User:Adam Carr/Prussia

File:Ac.prussiaflag.jpg

The flag of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918

Prussia (German Preussen or Preußen) was the name of a geographical region, first in the borderlands between Germany and Poland and later stretching across northern Germany; the name of an independent state from the 17th century until 1871; and the name of the largest territorial unit within the German Empire, the German Republic and the Third Reich from 1871 to 1945. In 1947 Prussia as a territorial unit was abolished, and since then the term has been purely historical.

There was never a "Prussian people" or a "Prussian nationality." Although the name Prussia derives from the Borussi or Prussians, a Baltic people, and although Prussia was a dependency of the Kingdom of Poland until the 17th century, Prussia as a political entity was always German-speaking and its people considered themselves part of the German nation. Indeed from the late 18th century Prussia dominated Germany both politically and in terms of population, and was the core of the unified German state formed in 1871.

Geography[edit]

Prussia began its existence as a small territory in what is now northern Poland, an area then being subject to German colonisation. By the time of its abolition it stretched across the North German Plain from the French, Belgian and Dutch borders on the west to the Lithuanian and Polish borders in the east. At its greatest extend before 1918 it included much of western Poland as well.

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 and Russia), the regions of Pomerania, Silesia, Brandenburg, Lusatia, Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Westphalia and Hesse, as well as some small detached areas in the south such as Hohenzollern, the home of the Prussian ruling family.

Being predominantly a north and east German state, Prussia was overwhelmingly Protestant, although there were some Catholic areas in the Rhineland. This in part explains why the Catholic south German states, Austria and Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long. Despite its overwhelmingly German character, Prussia's annexations of Polish territory in the late 18th century brought with them a large and troublesome Polish minority. In 1918 this territory was returned to the newly reconstructed Polish state.

Early History[edit]

In the 13th century a German order of crusading knights, the Order of the Teutonic Knights, advanced eastwards from Brandenburg into the Kingdom of Poland, where they created a semi-independent state, which eventually came to control most of what are now Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as parts of northern Poland. From 1466, the Knights had to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of Poland and Lithuania. In 1525 the Order was dissolved during the Protestant Reformation, and its territory, much reduced, became the Duchy of Prussia within the Kingdom of Poland.

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 enclave of Kaliningrad. In 1618 the Duchy was inherited by the Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, thus uniting Prussia and Brandenburg, a German state centered on Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the Hohenzollern dynasty, within 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.

Kingdom of Prussia[edit]

In 1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick I, with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor. Under Frederick II (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 lands west of the Rhine.

During this period the formidable Prussian military machine and efficient state bureaucracy were founded, institutions which were to form the foundations of the German state until 1945. Prussia greatly expanded its territories to the east during the Partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795. Frederick William II led Prussia into war with revolutionary France in 1792, but was defeated at Valmy and was forced to cede his western territories to France. Frederick William III resumed the war, but suffered disaster at Jena and withdrew from the war after ceding yet more territory at the Treaty of Tilsit.

In 1813 Prussia renounced this treaty and rejoined the war against Napoléonic France. Her reward in 1815 was the recovery of all her lost territories, plus the whole of the Rhineland and Westphalia, as well as some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr valley, centre of Germany's future industrialisation, and particularly the arms industry. Prussia emerged from the Napoléonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria.

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 broke out across Europe. An alarmed 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.

Imperial Prussia[edit]

In 1862 William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Prussian Chancellor. 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 (1864), which gave Prussia Schleswig-Holstein), with Austria (1866), which allowed Prussia to annex Hanover and most other north German territories, and with the France (the Franco-Prussian War) in 1870, which allowed him to force Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemberg and Saxony to accept incorporation into a united German Empire, of which William I assumed the title of Emperor (Kaiser).

This was the high point of Prussia's fortunes, and had the country had wise leaders, Prussia's economic power and political status might have peacefully made her the centre of European civilisation. Unfortunately, William II, who became Emperor in 1888, was a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views and poor judgement. After dismissing Bismarck in 1890 he embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into the disaster of World War I. The Prussian junkers and generals dominated the conduct of the war, so when it ended in defeat they had to accept responsibility. The Prussian monarchy was overthrown and Germany became a republic. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 created a new Polish state and forced Germany to cede a large swathe of territory to it. East Prussia found itself cut off from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor.

The fall of Prussia[edit]

The Weimar Republic considered breaking Prussia up into smaller states, but eventually traditionalist sentiment prevailed and Prussia became the Prussian Free State (Freistadt Preussen), the largest state of the German Republic. Since it included the Ruhr and Berlin, it became a stronghold of the left, being governed by the Social Democrats for most of the 1920s. Prussia's democratic constitution was suspended in 1932, marking the effective end of German democracy, and in 1933 Hermann Goering became Minister-President of Prussia, a position he used to suppress all democratic opposition. In 1934 the Nazi regime abolished the autonomy of all the German states. Prussia continued to exist as a territorial unit until the end of the war.

In 1945 the armed forces of the Soviet Union occupied all of eastern and central Germany. Everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, including Silesia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg and East Prussia, was annexed to Poland (with the northern half of East Prussia going to the Soviet Union). The German population of the lost territories, up to 6 million people, was expelled. Prussia was formally abolished by a proclamation of the four occupying powers in Germany in 1947. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, which became the German Democratic Republic in 1949, the former Prussian territories were reorganised into the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. In the western zones of occupation, which became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, they were divided up between North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein.

The idea of Prussia is not entirely dead in Germany. Since the reunification of Germany in 1991, there have been various proposals that two or more of the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg and Berlin should be amalgamated, and the new state be called Prussia. There does not seem to be much enthusiasm for this idea even among German conservatives, and the left-wing parties, who govern in these three states at present, (and until recently at the federal level) are firmly opposed to it.