Prussia (prush`?), Ger. Preussen, former state, the largest and most important of the German states. Berlin was the capital. The chief member of the German Empire (1871–1918) and a state of the Weimar Republic (1919–33), Prussia occupied more than half of all Germany and the major part of N Germany. Before 1919 it consisted of 13 provinces: Berlin, Brandenburg, East Prussia (separated after 1919 from the rest of Prussia by the Polish Corridor), Hanover, Hesse-Nassau (see Hesse), Hohenzollern (a Prussian enclave between Württemberg and Baden in SW Germany), Pomerania, Rhine Province, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia, and Westphalia. (Grenzmark Posen–West Prussia was sometimes considered a 14th province.) Prussia surrounded several smaller German states and stretched from the borders of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg in the west to those of Lithuania and Poland in the east, and from the Baltic Sea, Denmark, and the North Sea in the north to the Main River, the Thuringian Forest, and the Sudetes Mts. in the south.

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. After Berlin, the largest cities of the area were Cologne, Breslau (Wroclaw), Essen, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dortmund, Magdeburg, and Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The region also included the gigantic industrial Ruhr district.

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 E of the Oder and Neisse rivers.

HistoryGrowth 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 original inhabitants, the Borussi (or Prussians), were of Baltic stock. They were conquered and largely exterminated by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th cent. The Knights effected the Germanization of Prussia.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.

Rise of the Prussian State

The electorate with its dependencies had become a major German state by the end of the 17th cent., a position that it owed largely to the secularization of church lands during the Reformation (the major part of its new acquisitions had been ecclesiastic territory) and to its successful diplomacy at the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In 1701, Elector Frederick III had himself crowned "king in Prussia" at Königsberg (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.As a result of the Northern War, Prussia gained (1720) 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.Frederick William's successor, Frederick II, or Frederick the Great (reigned 1740–86), used the efficient military instrument bequeathed him by his father to enter upon a period of conquest. On a slim pretext (see Silesia) and without a declaration of war, he invaded (1740) Austrian territory, thus gaining the initiative in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). Acting with utter disregard for its allies, Prussia got out of the war in 1742 by the Treaty of Berlin, reentered it in 1744, and quit again in 1745 at the Treaty of Dresden. In both treaties Maria Theresa of Austria was forced to cede nearly all of Silesia to Prussia. Although it gained no additional territory in the Seven Years War (1756–63), Prussia emerged from the war as the chief military power of the Continent. By the partition of Poland of 1772 (see Poland, partitions of) Prussia gained Pomerelia (except Danzig) and Ermeland. Pomerelia was organized into the province of West Prussia, and the original Prussia became known as East Prussia.Frederick was succeeded (1786) by Frederick William II, who further added to Prussia by the partitions of Poland of 1793 and 1795. However, under his rule and that of his successor, Frederick William III (1797–1840), Prussia underwent a period of eclipse as a result of the French Revolutionary Wars and the wars of Napoleon I. Defeated by the French, Prussia withdrew from the antirevolutionary coalition in the Treaty of Basel (1795) and remained neutral until 1806. Its armies were crushed by Napoleon in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt, and in 1807 Prussia had to accept the harsh Treaty of Tilsit, by which it lost all lands W of the Elbe and most of its share of Poland and became a virtual dependency of France.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.Prussia was forced to send auxiliary troops for Napoleon's 1812 campaign in Russia, but late in the year Yorck von Wartenburg concluded a separate truce with Russia, and in 1813 Prussia joined the coalition against France. Field Marshal Blücher played a major role in defeating Napoleon at Leipzig (1813) and at Waterloo (1815). At the Congress of Vienna, Prussia gained, in addition to its recovered territories, the entire Rhine prov. and Westphalia, the northern half of Saxony, the remainder of Swedish Pomerania, and a large part of W Poland, including Danzig (Gdansk), Poznan, and Gniezno. However, Prussia disappointed the hopes of German liberals by following the lead of the Austrian chancellor, Metternich, in the Holy Alliance.A constitution promised in 1811 failed to materialize under the increasingly reactionary government of Frederick William III, and the half-hearted constitutional schemes of Frederick William IV were impracticable. By 1834 Prussia had, however, taken the lead in the economic unification of Germany (see Zollverein), which was a prerequisite to political union. The March Revolution of 1848 was put down by force, and in 1849 Frederick William IV refused the imperial crown of Germany offered by the Frankfurt Parliament. His scheme for a German Union under Prussian leadership and excluding Austria was punctured in the Convention of Olomouc (1850), and Prussia returned to the restored German Confederation.

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.In its main features the subsequent history of Prussia was that of Germany. However, Bismarck's Kulturkampf against the Roman Catholic Church was largely confined to the kingdom of Prussia, which, like the other German states, continued as an individual member of the empire.The Prussian constitution adopted in 1850 and amended in the following years was far less liberal than the federal constitution of the empire. The government was not responsible to the Prussian Landtag (lower chamber), whose powers were small and whose members were elected by a suffrage system based on tax-paying ability. The house of lords was largely controlled by the conservative Junkers, who held immense tracts of generally poor land E 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 (1932) German chancellor and commissioner for Prussia, 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 Jan., 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.

Poland - timeline

Origins to 10th Century

In the area that is today called Poland, in the early centuries AD there lived many groups or tribes, including the Celts, Balts, Scythians, Huns, Goths, and Germanic peoples. It is believed that the Slavs arrived in the 6th or 7th century when several differnt Slavic tribes settled in the area. By the mid-10th century, the Polania tribe became dominant. Legends say that the chief, Piast, united the groups into one cohesive unit, naming it Polska (Poland). This region became Wielkopolska, or Greater Poland.
966
Duke Mieszko I, Poland's first recorded leader, converted to Christianity after marrying Dabrowka of Bohemia. This is formally recognized as the birth of the Polish nation.

By accepting Christianity, Poland became an influential participant in the sphere of Western culture. Poznan became the Episcopal see, or capital city. Mieszko allied himself with the German Emperor Otto I and placed his land under the protection of the pope.

The Piast Dynasty 966 - 1370
992
Duke Mieszko I dies. By the time of his death, Poland's borders extended to an area similar to today's boundaries. The city of Gniezno was the capital, and the towns of Gdansk, Szczecin, Poznan, Wroclaw, and Krakow already exist.
1100s
Boleslaw Krzywousty (Boleslaus the Wry-Mouthed) divides Poland among his sons in an apparent attempt to reinforce unity. The division instead caused rivalry, leaving Poland prey to various foreign invaders.

1320
Polish state is reunified.

1333 - 1370
Poland achieves political and cultural unity under the rule of Kazimierz III Wielki (Casimir the Great). The city of Krakow flourishes as capital.

1364
The university is founded at Krakow, one of Europe's first universities.

The Jagiellonian Dynasty 1382-1572
1382
The Polish crown is passed on to 10-year old Jadwiga. Poland forms an alliance with the pagan Lithuania when young Jadwiga marries Duke Jagiello of Lithuania. Jagiello converts to Christianity and becomes Wladyslaw II Jagiello, ruling from 1386-1434. The union increases Poland's boundaries dramatically and creates an alliance with Lithuania that lasts for 400 years.
During this time there are many wars against various enemies (Teutonic Knights, Tatars, Russia, the Ottoman Empire). However, the country prospers economically, culturally, and spiritually.

1500s
The Renaissance comes to Poland. Polish becomes the language in lieu of Latin. Literature, learning, culture, and architecture flourish.

1543
Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernik) publishes "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres," proposing that the earth revolves around the sun.

1569
The Polish Parliament, or Sejm, unifies Poland and Lithuania into one state. Royal succession is now based on election by the Sejm, including allowing foreign candidates for consideration. The decision was disastrous for Poland, and during the period of the Royal Republic, only four out of eleven kings were native Poles.

The Royal Republic 1572-1795
1573
The Sejm guarantees religious equality. Roman Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims all live together in Poland in peace.
1596-1609
Poland's capital city is moved from Krakow to Warsaw.

1655-60
Known as the Deluge, Sweden invades Poland with the help of the Tartars and Cossacks from the East. Poland is virtually destoyed as cities are burned and plundered. A population of 10 million is reduced to 6 million due to the wars, famine, and the bubonic plauge.

1674-96
This period is the reign of Jan III Sobieski, an excellent military commander. Sobieski's forces have many victories over the Turks.

1700s
Poland's three powerful neighbors, Russia, Prussia and Austria, each want to own Poland. This was all but impossible without risking war with each other. They finally settled their dispute by dividing Poland among themselves in a series of agreements called the Three Partitions of Poland.

1791
After the First Partition leads to some reforms, a constitution is passed, called the Constitution of the Third of May. It is the second written document that outlines the responsibilities of the Government (the U.S. Constitution is the first). Catherine the Great of Russia invades Poland to break up the newfound democracy.

1793
During the Second Partition, Russia and Prussia take over half of what was left of Poland.

1794
Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the famous general who helped win the American Revolution, starts a rebellion for Polish independence, but it is not strong enough to defeat the Russians.

1795
The Third Partition divides the rest of Poland. Poland is "officially" non-existent for the next 123 years.

1870s
Russia attempts to eradicate Polish culture, making Russian the official language of the Russian partition. Prussia does the same in their portion of Poland, attempting to Germanicize Poles. Under the Austrian partition, Galician Poles are allowed to retain some autonomy.

1890s
Poland experiences mass emigration due to poverty. Approximately 4 million out of 22 million Poles emigrate to the United States prior to World War I.

World War I 1914-18
With Poland's three occupying powers at war with each other, Poland becomes the main fighting ground. Because there was no official Polish state, there was no Polish army. Poles were forced into the Russian, German, and Austrian armies and forced to fight against one another. Native Poles now in America join Haller's Army in France to fight for their country.
11 November 1918
Poland becomes independent as WWI comes to an end. The country was devastated by the war. Approximately one million Poles died. All Polish institutions had to be rebuilt as the country once again formed a nation. The official boundaries are not set until 1923.

1919
The Treaty of Versailles gives Poland western Prussia, thus getting access to the Baltic Sea.

1919-20
During the Polish-Soviet War, Jozef Pilsudski's army defeats the Russians. Poland gains western Ukraine and Belarus.

1926
Pilsudski makes himself dictator of Poland. Despite the dictatorship, the economy stabilized at this time and culture continued to prosper.

1930s
Poland signs nonagression pacts with Germany and the Soviet Union. The pacts soon prove to be pointless.

23 August 1939
Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonagression pact, with Stalin and Hitler planning to divide Poland once again.

World War II 1939-45
September 1939
Hitler invades Poland on 01 September. On 17 September, the Soviet Union invades eastern Poland. Mass arrests, executions, and exiles begin.
June 1941
Hitler attacks the Soviet Union, and Poland remains under the Nazi regime for the next three years. Many Poles are deported to labor camps. The Polish intelligentsia are executed, and the Nazis plan to elimate the Polish Jews entirely. Most of Poland's Jewish population, including many non-Jews, die in Nazi death camps set up throughout Poland at Maidanek, Birkenau, and Oswiecim (Auschwitz). The Germans exterminated most of Poland's three million Jews, along with Jews from other occupied countries.

April 1943
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the single largest act of defiance, and the most tragically unsuccessful.

1944 - 1945
In 1944, the Warsaw Uprising took place. Russia's Red Army is victorious over the Germans. Russia set up a Communist-dominated government for Poland in Lublin. In February 1945, Russia, United States, and Great Britian meet at the Yalta Conference and agree to leave Poland under Soviet control.

At the war's end, over 6 million Poles were dead, approximately 20% of Poland's pre-war population.

1956
Industrial strikes break out in Poznan in an attempt to gain "bread and freedom" from Soviet rule. In October a reformed government is elected without the stamp of Moscow approval. This unheard of defiance elicits a visit from Khrushchev and results in several armies massing at the Polish border.

1956 - 1970s
Poland experiences some internal independence under Soviet rule, most importantly the Church survives and even flourishes as a counterpoint to Soviet repression. Poland manages to rebuild its war-devastated iron, steel, shipping, and mining industries, buy fails to regain a decent standard of living.

1978
Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow, is elected to Pope. Taking the name John Paul II, he is the first non-Italian pope in nearly 500 years.

1980
Strikes and riots ensue as the economy crumbles. At the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, the government reaches an agreement with the workers. The workers are allowed to organize into an independent trade union, called Solidarnosc, or Solidarity. Strike leader Lech Walesa is elected as the head of Solidarity, and by November 60% of the Polish workforce is organized. Solidarity gradually grows into a srong, non-violent, sociopolitical movement.

1981
In December, Martial Law is declared. Solidarity is suspended.

1982
The government formally dissolves Solidarity. The cost of living rises over 100% during the year.

1983
Martial law is lifted.

1989
In April, Solidarity is re-established.

1990
Prices rise by 250%, with incomes dropping by 40%. In November, the first fully free election is won by Lech Walesa. His rule results in disillusionment as no economic miracles take place, and the political forces fail to stabilize.

1997
Poland's National Assembly adopts a new Constitution.

Today Poland continues to gain international credibility and is a member of NATO.

In the first centuries of its emergence in the 10th century, the Polish nation was led by a series of strong rulers who converted the Poles to Christendom, created a strong Central European state, and integrated Poland into European culture. Formidable foreign enemies and internal fragmentation eroded this initial structure in the thirteenth century, but consolidation in the 1300s laid the base for the dominant Polish Kingdom that was to follow. The Jagiellon dynasty 1385–1569 formed the Polish-Lithuanian union beginning with the Lithuanian grand duke Jogaila. The partnership proved profitable for the Poles and Lithuanians, who played a dominant role in one of the most powerful empires in Europe for the next three centuries. The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Sejm (parliament) in 1505 transferred most legislative power from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Nobles' Commonwealth" when the state was ruled by the "free and equal" Polish nobility (szlachta). The Lublin Union of 1569 constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an influential player in European politics and a vital cultural entity. By the 18th century the nobles' democracy gradually declined into anarchy, making the once powerful Commonwealth vulnerable to foreign influence. Eventually the country was partitioned by its neighbors and erased from the map in 1795. Although the majority of the szlachta was reconciled to the end of the Commonwealth in 1795, the possibility of Polish independence was kept alive by events inside and outside of Poland throughout the 19th century. Poland's location in the very center of Europe became especially significant in a period when both Prussia and Russia were intensely involved in European rivalries and alliances and modern nation states took form over the entire continent. Poland regained its independence in 1918, but the Second Polish Republic was destroyed by in the Polish September Campaign, marking the beginning of the Second World War. Nonetheless Polish government in exile never surrendered and managed to contribute greatly to the Allies victory. Nazi Germany forces were forced to retreat from Poland as Soviet Union Red Army advanced, which led to the creation of People's Republic of Poland, a Soviet satellite state. By late 1980s Polish reform movement, Solidarity, was able to enforce a peaceful transistion from communist state to democracy, which resulted in the creation of the modern Polish state.

Over the past millennium, the territory ruled by Poland has shifted and varied greatly. At one time, in the 16th century, Poland was the second largest state in Europe, after Russia. At other times there was no separate Polish state at all. Poland regained its independence in 1918, after more than a century of rule by its neighbours, but its borders shifted again after the Second World War.