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Prussia (Template:Audio-de; Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Template:Lang-lt; Old Prussian: Prūsa; Template:Lang-pl) was, most recently, a historic state originating in East Prussia, an area which for centuries had a substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of Prussia was Berlin.

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, a Baltic people related to the Lithuanians, later one of the countries of the Teutonic Order. In the course of its history, "Prussia" has had various meanings:

• The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, and north- eastern Poland);
• The Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights;
• A province of the Polish Crown called Royal Prussia;
• A fief known as Ducal Prussia ruled by Hohenzollern dukes, first under the sovereignty of Poland, then Sweden, and finally the margrave of Brandenburg;
• The entire Hohenzollern realm, whether within or outside Germany proper;
• An independent kingdom from 1701 until 1867 or 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia, which was also the largest constituent kingdom of the united German Empire until its dissolution in 1918;
• The largest territorial and administrative unit within unified Germany from 1867 to 1945.

Prussia attained its greatest importance in the 18th and 19th century, after it ascended to the fifth European great power under the government Frederick II of Prussia the Great (1740-1786), and after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who pursued the Kleindeutsche Lösung, made Prussia the leading power in Germany in place of Austria.

The Kingdom of Prussia dominated north Germany politically, economically and in terms of population size and was the core of the unified North German Confederation formed in 1867, transformed into the German Empire in 1871.

With the end of the monarchy in Germany Prussia became a Free state in 1918. Prussia as a state was abolished de facto by the Nazis in 1934 and de jure by the Allied Powers in 1947.

Since then, the term's relevance has been limited to historical, geographical or cultural usages. Till today many of the protestantic shaped morals are called "Prussian virtues". For instance: Perfect organization, sacrifice, rule of law, obedience to authority and militarism but also reliability, thriftiness, modesty. Many Prussians believed that these virtues were part of the reasons for the rise of their country.

The national colors of Prussia, black and white, deduced themselves from the with a black cross embroidered white coat of the Teutonic Knights. Their combination with the hanseatic colors white-red of the free cities Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck resulted in the black-white-red commercial flag of the 1867 formed North German Confederation which became the flag of the German Empire in 1871. The coat of arms saying of Prussia reads since the reformation "Suum cuique" (Each to his own).

Geography and Population

297.007 km²; 41.915.040 Inhabitants (May 1939)

Prussia began its existence as a small territory in what was later called West and East Prussia, which is now northern Poland, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and part of today's Lithuania. The region was populated by Prussians. The area later became subject to German colonization.

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, Lithuania and Russia), the regions of Pomerania, Silesia, Brandenburg, Lusatia, Province of Saxony (now the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany), Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Westphalia, parts of Hesse, the Rhineland, and some small detached areas in the south such as Hohenzollern, the ancestral home of the Prussian ruling family, and in Switzerland. However, there were some regions even in northern Germany that never became a part of Prussia, such as Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, and the hanseatic City-states.

Although Prussia was predominantly a Protestant German state, there were substantial Roman Catholic populations in the Rhineland, while a number of districts in Posen, Silesia, West Prussia, and the Warmia regions of East Prussia had populations of predominantly Catholic Poles. East Prussia's region of Masuria was largely made up of Germanized protestant Mazurs. This, in part, explains why the Catholic South German states, especially Austria and Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long.

Despite its overwhelmingly German character, Prussia's annexations of Polish territory in the partitions of Poland brought a large Polish population that resisted the German government and in several areas constituted the majority of the population (i.e. Province of Posen: 62% Polish, 38% German). Resulting from the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the Second Polish Republic received a large portion of the these areas, some of which had significant German minorities.

Early history

In 1226 Conrad of Mazovia invited a German Order of crusading Knights, the Order of the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, to conquer the Prussian tribes on his borders. However, during sixty years of struggles against resistance from the Prussians, they created a semi-independent state which came to control Prussia plus most of what are now Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as parts of today's northern Poland. Eventually defeated, the Knights had to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of Poland and Lithuania from 1466. The Teutonic Order state was subject to the Pope and the Emperor, who did not sanction the Peace of Toruń from 1466. In 1525 the Grand Master became a Protestant and converted part of the Order's territories into the Duchy of Prussia, the first Protestant state.

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, who was at the same time ruler of Prussia and Brandenburg, a German state centered on Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the Hohenzollern dynasty. For Hohenzollern, the newly acquired state was very important, since it spread outside the reach of the Holy Roman Empire.

Brandenburg-Prussia was succeeded by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 and the state was absorbed by the newly founded German Empire in 1871.

Anna, daughter of Duke Albrecht Friedrich of Prussia (reigned 1568-1618), married Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, who was granted the right of succession to Ducal Prussia (then a Polish fief) on his father-in-law's death in 1618. From this time the Polish fief Prussia came under the reign of the Electors of Brandenburg. Ducal Prussia stayed a fief under the Polish crown till 1660.

During the reign of Georg Wilhelm (1619-1640), the Hohenzollern lands were repeatedly marched across by various armies in the Thirty Years' War, spending much of the war occupied by Sweden.

His successor Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (1640-1688) started by feeling constrained to go to Warsaw in 1641 to render homage to Władysław IV Vasa of Poland for the Duchy of Prussia, which he held in fief from the Polish crown. But taking advantage of the difficult position of Poland with Sweden in the Northern War, and his friendly position with Russia during a series of Russo-Polish wars, Frederick William later managed to obtain a discharge of his vassal obligations, and after the Tatar invasion of Poland in 1656-57 was finally given independent control of Prussia in 1660.

However, the rights of the Polish crown to Prussia would still legally revert back if the Hohenzollern dynastic line became extinct. In 1701 his son, Friedrich III, proclaimed himself Frederick I of Prussia, and all links to Poland were removed. The first Prussian King was also the last who spoke fluent Polish. His successors spoke fluent French and German.

For more on Prussia's early history see Origins of Prussia, Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, Prussian Confederation, Duchy of Prussia, Brandenburg-Prussia and Royal Prussia.

Kingdom of Prussia

In 1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick I, with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor and Saxon Elector August the Strong, King of Poland. During this period Prussia expanded its territories to the east during the collapse of the Kingdom of Poland, partitions of Poland, between 1772 and 1795, which brought territory as far east as Warsaw under Prussian rule.

The son of Frederick I., Frederick William I of Prussia (1713-1740) - the "Soldier King", was less splendor-loving than his father, but thrifty and practically assessed. He is considered as the actual creator of Prussian bureaucracy and the standing army, which he developed to one of the most powerful in Europe.

In view of the size of the army in relation to the total population Voltaire said later: "Prussia is not a country with an Army but an Army with a country!".

In addition, the King settled more than 20,000 Salzburger, protestant faith refugees, in the thinly populated East Prussia and other regions. From Sweden it acquired 1720 Vorpommern up to the Peene.

On May 31th 1740 his son Frederick II of Prussia - later named "Frederick the Great" - ascended the throne.
As crown prince rather attached to philosophy and the beautiful arts he still let in his first government year the Prussian army march into Silesia, upon that territory the Hohenzollern raised disputed claims. In the three Silesian Wars (1740-1763) he succeeded to hold this state conquest against Austria. In the last one, the Seven-Year War (1756-1763), even against a coalition from Austria, France and Russia.

This was the beginning of Prussia's great power position in Europe and Prussian-Austrian dualism in the realm.

1744 the country of East Frisia fell to Prussia as the till then ruling dynasty of the Cirksena got extinct.

In the last 23 years of his rule till to 1786 Frederick II, who understood himself as the "first servant of the state", promoted the national development and further settling of Prussian areas, for instance the Oderbruch.
At the same time as the Prussian King was building up military power and pursuing the carving up of Poland together with Austria and Russia after that he now could be called "King of Prussia" he also opened Prussia's borders to immigrants fleeing from religious persecution in other parts of Europe, for instance the Huguenots. Prussia became a safe haven in much the same way that the ((United States]] welcomed immigrants seeking freedom in the 19th century.
Frederick the Great was an enlightened ruler. He introduced a general civil code, abolished torture and established the principle that the crown would not interfere with matters of justice. He also furthered an advanced "high school" education, forerunner of today's German gymnasium system, which prepares the brightest students for university studies.

Under Frederick William II of Prussia (1786-1797) Prussia took first part in the French Revolutionary Wars but had to left after the Peace of Basel 1795 for more than one decade.

Only as 1806 negotiations with France over the allocation of the spheres of influence in Germany failed the war started again. In the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt Prussia suffered a devastating defeat against the troops of Napoleon I. King Frederick William III (1797-1840) and its family had temporarily to flee to Memel. The state lost 1807 in the Treaties of Tilsit about half of its area, in particular the areas from the second and third Polish division, which now fell to the Duchy of Warsaw. Beyond that he had to make an alliance with France.

In response to this defeat reformers such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg went about modernizing the Prussian state - liberating the peasants from Serfdom, emancipating Jews and making them full Citizens and instituting self-administration in Municipalities. The school system was newly arranged, 1810 the Freedom of Trade was introduced. The Army reform ended 1813 with the introduction of the compulsory military service.

After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia Prussia quit the alliance and took part in the so called "Wars of Liberation" (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation.
Prussian troops under marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher contributed crucially in the Battle of Waterloo 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon.
Her reward in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland and Westphalia and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr area, centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation and particularly of the arms industry. These territorial gains also meant the population of Prussia doubled.

Prussia emerged from the Napoleonic wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria, which had given up the German imperial crown in 1806. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian sovereignty.

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 Junker) remained unbroken, especially in the eastern parts.

For more on this period see Kingdom of Prussia.

Imperial Prussia

In 1862 Prussian King Wilhelm I of Germany appointed Otto von Bismarck as Prime Minister of Prussia. 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.
As he realized that the Prussian crown could only win the support of the people if she herself took the lead in the fight for the German unification Bismarck led Prussia into three wars which brought King William the crown as the German Emperor:

German-Danish War 1864:
The king of Denmark was in personnel union also the duke of Schleswig-Holstein, both forming a unit since 1460. Only the partial Duchy Holstein belonged however to the German Confederation. The attempt of the government in Copenhagen to integrate Schleswig under exclusion of Holstein into the Danish total state led to the war of the German Confederation against the northern neighboring country under the guidance of Prussia and Austria. After its victory the Danish crown had to do without Schleswig and Holstein. Both partial Duchies were administered together now by Prussia and Austria.

Austro-Prussian War 1866:
The cause of this war were conflicts between Austria and Prussia around the administration and the future of Schleswig-Holstein. The deeper cause was however the struggle for the supremacy in Germany.
On the side of Austria stood the central German states, on the side of Prussia beside some north German states was also Italy. After Prussian troops under Helmuth von Moltke the Elder achieved the crucial victory at Königgrätz at the 3th of July 1866 Austria lost her supremacy and left the German Confederation. The Peace of Prague (1866) brought the Kingdom of Hanover to Prussia, Hesse-Kassel, the Duchy of Nassau, the free city Frankfurt and all of Schleswig-Holstein.
Thus now nearly all Prussian areas were connected with one another.

The German Confederation, which by now had factual already disintegrated was now also formally dissolved at the Peace of Prague (1866).
Already five days before Prussia as well as the countries north of the Main line created the North German Confederation. At the beginning only a military alliance the contracting parties gave it 1867 a Constitution which made Prussia the dominant federal state. Her constitution, drafted by Bismarck, prerecorded many substantial points of the Constitution of the German Reich. The King of Prussia was a president and the Prussian Prime Minister at the same time federal Chancellor of the North German Confederation.
The for the time being sovereign south German states had to be receiving protection and were made to join alliances (Trutzbündnisse) with Prussia.

Franco-Prussian War 1870/71:
Bismarck escalated the controversy with France over the Spanish throne candidacy of a catholic Hohenzollern consciously (Ems Dispatch) to provoke a declaration of war from the government of Napoleon III which allowed him to force Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Saxony to accept incorporation into a united German Empire (which excluded Austria).

Thus the German Reich in the small version had been created. In the he Hall of Mirrors to Versailles William I was proclaimed as the geman Emperor at the 18th of January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the King coronation/culmination Friedrichs I).

This was the high point of Prussia's fortunes and had the state continued to have wise leaders Prussia's economic power and political status might have made her peacefully the centre of European civilization.

Emperor Friedrich III of Germany (Hohenzollern) may have been such a man, but he was already terminally ill when be became Emperor for 99 days in 1888. He was married to Victoria, the first daughter of Queen Victoria, but their first son suffered physical and maybe mental damage during birth.
At the age of 29 Wilhelm II of Germany became Emperor after a difficult youth and conflicts with his British mother. He turned out to be a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views and poor judgement. Despite or maybe due to being a close relative to the Royals in Britain and Russia "Willy" became their rival and ultimately their enemy.
After dismissing Bismarck in 1890, who had forged alliances, Wilhelm embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into isolation and the disaster of World War I. As the price of withdrawing from the war Russia was forced to concede control of large regions of the western Russian Empire to Germany, some of which bordered Prussia, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918). However German control of these territories only lasted for a few months.

Free state Prussia (Weimar Republic)

Due to the defeat in WWI and the November Revolution of 1918/19 William II stepped down as German Emperor and King of Prussia.
With that ended the union of Prussia with the German Reich as it had existed since the time of Bismarck. The country was proclaimed as an independent Free state within the Federation of the Reich and received 1920 a democratic Constitution.

The cessions of territory of Germany specified in the contract of Versailles concerned - up to the country Alsace Lorraine formed after the French-German war - excluding Prussians territory: Eupen Malmedy went to Belgium, Nordschleswig to Denmark, the Memelland to Lithuania, the Hultschiner country to Czechoslovakia. Large parts of the areas which Prussia had received in the context of the Polish divisions as well as east Upper Silesia went to Poland. Danzig became a Free city under administration of the League of Nations.
As already before the Polish divisions East Prussia did now again not have a land connection with the remaining German Reich and could be reached only by ship (shipping service East Prussia) or by railway through the Polish corridor. Also the Saargebiet was predominantly formed from Prussians parts of the territory.

The idea of breaking up Prussia into smaller states was considered by the German government, but eventually traditionalist sentiment prevailed and Prussia became the "Prussian Free state" (Freistaat Preußen), by far the largest state of the Weimar Republic, comprising 60% of its territory. Since it included the industrial Ruhr and "Red Berlin", it became a stronghold of the left, being governed by a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Catholic Centre for most of the 1920s.

From 1919 to 1932 governed in Weimar coalitions of the SPD, Zentrum and DDP, from 1921 till 1925 extended to the DVP. Unlike other countries of the German Reich the majority of the democratic parties in Prussia was never endangered.
The from 1920 to 1932 nearly continous governing east Prussian Otto Braun is deemed till today as one of the most capable social democrats who implemented several trend setting reforms together with his Minister of the interior Carl Severing which were also models for the later Federal Republic of Germany.
For instance the constructive vote of no confidence which only allowed a deselection of the prime minister if a new one was selected at the same time. In this way the Prussian federal state government could remain as long as no new "positive majority" did form, means a majority of those opposition parties who really wanted to work together.

Most historians regard the Prussian government during this time as far more successful than that of Germany as a whole.

As a supporting pillar of the Weimar democracy Prussia was not destroyed through the voters but because of the "Preußenschlag" (Prussian coup) of the Chancellor of the Reich Franz von Papen. In this coup d'etat the government of the Reich unseated the Prussian government at the 20th of July 1932 under the pretext that it had lost the control of the public order in Prussia (the blood Sunday of Altona, Hamburg).
From the majority of the state apparatus welcomed von Papen as commissioner of the Reich took over the power in the free state of Prussia. Thereby the most important democratic government in the German Reich was now without power. The "Preußenschlag" eased then only a half year later the takeover of Adolf Hitler decisively as he had now the whole power apparatus of the Prussian government, the police for instance, at his disposal.

The end of Prussia

After the appointment of Hitler as the new Chancellor of the Reich Hermann Göring became commissioner of the Reich for the Prussian Minister of the interior.

Few weeks later, at the 21th of March 1933, the "Day of Potsdam" took place. There at the 5th of March the newly elected Reichstag was opened in the presence of the President Paul von Hindenburg in the Potsdamer Garrison Church, the burial place of the Prussian Kings. There with a propagandistic meeting between Hitler and the NSDAP the "marriage of old Prussia with young Germany" was celebrated and was meaned to win the Prussian-monarchistic Conservatives and Nationalists votes for the Enabling Act, a decision which was due two days later in the Reichstag.

In the national socialistic centralized state Prussia was now like all other remaining German countries coordinated.
The "Law about the reconstruction of the Reich ("Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches") from the 30th of January 1934 and the "Governor Law" ("Reichsstatthaltergesetz") from the 30th of January 1935 dissolved the countries if not formally but factual. The federal state governments were now controlled by governors of the Reich who were appointed by the Chancellor of the Reich. Parallel to that attained the organization into party Gaue (districts) increasingly importance as the leader of a Gau was again appointed by the Chancellor who was at the same time chief of the NSDAP.
In Prussia this anti-federalistic policy still continued even further. Since 1934 almost all ministeries were merged together. Only few offices could maintain their independence.
Governor for Prussia became formally Hitler himself. His functions were exercised however by Hermann Göring as Prussian Prime Minister.
In the course of the Greater Hamburg Law ("Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz") still certain exchanges of territory took place. Prussia was extended at the 1th of April 1937 for instance by the up to then free and hanseatic city of Lübeck. The in the Second World War annexed Polish, former Prussian, areas were predominantly not integrated into the adjacent Prussia, but assigned to separate Gaue of the Reich.

With the end of the National Socialist rule, the allocation of Germany into Zones of occupation and the transfer of everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, including Silesia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg and East Prussia, which was included within the new borders of Poland (with the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, going to the Soviet Union; today it is a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland), an estimated number of ten million Germans fled or were expelled from these territories as a part of the German exodus from Eastern Europe.

With the Law #46 from the 25th of February 1947 the Allied Control Council decided also formally the dissolution of the remaining Prussian state since it was seen at this time responsible for the first and Second World War and a "stronghold" of the "German militarism". The Control Council resolution misjudged the constitutional traditions of the country just like the fact that it had been in the Weimar Republic till to the "Preußenschlag" a bulwark of the democracy in Germany.

In the Soviet Zone of occupation, which became East Germany in 1949, the former Prussian territories were reorganised into the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, with the remaining parts of Pomerania going to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These states were abolished in 1952 in favor of districts, but recreated after the fall of communism in 1990.
In the Western Zones of occupation, which became West Germany in 1949, they were divided up among North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein (with Baden-Württemberg taking the territory of the Hohenzollern).

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a small number of ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan have begun to settle in the Kaliningrad exclave of the Russian Federation, once northern East Prussia, as part of the migration influx into the area, which was previously a restricted area (closed city). As of 2005, about 6,000 (0.6% of population) ethnic Germans, mostly from other parts of Russia, live there. Most Russian Germans preferred to leave for Germany.

Prussia today

Traces of the former dominant position of Prussia in Germany can be seen even today:

• Federation:
  • Berlin became the German capital, since it was before already the capital of Prussia.
  • The Prussian war honor of the Iron Cross is - in modified form - the symbol of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces of Germany).
  • Separating Austria from the German nation in the course of the establishment of the German national state 1871 is based on Prussian politics.

• Countries:
  • After the reunification in 1990 a plan was developed to merge the countries of Berlin and Brandenburg. The suggestion arose to call the new country Prussia, the submitted name however was "Berlin-Brandenburg". This was rejected in 1996 by popular vote.
  • The country Saxony-Anhalt is at present the only one whose coat of arms contains the Prussian eagle. Besides the large coat of arms of Baden-Württemberg contains still the coat of arms of the Hohenzollern.
  • The Prussian model was relevant for a multiplicity of political institutions on regional level, as for instance prime minister, governmental district, country council, and district office for instance.

• Churches:
  • The union of the Evangelist Churches developed from the Evangelist Church of the union, a Church Federation of the old Prussian Evangelist regional Churches.

• Culture:
  • The "Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz" covers one of the largest and most universal collection complexes of the world.

• Games:
  • In the famous computer game "Civilization IV" by Sid Meier the leaders of Germany are represented by two Prussian personalities: Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and King Frederick the Great

• Sport:
  • Preußen (Münster) or latin Borussia (Dortmund), Mönchengladbach are famous german soccer teams.
  • Beyond that the German national soccer teams play in the Prussian national colors black and white.

• Color:
  • Prussian Blue

• Places:
  • City "Preußisch Oldendorf", district Minden-Lübbecke
  • Station "Preußen" near Dortmund

• Surname:
  The members of the former ruling Prussian King house carry the name prince of Prussia (not Hohenzollern).

See also

• Otto von Bismarck
• Carl von Clausewitz
• Origins of Prussia
• Prussian people
• Prussian Secret Police
• Brandenburg
• Brandenburg-Prussia
• Ducal Prussia
• Royal Prussia
• East Prussia
• Franco-Prussian War
• Hohenzollern
• List of Kings of Prussia
• List of provinces of Prussia
• Masuria
• Nadruvia
• New East Prussia
• Prime Minister of Prussia
• Prussian Minister of War
• Southern Prussia
• Warmia
• West Prussia
• Crusader states
• Drang nach Osten
• Old Prussian language

External links

• Preussen.de
• East and West Prussia Gazetteer
• 1570 map of Germany and Prussia plus details
• Map of Pomerania and Prussia 1598
• 1660 map of Prussia 1660
• map of Prussian Provinces
• Partial Map of Prussia by Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive cosmographica., Amsterdam 1594
• Partial Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629
• Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th c.
• Map of Prussia by K. Henneberger in: Christoph Hartknoch, Alt- und neues Preussen..., Frankfurt 1684
• Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.
• Map of East Prussia K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogów ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles removed Memel area from Germany.
• Prussian Army
• Prussian language discussion forum
• Kingdom of Prussia: Constitutional charter for the "Prussian State" ("Revised Constitution" of 31th January 1850, in full text)
• Constitutional charter for the "Prussian State" ["Imposed Constitution of 5th December 1848, in full text)

Template:Link FA

• Former monarchies
• Kingdom of Prussia
• Former countries in Europe
• States of the Holy Roman Empire
• History of Prussia