Kingdom of Prussia

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Frederick II of Prussia leading the Prussian Army into the Battle of Zorndorf on 25 August 1758 against Russian troops during the Seven Years' War.

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918 when it became part of the Weimar Republic. It comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the Second German Empire and took its name from its predecessor, the Duchy of Prussia, although its power base was Brandenburg. Prussia was formally abolished (German: Abschaffung von Preußen) by an undemocratic decree of the occupying World War II Allied Control Council on 25th February 1947.


Brandenburgh Cathedral, founded in 1165, showing the nave, with a view of the choir and east end.
Havelberg Cathedral, consecrated in 1170, showing the fortified West Tower.

The core of the modern kingdom of Prussia was the historical Electorate of Brandenburg, and the Duchy of Prussia which eventually gave its name to the united Hohenzollern dominions. The union of these two separate principalities laid the foundation, determined the character, and moulded the policy both of the nascent ruling house and of the expanding state.[1]

The Romans declared the eastern borders of Germania to be the river Vistula, but a variety of factors including warfare with the west-migrating Slavs, and disease, had decimated German communities in the Eastern Marches. As early as 789 AD, the Emperor Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) attempted to exact tribute from the Elbe region Slav tribes. Over a hundred years later the Duke of the Saxons, after being elected German King as Henry I in 919, went on the offensive against these Slav tribes more single-mindedly. In this he enjoyed the support of the aristocratic clans: like the ruling house, they too had their seats in the regions north of the Harz. Over the winter of 928 Henry captured the Slav fortress of Brennaburg-on-the-Havel and on 5 September 929 he defeated the Vilz (Wieleci) tribe at Lenzen, just over the Elbe. The origin of the Electorate of Brandenburg is the Nordmark, established in 928 AD by King Henry, who figures in German history as Henry 1st, 'the Fowler', who founded the line of the Saxon Holy Roman Emperors and whose son and successor, Otto I, 'The Great', revived the Empire. The boundaries of the Nordmark were again pushed steadily eastwards from its centre at Brandenburg (Brennaburg) which was converted into a fortress after the conquest of the Wends. Its purpose was not purely military but to Germanise and Christianise the local pagan Wendish tribes and to provide new homes for the German race. The abbey of Magdeburg became the mother church of all Premonstratensian houses founded east of the Elbe in the 12th century. New Bishoprics were established at Havelberg in 946 AD and Brandenburg three years later. A Margravate was established in 1157 for the Ascanian Albert 'The Bear', who had previously held the fief of the Altmark (west of the Elbe) from the Emperor, Lothar I von Supplinburg, since 1134. A century later, in 1231, the Emperor granted the Margrave brothers John I and Otto III full rights and confirmed their suzerainty over Pomerania. The Ascanians then consolidated their rule by acquiring the Uckermark 1230-1250, where they founded Templin, which later became the second-largest town in Brandenburg, and advanced into the "land beyond the Oder", the Newmark, where they drove back the Wettins. The Ascanians refounded the town of Frankfurt-upon-Oder in 1253, and settled all their sparsely-populated lands with Christian Germans.

Under the Ascanian Margraves Junkerdom - the rule and predominance of a landowning nobility - was developed.

Dynasty change

The Ascanian dynasty became extinct in 1319 and the following year Brandenburg passed to the Bavarian Wittelsbachs under whom, in 1351, Brandenburg was elevated to the dignity of an Electorate. But they in turn resigned it in March 1373 to the German Princely House of Luxemburg, who then held the Imperial Crown. In 1411 a true successor to the Ascanian line was found in Frederick von Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremburg. His new lands, called the Kurmark, would eventually extend beyond the river Oder all the way to the borders of Prussia and the Vistula.

In 1402 the Teutonic Order (Prussia) purchased the Newmark from Jobst, Margrave of Brandenburg. However in 1454 the Order was obliged to sell the province back to Brandenburg due to dire financial necessity.

In 1529, the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg had, by the Treaty of Grimnitz, secured the reversion to the Duchy of Pomerania after a series of conflicts, and by the Treaty of Stettin (1653) acquired all of the eastern part of Pomerania following the Peace of Westphalia. Sweden's defeat by Russia, Saxony, Denmark–Norway, the Hanover, and Prussia, in the Great Northern War (1700–1721) marked the end of Swedish power on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. In the course of the Siege of Stralsund (1711–1715)‎ in the Pomeranian campaign, and by the Prussian-Swedish Treaty of Stockholm (January 1720), Prussia now gained that part of Pomerania which had remained under Swedish sovereignty.

The young Kingdom 1700-1740

The Prussian Eagle, inherited from the Teutonic Order.

On 18 January 1701, Elector Frederick von Hohenzollern was crowned King in Prussia in the Royal Castle at Königsberg, uniting Brandenburg-Prussia into a single Kingdom.[2] The new Kingdom of Prussia was struggling socially, still having not fully recovered from the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War. Its territory was scattered across over 1,200 km (750 miles): from the lands of the Duchy of Prussia on the south-east coast of the Baltic Sea, to the House of Hohenzollern's Margravate of Brandenburg, to the enclaves of Duchy of Cleves, County of Mark and Ravensberg in the Rhineland. In 1708, approximately one third of the population of the Kingdom of Prussia fell victim to the Black Plague.[3] The plague reached Prenzlau in August 1710, but eventually receded before it could reach the new capital, Berlin, which was only 80 km (50 miles) away.

Silesian wars

King Frederick The Great

During this time, the trends set in motion by the Great Elector reached their culmination, as the Junkers, the landed aristocracy, were welded to the Prussian Army. This era also saw the rise of compulsory education in Germany.[4] King Frederick William I inaugurated the Prussian compulsory system in 1717.[4]

In 1740, King Frederick II of Prussia ('The Great') came to the throne. Using the pretext of a 1537 treaty (vetoed by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I) by which parts of Silesia were to pass to Margravate of Brandenburg after the extinction of its local ruler, Frederick invaded Silesia, thereby beginning the War of the Austrian Succession. After rapidly occupying Silesia, Frederick offered to protect Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria if the province were turned over to him. The offer was rejected, but Austria faced several other opponents, and Frederick was eventually able to gain formal cession with the Treaty of Berlin in 1742. Austria, however, managed to renew the war successfully. In 1744 Frederick invaded again to forestall reprisals and to claim, this time, the province of Bohemia. He failed, but French pressure on Austria's ally Great Britain led to a series of treaties and compromises, culminating in the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) that restored peace and left Prussia in possession of most of Silesia.

King Frederick Wilhelm II of Prussia

Humiliated by the cession of Silesia, Austria worked to secure an alliance with France and Russia (the "Diplomatic Revolution"), while Prussia drifted into Great Britain's camp forming the Anglo-Prussian Alliance. When Frederick pre-emptively invaded Saxony and Bohemia over the course of a few months in 1756-1757, he initiated the Seven Years' War which is also sometimes called the first world war because it was fought in the three continents (France and Great Britain's colonies).

This war was a desperate struggle for the Prussian Army, and the fact that it managed to fight much of Europe to a draw bears witness to Frederick's military skills. Facing Austria, Russia, France, and Sweden simultaneously, and with only Hanover (and the non-continental British) as notable allies, Frederick managed to prevent serious invasion until October 1760, when the Russian army briefly occupied Berlin and Königsberg. The situation became progressively grimmer, however, until the death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia (the miracle of the House of Brandenburg). The accession of the Prussophile Peter III of Russia relieved the pressure on the eastern front. Sweden also exited the war at about the same time.


Partitions of Poland

To the east and south of Prussia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had by the 18th century descended into near anarchy. Alarmed by increasing Russian influences in Polish affairs and by a possible expansion of the Russian Empire, Frederick was instrumental in initiating the first of the Partitions of Poland[5] between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772 to maintain a balance of power in the region. The Kingdom of Prussia recovered most of what Poland, since its annexations in 1466 from the Teutonic Order, had called 'Royal Prussia'. This was organized the following year into the province of West Prussia. This territory reconnected East Prussia with Pomerania, once again reuniting the kingdom's ancient eastern territories and Germany proper.

After Frederick died in 1786, his nephew Frederick William II of Prussia agreed to join in with the subsequent partitions, gaining a large part of western Poland in the second partition in 1793. These included recovering the ancient German cities of Danzig and Thorn, and annexing the ancient Polish cities and counties of Gnesen, Posen, Kalisz and Sieradz (ceding the latter two to Russia in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna).[6]

With the third partition in 1795, Poland as a sovereign country ceased to exist, and a large area (including Warsaw) to the south of East Prussia now also became part of Prussia. These new territories were organized into the Provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, and New East Prussia.

Napoleonic Wars 1801-1815

In the Treaty of Basel (1795), ending the War of the First Coalition against France the First French Republic and Prussia had stipulated, that the latter would ensure the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all the latter's territories north the demarcation line of the river Main, including the British continental dominions of the Electorate of Hanover and the Duchies of Bremen-Verden. To this end, Hanover (including Bremen-Verden) also had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining this state of armed neutrality.

In the course of the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802) Napoléon Bonaparte urged Prussia to occupy the continental British dominions. In 1801 24,000 Prussian soldiers invaded, surprising Hanover, which surrendered without a fight. In April 1801 the Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capital, Stade, and stayed there until October of the same year. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Prussia's actions, but when it joined the pro-French coalition of armed 'neutral' powers such as Denmark-Norway and Russia, Britain started to capture Prussian sea vessels. After the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) the coalition fell apart and Prussia withdrew its troops.

At Napoléon's instigation Prussia recaptured 'British' Hanover and Bremen-Verden in early 1806. On August 6, the same year the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved as a result of Napoléon's victories over Austria. The title of Kurfürst (Prince-elector) of Brandenburg now became meaningless, and was dropped[7] Before this time, the Hohenzollern sovereign had held many titles and crowns, from Supreme Governor of the Protestant Churches (summus episcopus) to King, Elector, Grand Duke, Duke for the various regions and realms under his rule. After 1806, Frederick William III became simply the King of Prussia and summus episcopus.

Monument at St.Mary's cathedral in Kolberg, Pomerania, to the city's defenders in 1807, Mayor Nettelbeck and Major August von Gneisenau.

When Prussia, after it turned against the French Empire, was defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (November 11, 1806), King Frederick William III was forced to temporarily flee to remote Memel, his northern-most town. Meanwhile, Prussian forces held out in numerous pockets, including Kolberg where the siege took place from March to 2 July 1807 during the War of the Fourth Coalition. A Napoleonic army and foreign auxiliaries (including Polish insurgents) besieged the fortified town of Kolberg, the only remaining Prussian-held fortress in Pomerania. The siege was not successful and was lifted upon the announcement of the peace of Tilsit. After the imposed Treaty of Tilsit, Prussia lost about half of its territory, including the land gained from the Second and Third Partitions of Poland (which now fell to the short-lived Napoleonic creation, the Duchy of Warsaw) and all land west of the Elbe River. France recaptured Prussian-occupied Hanover, including Bremen-Verden. The remainder of the kingdom was occupied by French troops (at Prussia’s expense) and the king was obliged to make an alliance with France and join the 'Continental System'.

After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, Prussia quit the imposed alliance and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the "Wars of Liberation" (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation. Prussian troops under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher were the crucial factor at the Battle of Waterloo of 1815 to the absolute defeat of Napoleon.

Prussia after Napoleon

Prussia’s reward for its part in France's defeat came at the Congress of Vienna, where Prussia was confirmed in most of its lost territories, and considerably more, including 40% of the Kingdom of Saxony and much of the Rhineland. Much of the territory annexed in the Third Partition of Poland became Congress Poland under Russian rule.

With these Prussian recoveries and gains in territory, the kingdom was reorganised into ten provinces. Most of the kingdom, aside from the Provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, and Posen, became part of the new German Confederation, a confederation of 39 sovereign states effectively replacing the defunct Holy Roman Empire in Germany.


As to religion Calvinist Frederick William III as Supreme Governor of the Protestant Churches asserted his long-cherished project (started in 1798) to unite the Lutheran and the Reformed Church in Prussia in 1817 (the Prussian Union). The Calvinist minority, strongly supported by its co-religionist Frederick William III, and the partially reluctant Lutheran majority formed the Protestant Evangelical Church in Prussia, however, ensuing quarrels causing a permanent schism among the Lutherans into united and Old Lutherans by 1830.

As a consequence of the Revolutions of 1848, the Principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen (ruled by a Roman Catholic cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern) were annexed by Prussia in 1850, later united as the Province of Hohenzollern.

The German wars of unification

Constitutional reforms 1850
The German states c1865. Prussia, with Brandenburg as it's central region, is in blue.
Coronation of King Wilhelm 1st of Prussia in the Royal Chapel of Königsberg Castle, 18 Oct 1861, where the first King was crowned in 1701.
King-Emperor Wilhelm I with Otto von Bismark

For the following half-century after the Congress of Vienna, there was a conflict of ideals within the German Confederation between the formation of a single German nation and the conservation of the current collection of smaller German states and kingdoms. The creation of the German Customs Union (Zollverein) in 1834, which excluded the Austrian Empire, increased Prussian influence over the member states. As a consequence of the Revolutions of 1848, King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the crown of a united Germany by the 'Frankfurt Parliament'. Frederick William refused the offer on the grounds that revolutionary assemblies could not grant royal titles. But there were two other reasons why he refused: to do so would have done little to end the internal power struggle between Austria and Prussia, and all Prussian kings (up to and including William I) feared that the formation of a German Empire would mean the end of Prussia’s independence within the German states.

In 1848, actions taken by Denmark regarding the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein led to the First War of Schleswig (1848–51) between Denmark and the German Confederation. Denmark was defeated, but Prussia was embarrassingly forced to allow Denmark to keep both duchies.

Frederick William now issued Prussia's first constitution by his own authority in 1850, which was forced upon parliament. This document — moderate by the standards of the time but conservative by today's standards — provided for a two-house parliament. The lower house, or Landtag was elected by all taxpayers, who were divided into three classes, whose votes were weighted according to the amount of taxes paid. Not unusually for the period, women and those who paid no taxes had no vote. This allowed just over one-third of the voters to choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring dominance by the more well-to-do men of the population. The upper house, which was later renamed the Herrenhaus ("House of Lords"), was appointed by the king. He retained full executive authority and ministers were responsible only to him (indeed, as late as 1910, Prussian kings believed that they ruled by Divine right). As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, the Junkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces.

Frederick William suffered a stroke in 1857, and his younger brother, Crown Prince Wilhelm, became Regent. Wilhelm pursued a considerably more moderate course, and gained enough power that by Frederick William's death in 1861, he was able to become king in his own right as William I. However, shortly after gaining the throne in his own right, he faced a dispute with his parliament over the size of the army. The parliament, dominated by the liberals, balked at William's desire to increase the number of regiments and withheld approval of the budget to pay for its cost. A deadlock ensued, and William seriously considered abdicating. He was, however, persuaded to appoint as Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, his ambassador to France. Bismarck took office on September 23, 1862.




The divided administration of Schleswig and Holstein then became the trigger for the Austro-Prussian War (1866 – also known as the Seven Weeks’ War), where Prussia, allied with the Kingdom of Italy and various northern German states, declared war on the Austrian Empire. The Austrian-led coalition was crushed and some German states (the Kingdom of Hanover, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt) were annexed by Prussia. The disputed territories of Schleswig and Holstein were now under total Prussian rule. With these gains in territory it became possible to connect the Prussian possessions in the Rhineland and Westphalia with the remainder of the Kingdom. On 1 July 1876 the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, since 1865 ruled in personal union with Prussia, was incorporated in a real union. It was at this point that Prussia reached its fullest extent in terms of area; it now stretched uninterrupted across the northern two-thirds of Germany. It remained at this size until the Kingdom's end in 1918.




The final act was the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1), when Emperor Napoleon III of France declared war on Prussia. Activating the German alliances put in place after the Austro-Prussian War, the German states came together and swiftly defeated the Second French Empire. Even before then, Bismarck was able to complete the work of unifying Germany under Prussian leadership. The patriotic fervour aroused by the war with France was too much for the remaining opponents of a unified nation to overcome, and on 18 January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the coronation of the first Prussian king, Frederick I of Prussia), the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles outside Paris, while the French capital was still under siege. King William became the first emperor of a unified Germany.

German Second Empire

German Empire - the 2nd Reich.jpg
Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and German Emperor (Kaiser).

Bismarck's new empire, known as the Second Empire, was one of the most powerful entities in continental Europe. Prussia's dominance over the new empire was almost as absolute as it was with the North German Confederation. It included three-fifths of the empire's territory and two-thirds of its population. The Imperial Crown became a hereditary office of the House of Hohenzollern.

However, the seeds for future problems lay in a gross disparity between the Imperial and Prussian systems. The empire had a system of universal and equal suffrage for all men over 25. However, Prussia retained its restrictive three-class voting system, in which the well-to-do had 17.5 times the voting power of the rest of the population. Since the imperial chancellor was, except for two periods (January-November 1873 and 1892-94) also Prime Minister of Prussia, this meant that for most of the empire's existence, the King-Emperor and Prime Minister-Chancellor had to seek majorities from legislatures elected by two completely different franchises.


Bismarck realised that the rest of Europe was sceptical of his powerful new Reich, and turned his attention to preserving peace with such acts as the Congress of Berlin. The new German Empire improved its already-strong relations with Britain. The ties between London and Berlin had already been sealed with a golden braid in 1858, when Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia married Princess Victoria of Britain, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria.

Kaiser William I died in 1888, and the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne as Frederick III. The new emperor, a decided Anglophile, planned to transform Prussia and the empire into a more liberal and democratic monarchy on the British model. However, he died from throat cancer after only 99 days on the throne, and was succeeded by his 29-year old son, William II. As a boy, William had rebelled against his parents' efforts to mould him as a liberal, and had become thoroughly Prussianised under Bismarck's tutelage.

Bismarck (aged 75) resigned from office in 1890 at the time Germany was developing 'a place in the sun' and acquiring colonies. With the murders of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his consort, by the Serbs, a conflict became inevitable. Germany's position was that they were obliged to honour their mutual-assistance treaties with Austria-Hungary but did not wish to become involved. (See Causes of World War I). Eventually Germany was dragged into the war by Russia's refusal to demobilise against her. Following the Russian revolution and Russia's ultimate defeat, the Bolsheviks conceded large regions of the western former Russian Empire, some of which bordered Prussia, to the control of the Central Powers in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). German control of these territories only lasted until Germany's collapse in November 1918 when the victorious plutocratic western Allies, who declared the Treaty void.

The German Revolution now occurred and the King-Emperor abdicated and went into exile in the Netherlands for the rest of his life. Germany became a republic and the Kingdom of Prussia was replaced as the Free State of Prussia.

The imposed 1919 Treaty of Versailles (see that page), which wrongly held Germany solely responsible for the war, was signed in the Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, where the German Second Empire had been created in 1871.


The Kingdom of Prussia was an autocratic monarchy until the Europe-wide Revolutions of 1848, following which Prussia became a constitutional monarchy. Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg was elected as Prussia's first Prime minister. Following Prussia's first constitution, a two-house parliament was formed. The lower house, or Landtag, was elected by all taxpayers, who were divided into three classes according to the amount of taxes paid. This allowed just over 25% of the voters to choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring dominance by the more well-to-do elements of the population. The upper house, which was later renamed the Prussian House of Lords, was appointed by the King. He retained full executive authority and ministers were responsible only to him. As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, the Junkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces. The Prussian Secret Police, formed in response to the Revolutions of 1848, aided the conservative government.

Subdivisions of Prussia

The original core regions of the Kingdom of Prussia were the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia which together formed Brandenburg-Prussia. A further Pomeranian province had been held by Prussia since 1653. Combined with Swedish Pomerania, gained from Sweden in 1720 and 1815, this region formed the Province of Pomerania. Prussian gains in the Silesian Wars against the Austrian Empire led to the formation of the Province of Silesia in 1740.

After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Prussia recovered province of West Prussia and along with part of so-called Warmia, an area with some Polish settlers, became the Province of East Prussia. Other annexations along the Netze) River became the Netze District. Following the second and third partitions (1793-1795), the Provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, and New East Prussia, along with the Netze District redivided between West and South Prussia became fully part of Prussia. These three provinces were awarded by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, except for the western part of South Prussia, which would form part of the Grand Duchy of Posen.

Following the major western gains made by Prussia after the Congress of Vienna, a total of ten provinces were established, each one subdivided further into smaller administrative regions known as Regierungsbezirke. The provinces were:



Rulers of Prussia

Preußische Kroninsignien.jpg
Die Kronen von König Friedrich I , Kaiser Wilhelm II und Königin Sophie Charlotte auf der Burg Hohenzollern bei Bisingen, 2010.jpg

Dukes of Prussia (House of Hohenzollern)

  • 1525-1568 Albert I
  • 1568-1618 Albert II Frederick
  • 1618-1619 John Sigismund
  • 1619-1640 George William
  • 1640-1688 Frederick William
  • 1688-1701 Friedrich I – became first King in Prussia in 1701

Kings of Prussia (known as Kings in Prussia until 1772)

  • 1701-1713 Friedrich I
  • 1713-1740 Friedrich Wilhelm I
  • 1740-1786 Friedrich II (Frederick The Great)
  • 1786-1797 Friedrich Wilhelm II
  • 1797-1840 Friedrich Wilhelm III
  • 1840-1861 Friedrich Wilhelm IV
  • 1861-1888 Wilhelm I – became first Imperial German Emperor (Kaiser) in 1871

Imperial German Emperors and Kings of Prussia

  • 1871-1888 Wilhelm I
  • 1888-1888 Friedrich III
  • 1888-1918 Wilhelm II – abdicated as the last German Emperor and King of Prussia

See also

Further reading

  • Streidt, Gert, and Feierabend, Peter, editors, Prussia - Art and Architecture, Cologne, 1990, ISBN: 3-8290-2590-4


  1. The Evolution of Prussia" by Sir J. A. R. Mariott, M.A., and Sir Charles Grant Robertson, C.V. O., LL.D., M.A., Clarendon Press, Oxford (UK), 1937, p.37.
  2. Mariott and Robertson, 1937, Chapter II and page 97.
  3. Walker, Mack, The Salzburg transaction: expulsion and redemption in eighteenth-century Germany, Cornell University Press, 1992, p.74.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Rothbard, Murray N. (1999). Education: Free & Compulsory. Auburn, Alabama: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 24–27. ISBN 0945466-22-6. 
  5. The Partitions of Poland by Lord Eversley (George Shaw-Lefevre), London, 1915.
  6. Lord, Robert Howard, The Second Partition of Poland, Harvard University Press, 1915, p.391.
  7. as when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved the function of the Prince-electors electing its Emperors had lapsed.