History UsefulNotes / Prussia

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 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]]

Prussians historically, right from the time of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights to UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat tended to see the East as their Wild West, to which they felt they had their own "Manifest Destiny." King Frederick justified the destruction of the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth (which he masterminded) by dismissing its citizens as "slovenly Polish trash" no different from the Iroquois of the New World (whom he had read about eagerly) and as such similarly entitled to zero claims of land and citizenship. Ideas of settling Eastern Europe and the Borderlands underpinned UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, with many Prussian Junckers refusing to allow land reform policies (that would involve losing their large manorial estates) by insisting on encouraging settlements and expansionist wars in the East. The difference between such plans and the form they took in the Nazi era is one of degree but ''not'' of kind. Some Prussian aristocrats and military men saw their project as benevolent ''mission civilisatrice'' and many believed that if they handled their policies properly then the Slavic peoples could be assimilated into their culture as second-class citizens, whereas the Nazis saw them as subhumans (''Untermenschen'') who could be exterminated without remorse. Indeed the Nazis noted that there were no war crimes in the East because there were no human beings living there, only subhumans. In any case it all came for naught. When the Communists came to power in UsefulNotes/EastGermany they enacted land reform and broke up the Junkers' large manorial estates; these policies remain in effect as a result of the Final Treaty signed by the BRD and USSR with descendants of old Junkers failing to get compensation.

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]]". When it was suggested in 2002 that the name be revived for a proposed merger of Berlin and Brandenburg, one German historian even went so far as to declare that "Prussia poisons us".

->''Ist er's geworden, dankt er Gott.''[[note]] "Nobody becomes a Prussian but from need, Once he's become one he thanks God."[[/note]]

Another notable Prussian was UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, exemplar of GermanicEfficiency with a Magnificent Hat to prove it. He is at Number 9 on Germany's list of its top 200, because we all love a Magnificent Bastard. [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning Despite his being deceased this is undoubtedly part of his plan. Just what part, we may never know.]]

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'': Prussia (real name: Gilbert Bellschmidt) is one of the more prominent characters. He has a rough relationship with Germany, Austria and Hungary, but it evolves into a softer one as he shows his JerkWithAHeartOfGold side later on.
* 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.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Prussians were committed initially to a policy of reactionary stability, opposing German nationalism, mostly because Prussians saw German nationalism as a reduction of Prussian interests and they were especially opposed to the land reform policies and democratization which they saw as the source of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic catastrophe. They were committed to reforms and modernization schemes so long as they put Prussian interest first. This involved the creation of the Customs' Union, and much later, their co-opting of German Unification under Bismarck, after opposing it during the UsefulNotes/RevolutionsOf1848. The Prussian version of German Unification specifically excluded Austria, ostensibly because [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austria was attached to a non-German empire]]; a united Germany would need to consist ''solely'' of Germans and the Habsburg dynasty was obviously never going to relinquish that empire. The real reason of course was that Austria was the only other German state large enough and rich enough to challenge Prussia for preeminence within a unified Germany. With the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871 at the Palace of Versailles, Prussia became the part of the new Germany. Many scholars have plausibly argued that Germany was not unified at all, but merely "Prussianized".

The Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown in the closing days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, and Germany was forced by the Allies 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.

After UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown and Germany was forced by the Allies 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 the direct control of von Papen.

After UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown and Germany was forced by the Allies 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, short-lived, Free State of Danzig) physically separated from the rest of Germany by a small strip of land known as the Polish Corridor, the existence of which was one of the many many factors that led [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler that Austrian guy with the Chaplin moustache]] and [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany his friends]] to start another war. It didn't end well. Germany was utterly defeated, and the occupying Allies enacted a law abolishing Prussia on the premise that it was the primary source of militarism within Germany.

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 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 the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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]]

Prussians historically, right from the time of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights to UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat tended to see the East as their Wild West, to which they felt they had their own manifest destiny. King Frederick justified the destruction of the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth (which he masterminded) by dismissing its citizens as "slovenly Polish trash" no different from the Iroquois of the New World (whom he had read about eagerly) and as such similarly entitled to zero claims of land and citizenship. Ideas of settling Eastern Europe and the Borderlands underpinned UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, with many Prussian Junckers refusing to allow land reform policies (that would involve losing their large manorial estates) by insisting on encouraging settlements and expansionist wars in the East. The difference between such plans and the form they took in the Nazizeit is one of degree but ''not'' of kind. Some Prussian aristocrats and military men saw their project as benevolent ''mission civilisatrice'' and many believed that if they handled their policies properly then the Slavic peoples could be assimilated into their culture as second-class citizens, whereas the Nazis saw them as subhumans (''Untermenschen'') who could be exterminated without remorse. Indeed the Nazis noted that there were no war crimes in the East because there were no human beings living there, only subhumans. In any case it all came for naught. When the Communists came to power in UsefulNotes/EastGermany they enacted land reform and broke up the Junkers' large manorial estates; these policies remain in effect as a result of the Final Treaty signed by the BRD and USSR with descendants of old Junkers failing to get compensation.

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'': Prussia (real name: Gilbert Bellschmidt) is one of the more prominent characters.

* ''AxisPowersHetalia'': Prussia (real name: Gilbert Bellschmidt) is one of the more prominent characters.

Prussians historically, right from the time of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights to UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat tended to see the East as their Wild West, to which they felt they had their own manifest destiny. King Frederick justified the destruction of the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth (which he masterminded) by dismissing its citizens as "slovenly Polish trash" no different from the Iroquois of the New World (whom he had read about eagerly) and as such similarly entitled to zero claims of land and citizenship. Ideas of settling Eastern Europe and the Borderlands underpinned UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, with many Prussian Junckers refusing to allow land reform policies (that would involve losing their large manorial estates) by insisting on encouraging settlements and expansionist wars in the East. The difference between such plans and the form they took in the Nazizeit is one of degree but ''not'' of kind. Some Prussian aristocrats and military men saw their project as benevolent ''mission civilisatrice'' and many believed that if they handled their policies properly then the Slavic peoples could be assimilated into their culture as second-class citizens, whereas the Nazis saw them as subhumans (''Untermenschen'') who could be exterminated without remorse. Indeed the Nazis noted that there were no war crimes in the East because there were no human beings living there, only subhumans. In any case it all came for naught. When the Communists came to power in UsefulNotes/EastGermany they enacted land reform and broke up the Junkers' large manorial estates; these policies remain in effect as a result of the Final Treaty signed by the BDR and USSR with descendants of old Junkers failing to get compensation.

Another notable Prussian was UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, exemplar of GermanicEfficiency with a [[NiceHat Magnificent Hat]] to prove it. He is at Number 9 on Germany's list of its top 200, because we all love a Magnificent Bastard. [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning Despite his being deceased this is undoubtedly part of his plan. Just what part, we may never know.]]

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 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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 (''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 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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). 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]]

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Prussians were committed initially to a policy of reactionary stability, opposing German nationalism, mostly because Prussians saw German nationalism as a reduction of Prussian interests and they were especially opposed to the land reform policies and democratization which they saw as the source of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic catastrophe. They were committed to reforms and modernization schemes so long as they put Prussian interest first. This involved the creation of the Customs' Union, and much later, their co-opting of German Unification under Bismarck, after opposing it during the UsefulNotes/RevolutionsOf1848. With the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871 at the Palace of Versailles, Prussia became the part of the new Germany. Many scholars have plausibly argued that Germany was not unified at all, but merely "Prussianized".

After UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown and Germany was forced by the Allies 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, short-lived, Free State of Danzig) physically separated from the rest of Germany by a small strip of land known as the Polish Corridor, the existence of which was one of the many many factors that led [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler that Austrian guy with the Chaplin moustache]] and [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany his friends]] to start another war. It didn't end well.

After UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Hohenzollern monarchy was overthrown and Germany was forced by the Allies 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, short-lived, Free State of Danzig) physically separated from the rest of Germany by a small strip of land known as the Polish Corridor, the existence of which was one of the many many factors that led [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler that Austrian guy with the Chaplin moustache]] and [[ThoseWackyNazis his friends]] to start another war. It didn't end well.

Earlier on, Prussia's dominance was built in the 18th century on its trademark [[BadassArmy militarism]], which was summarized by Georg Heinrich Berenhort, an adjutant to King Frederick (popularly misattributed to [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolutionMajorFigures Comte de Mirabeau]]) in the witticism, "some countries possess armies, but Prussia is an [[ProudWarriorRace army that happens to possess a country]] in which it was merely quartered, so to speak." This reached its height in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar, when Prussia essentially stood alone (heavily subsidized by Great Britain) against Austria, Saxony, Russia, France and Sweden. All at once. And not only survived, but kept all of its pre-war territory. This was achieved not merely by skill but also out of sheer luck, as the Russian empress died during the middle of the war and her throne passed to a Prussophile nephew and later to [[UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat his "grieving" widow]] who had no interest in pursuing Austria's war. That's why [[UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat Frederick II]] is called [[TheMagnificent the Great]]. Their elan fell during the UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution and its military reforms, which eventually led to UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte completely smashing it flat in 1806. In response to Napoleon, the Prussians made a number of reforms inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon, and once again subsidized and aided by Britain and Russia, they bounced BackFromTheBrink. The 1813 Battle of Leipzig, or Battle of the Nations, was the largest military battle in Europe prior to World War II and it was the first time Napoleon at the height of his prowess and skill suffered a major defeat in battle, one from which he never recovered. The Prussians also served as TheCavalry during the Battle of Waterloo, and some Prussians and Germans complain about Britain downplaying their contribution in UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars (in a manner similar to how people from former Soviet countries complain about AmericaWonWorldWarII).

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 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism as a large part of what had gone wrong with Germany and thus dismembered its territory.[[note]]Perhaps surprisingly, it was the Soviet Union that had the ''least'' interest in abolishing Prussia, despite it having been a traditional enemy of Russia.[[/note]] 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). 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 (''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. Brandenburg, Prussia was the location of the German capital, Berlin. From 1701 until 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism as a large part of what had gone wrong with Germany and thus dismembered its territory.[[note]]Perhaps surprisingly, it was the Soviet Union that had the ''least'' interest in abolishing Prussia, despite it having been a traditional enemy of Russia.[[/note]] 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). 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]]

[[quoteright:300:[[CoolHat https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wilhelmiifb1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300: Iron Kingdom]]

* 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.

Also see UsefulNotes/PrussianKings and, for what remains of Prussia, the Brandenburg section in UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland. Compare and contrast UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany. Also related to {{Kaiserreich}}.
Wilhelm II, pictured, Kaiser (German Emperor) and King of Prussia from 1888 to 1918, is probably the most famous Prussian in popular imagination, mostly for being the [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade "bad guy"]] of WWI. Well, he ''did'' show up in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' once.

After the Nazis started enjoying military success, the Prussian officer class had mixed but mostly positive feelings. However a good contingent of them, known to history as Operation Valkyrie, turned on Hitler, perceiving him to be increasingly irrational and privately disagreeing with some of the policies of the genocide (but ''not'' all). The famous July 1944 assassination plot which came the closest among many to killing Hitler was led by Prussian aristocrats, and this has allowed them in the post-war era and in recent times to get a HistoricalHeroUpgrade and a potential correction to the NaziNobleman image. The truth of the matter is that the Valkyrie plotters and the aristocrats were mostly war criminals themselves (one of them served with the Einsatzgruppen death squads) and there isn't sufficient evidence to suggest that their assassination attempt was motivated by humanitarian concerns or guilt about the genocide. The little we know of their plan suggests that they intended to force a peace with the Western allies to prolong the illegal war in the East as well as protect and expand their imperialist plans to extend German borders eastwards. Recent documents reveal that this assassination attempt only strengthened Hitler's popularity and support and it hardened the loyalty of the German people to back the Fuhrer to the bitter end (as compared to Mussolini and Vichy France whose peoples rose up spontaneously with the arrival of the Allies).

Earlier on, Prussia's dominance was built in the 18th century on its trademark [[BadassArmy militarism]], which was summarized by Georg Heinrich Berenhort, an adjutant to King Frederick (popularly misattributed to [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolutionMajorFigures Comte de Mirabeau]]) in the witticism, "some countries possess armies, but Prussia is an [[ProudWarriorRace army that happens to possess a country]] in which it was merely quartered, so to speak." This reached its height in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar, when Prussia essentially stood alone (heavily subsidized by Great Britain) against Austria, Saxony, Russia, France and Sweden. All at once. And not only survived, but kept all of its pre-war territory. This was achieved not merely by skill but also out of sheer luck, as the Russian empress died during the middle of the war and her throne passed to a Prussophile nephew and later to [[UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat his "grieving" widow]] who had no interest in pursuing Austria's war. That's why [[UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat Frederick II]] is called [[TheMagnificent the Great]]. Their elan fell during the UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution and its military reforms, which eventually led to UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte completely smashing it flat in 1806. In response to Napoleon, the Prussians made a number of reforms inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon, and once again subsidized and aided by Britain and Russia, they bounced back BackFromTheBrink. The 1813 Battle of Leipzig, or Battle of the Nations, was the largest military battle in Europe prior to World War II and it was the first time Napoleon at the height of his prowess and skill suffered a major defeat in battle, one from which he never recovered. The Prussians also served as TheCavalry during the Battle of Waterloo, and some Prussians and Germans complain about Britain downplaying their contribution in UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars (in a manner similar to how people from former Soviet countries complain about AmericaWonWorldWarII).

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. Brandenburg, Prussia was the location of the German capital, Berlin. From 1701 until 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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). 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]]

Some historians have tried to correct this view. Christopher Clark in ''Iron Kingdom'' rejected it as a caricature of Prussia as a "termite-state", arguing in favor of a long tradition of intellectual inquiry, scientific progress, and political tolerance. For instance, during the Catholic-Protestant convulsions that seized Europe in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries it even had a reputation for taking in refugees, such as Huguenots from France, Brethren from the Czech-speaking parts of Austria, and Lutherans from the bishopric of Salzburg. The view of Prussia as inherently authoritarian or that its path to modernization was inevitable or inherent in the system does not sit well with contemporary academics inspired by {{Postmodernism}} who generally reject such models. More contentious, however, is the question of Prussia's and UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany's responsibility for UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In general those who argue in favor of the Sonderweg agree that Imperial Germany and Prussia were responsible for the outbreak of the war and that they hold primal agency for the outbreak of the conflict. Clark's follow-up book, ''The Sleepwalkers'', largely absolves Imperial Germany from primary responsibility by focusing on collective guilt, and while this book was popular in the Anglosphere (where unfamiliarity with Prussia and Eastern European politics makes them favor collective guilt) it was criticized by historians such as Hans-Ullrich Wehler and Volker Ullrich who noted that Clark rejected the great documentary evidence that showed that Imperial Germany did launch a war of aggression by escalating the Balkan crisis. Likewise, they note that during the Weimar era, many documents and archives were altered and doctored to downplay German guilt, and that the idea of "collective guilt" was encouraged by the Weimar Republic as a PR campaign to cultivate sympathy in the West and to pacify the interests of Junkers who were not fully on board with the democracy. Aside from the "collective guilt" premise, some of those arguing against Prussian (and more generally, German) responsibility for World War I instead assign blame to ''Russia'', a premise which predictably gains more approval whenever there's increased animosity between Russia and the rest of Europe.

'''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. Brandenburg, Prussia was the location of the German capital, Berlin. From 1701 until 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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). 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]]

Some historians have tried to correct this view. Christopher Clark in ''Iron Kingdom'' rejected it as a caricature of Prussia as a "termite-state", arguing in favor of a long tradition of intellectual inquiry, scientific progress, and political tolerance. For instance, during the Catholic-Protestant convulsions that seized Europe in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries it even had a reputation for taking in refugees, such as Huguenots from France, Brethren from the Czech-speaking parts of Austria, and Lutherans from the bishopric of Salzburg. The view of Prussia as inherently authoritarian or that its path to modernization was inevitable or inherent in the system does not sit well with contemporary academics inspired by {{Postmodernism}} who generally reject such models. More contentious, however, is the question of Prussia's and UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany's responsibility for UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In general those who argue in favor of the Sonderweg agree that Imperial Germany and Prussia were responsible for the outbreak of the war and that they hold primal agency for the outbreak of the conflict. Clark's follow-up book, ''The Sleepwalkers'', largely absolves Imperial Germany from primary responsibility by focusing on collective guilt, and while this book was popular in the Anglosphere (where unfamiliarity with Prussia and Eastern European politics makes them favor collective guilt) it was criticized by historians such as Hans-Ullrich Wehler and Volker Ullrich who noted that Clark rejected the great documentary evidence that showed that Imperial Germany did launch a war of aggression by escalating the Balkan crisis. Likewise, they note that during the Weimar era, many documents and archives were altered and doctored to downplay German guilt, and that the idea of "collective guilt" was encouraged by the Weimar Republic as a PR campaign to cultivate sympathy in the West and to pacify the interests of Junkers who were not fully on board with the democracy.

Another notable Prussian was UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, a real-life MagnificentBastard and exemplar of GermanicEfficiency with a [[NiceHat Magnificent Hat]] to prove it. He is at Number 9 on Germany's list of its top 200, because we all love a Magnificent Bastard. [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning Despite his being deceased this is undoubtedly part of his plan. Just what part, we may never know.]]

'''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. Brandenburg, Prussia was the location of the German capital, Berlin. From 1701 until 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" [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad sounded too French]]. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Prussia ceased to exist because the four Allied powers, in their bid to destroy the Third Reich and its legacy, laid blame on Prussia and its miltarism 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). The Germans 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]]

Earlier on, Prussia's dominance was built in the eighteenth century on its trademark [[BadassArmy militarism]], which was summarized by Georg Heinrich Berenhort, an adjutant to King Frederick (popularly misattributed to [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolutionMajorFigures Comte de Mirabeau]]) in the witticism, "some countries possess armies, but Prussia is an [[ProudWarriorRace army that happens to possess a country]] in which it was merely quartered, so to speak." This reached its height in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar, when Prussia essentially stood alone (heavily subsidized by Great Britain) against Austria, Saxony, Russia, France and Sweden. All at once. And not only survived, but kept all of its pre-war territory. This was achieved not merely by skill but also out of sheer luck, as the Russian empress died during the middle of the war and her throne passed to a Prussophile nephew and later to [[UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat his "grieving" widow]] who had no interest in pursuing Austria's war. That's why [[UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat Frederick II]] is called [[TheMagnificent the Great]]. Their elan fell during the UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution and its military reforms, which eventually led to UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte completely smashing it flat in 1806. In response to Napoleon, the Prussians made a number of reforms inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon, and once again subsidized and aided by Britain and Russia, they bounced back BackFromTheBrink. The 1813 Battle of Leipzig, or the the Battle of the Nations, was the largest military battle in Europe before World War II and it was the first time Napoleon at the height of his prowess and skill suffered a major defeat in battle, one from which he never recovered. The Prussians also served as TheCavalry during the Battle of Waterloo, and some Prussians and Germans often complain about Britain downplaying its contribution in UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars (in a manner with some similarities to how USSR complains about AmericaWonWorldWarII).

Incidentally, while many in the Nazi top leadership had a big nostalgia for the glory days of the Prussian-run Empire and of the Prussian military, most of these men, including Hitler, weren't Prussian at all: they were predominantly southerners (or Austrians like Hitler). Furthermore, while they both supported the idea of a powerful German empire, the Nazis largely had nothing but contempt for the Prussian aristocracy, albeit because they lost the First World War and not out of dislike for their history, their culture, or ethos. "Prussiandom" as a concept, as an ideology, and as a national identity had by then become so ephemeral as to be claimed by a very diverse range of individuals with very diverse hopes and fears. Despite their famous and well-deserved authoritarian and anti-democratic reputation, it would not be precise to assume that all of the Prussian aristocrats were entirely in synch with Nazism. They were in synch with the anti-semitism, the genocide of the Jews, the Roma, the Homosexuals, the Communists, they were especially on board with the Drang nach Osten and Generalplan Ost and the open season for war crimes. But despite that, a few of them, privately and publicly disliked the populist and demagogic nature of Nazism albeit they generally agreed they were preferable to the Social Democrats, Catholics, Socialists and especially the Communists. When the Nazis came to power, they seeking to build a more dynamic and up-to-date military institution limited much of the aristocratic officer corps' power, rightly seeing them as relics incapable of practicing what they had preached all along.

After the Nazis started enjoying military success, the Prussian officer class had mixed but mostly positive feelings. However a good contingent of them, known to history as Operation Valkyrie, turned on Hitler, perceiving him to be increasingly irrational, privately disagreeing with some of the policies of the genocide (but ''not'' all). The famous July 1944 Assassination plot which came the closest among many in killing Hitler, was led by Prussian aristocrats, and this has lent them in the Post-War era and in recent times, to get a HistoricalHeroUpgrade and a potential correction on the NaziNobleman image. The truth of the matter is that the Valkyrie plotters and the aristocrats were mostly war criminals themselves (One of them served with the Einsatzgruppen death squads) and there's no sufficient evidence to suggest that their assassination attempt was motivated by humanitarian concerns or guilt about the genocide. The little we know of their plan suggests that they intended to force a peace with the Western allies to prolong the illegal war in the East as well as protect and expand their imperialist plans to extend German borders eastwards. Recent documents reveal that this assassination attempt only strengthened Hitler's popularity and support and it hardened the loyalty of the German people to back the Fuhrer to the bitter end (as compared to Mussolini and Vichy France whose peoples rose up spontaneously with the arrival of the Allies).

Prussians historically, right from the time of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights to UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat tended to see the East as their wild west, to which they felt they had their own manifest destiny. King Frederick justified the destruction of the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth (which he masterminded) by dismissing its citizens as "slovenly Polish trash" no different from the Iroquois of the New World (which he had read about eagerly) and as such similarly entitled to zero claims of land and citizenship. Ideas of settling Eastern Europe and the Borderlands underpinned UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, with many Prussian Junckers refusing to allow land reform policies (that would involve losing their large manorial estates) by insisting on encouraging settlements and expansionist wars in the East. The difference between such plans and the manner in which this form took in the Nazizeit is one of degree but ''not'' of kind. Some Prussian aristocrats and militarymen saw their project as benevolent mission civilisatrice and many believed that if they handled their policies properly then the slavic and Russian peoples could be assimilated into their culture as second-class citizens, whereas the Nazis saw them as subhumans (untermenschen) who could be exterminated without remorse. Indeed the Nazis noted that there were no war crimes in the East because there were no human beings living there, only subhumans. In any case it all came for naught. When the Communists came to power in UsefulNotes/EastGermany they committed land reform and broke up the Junkers large manorial estates and these policies remain in effect as a result of the Final Treaty signed by BDR and USSR with descendants of old Junkers failing to get compensation.

In modern historiography, Prussia remains a controversial proposition. 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 (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 intelllectual 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]]". When it was suggested in 2002 that the name be revived for a proposed merger of Berlin and Brandenburg, one German historian even went so far as to declare "Prussia poisons us".

Some historians have tried to correct this view. Christopher Clark in ''Iron Kingdom'', rejected this view as a caricature of Prussia as a "termite-state", arguing in favor of a long tradition of intellectual inquiry, scientific progress, and political tolerance. For instance, during the Catholic-Protestant convulsions that seized Europe in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries it even had a reputation for taking in refugees, such as Huguenots from France, Brethren from the Czech-speaking parts of Austria, and Lutherans from the bishopric of Salzburg. The view of Prussia as inherently authoritarian or that its path to modernisation was inevitable or inherent in the system does not sit well with contemporary academics inspired by {{Postmodernism}} who generally reject such models. More contentious however is the question of Prussia's and UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany's responsibility for UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In general those who argue in favour of the Sonderweg agree that Imperial Germany and Prussia were responsible for the outbreak of the war and that they hold primal agency for the breakout of the conflict. Clark's follow-up book ''The Sleepwalkers'' largely absolves Imperial Germany from primary responsibility by focusing on collective guilt and while this book was popular in the Anglophone (where unfamiliarity with Prussia and Eastern European politics makes them favor collective guilt) it was criticized by historians such as Hans-Ullrich Wehler and Volker Ullrich who noted that Clark rejected the great documentary evidence that showed that Imperial Germany did launch a war of aggression by escalating the Balkan crisis. Likewise, they note that during the Weimar era, many documents and archives were altered and doctored to downplay German guilt, and that the idea of "collective guilt" was encouraged by the Weimar Republic as a PR campaign to cultivate sympathy in the West and to pacify the Junker interests who were not fully on board with the democracy.

Also see UsefulNotes/PrussianKings and for what remains of Prussia, the Brandenburg section on UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland. Compare and contrast UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany. Also related to {{Kaiserreich}}.
Wilhelm II, pictured, Kaiser (German Emperor) and King of Prussia from 1888 to 1918 is probably the most famous Prussian in popular imagination, mostly for being the [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade "bad guy"]] of WWI. Well, he ''did'' show up in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' once.