page_title: Prussia
section_title: Imperial Prussia
hierarchical_section_title: Prussia / History / Imperial Prussia
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Restaurierte und kolorierte Version eines Bildes Bismarcks. English: Otto von Bismarck in his study in the year 1886. Restoration and arbitrary colorisation of this picture.
context_page_description: Prussia 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:
  The land of the Baltic Prussians;
  The lands of the Teutonic Knights;
  Part of the lands of the Polish Crown, Royal Prussia;
  A fief of the Polish Crown, Ducal Prussia, later under control of the Hohenzollern family of Brandenburg;
  All Hohenzollern land, inside or outside Germany;
  An independent Kingdom, from the 17th century until 1871;
  The largest part of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany from 1871 to 1945.
  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.
context_section_description: 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:
  with Denmark in 1864 – this gave Prussia control of the Schleswig-Holstein area
  with Austria in 1869 (Austro-Prussian War) – this allowed Prussia to take Hanover and most other northern German territories that had been ruled by Austria
  with France in 1870 (Franco-Prussian War) - so Bismarck could control Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, and Saxony.  After this, these states (but not Austria) became part of a united German Empire, and Wilhelm I took the title of Emperor (Kaiser).
  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.
caption: Otto von Bismarck
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:07:18 17:01:06", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "398", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5772", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "574", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "671", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[3, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "268"}