History UsefulNotes / Prussia

In modern historiography, Prussia remains a controversial subject. A lot of this is because of the Prussians themselves, who in their time described their model and approach to modernization as a ''Sonderweg'' ("special path") that was a third way between the plebeian democracy of the West (America, England, France) and the decadent autocracy of the East (the Russian Empire). Post-World War II historians reclaimed the term Sonderweg and applied it as a reason for why Germany, despite its considerable modern and intellectual advancements, became the crucible for [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the worst crimes of the 20th century]] and a refutation of all models of linear development from barbarism to civilization. Prussia came to represent everything that was wrong with German historical development: expansionist, militaristic, intolerant, reactionary yet technically competent - in essence, the land which turned Germany into the land of "judges and hangmen" after its centuries as a seat of "[[UsefulNotes/DichterAndDenker poets and philosophers]]".

Prussia (''Preußen'' in German), named after the duchy and former ''Ordenstaat'' but born of the margravate and electorate of Brandenburg (coincidentally by merging with said ''Ordenstaat'', by then secularized), historically the land of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussian_language Baltic]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussians Old Prussians]], was the descendant of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights and became the dominant state in UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} (having more than half of Germany's land area and population) by the time it was unified (by Prussia, incidentally) in 1871 after the UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar. Brandenburg, Prussia was the location of the German capital, Berlin. From 1701 until the abdication of UsefulNotes/WilhelmII at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in 1918, it was known as "The Kingdom of Prussia", and post-WWI as "The Free State of Prussia" because "republic" sounded too French. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its militarism as a large part of what had gone wrong with Germany and thus dismembered its territory. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, all of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line[[note]] plus the city of Stettin, now called Szczecin, which is actually on the west bank of the Oder but was given to Poland anyway[[/note]], most of which was Prussia, was handed over to Poland, partly to compensate her for her own territorial losses to Ukraine and Russia (the northern part of East Prussia, including its capital, went directly to the Soviets). East Germany recognized those borders in 1950 (unsurprisingly, being a satellite of the USSR and a member of the Warsaw Pact), while West Germany kept a claim on those areas until 1970, when it signed the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw. This was again confirmed with the 1992 Treaty of Good Neighbourship, which formally and finally recognized East Prussia, along with Pomerania and Silesia, as part of Poland. The area remains a part of Poland to this day, and almost everyone is happy for it to stay that way. The northern half of East Prussia, however, outlasted the USSR and remains part of Russia as the Kaliningrad Oblast, where there is still talk by some locals (odd, considering said locals are almost all Russians, or perhaps not so odd given that it's currently named after a member of Stalin's inner circle who was personally responsible for some Soviet atrocities, and post-Soviet Russia has reversed most ''other'' Stalin-era renamings) to rename the titular city back to Königsberg.[[note]] For what it's worth, the local slang term for the city in Russian is ''Kyonig'', an obvious call-back to its original name.[[/note]]

* Prussia is one of the playable nations in ''VideoGame/CossacksEuropeanWars'' and its expansions, centering around the 17th and 18th centuries. The expansion ''The Art of War'' has a Prussian campaign set during the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar in particular. The battle in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} that took place in October 1760 [[AlternateHistory can actually be won]] there.

* There was a big trend of historical "Prussian Films" in Germany between the early 1920s and 1945. A number of them had actor Otto Gebühr starring as King Frederick II the Great (it helped that he looked a lot like the king). Those made in UsefulNotes/NaziGermany served as [[PropagandaMachine propaganda pieces]] for the ''Führerprinzip'' (full obedience to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler) and such. The very last of them is ''Film/{{Kolberg}}''.

The Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown in the closing days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, and the victorious Allied powers forced Germany to give up a significant chunk of its eastern territory to the newly-recreated state of Poland[[note]] Territories lost to Poland were Posen and a small bit of Silesia (both of which had Polish majorities), as well as West Prussia (which had a Polish-speaking majority, although it should be noted that in places where referendums were held many Polish-speakers voted to stay with Germany and Prussia). Germany was forced to give up West Prussia mostly because the League of Nations wanted Poland to have a seaport (the major port in the area, Danzig, was almost entirely German at the time, and despite the Versailles Treaty legally separating it from the rest of Germany, had zero desire to become part of Poland)[[/note]]. This left East Prussia and the old imperial capital Königsberg (plus the neighbouring “Free City” of Danzig, legally under League of Nations oversight) physically separated from the rest of Germany by a small strip of land known as the Polish Corridor; anger over these territorial losses were part of what undermined support for the democratic UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic. In spite of these losses, Prussia remained the largest state in Germany, comprising a majority of both its population and territory. Notably (and in contrast to its authoritarian history), Prussia was regarded as the largest bastion of liberal democracy within Weimar Germany, and the democratic parties held nearly-uninterrupted control of its state government until 1932. This was ended by federal chancellor Franz von Papen’s [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Prussian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat coup]], which placed Prussia under his direct control.