 Goring
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 Konigsberg, 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-Wurttemberg
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.
[
source?
]
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.
[1]
[2]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Prussia
.
- "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 1594
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
- Part Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
- Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th century.
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
- Map of Prussia by K. Henneberger
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
in:
Christoph Hartknoch
,
Alt- und neues Preussen...
, Frankfurt 1684
- Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
- Map of East Prussia
Archived
2012-12-21 at
Archive.today
K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogow ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles
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