Prussia
(1618-1871: Preußen)
When Germany unified there were four kingdoms, Prussia being the most powerful. The other kingdoms were Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg. Napoleon had elevated these three to kingdoms as a reward for joining the Rhine Alliance (Rheinbund). Bismarck used to facetiously refer to them as Kingdoms of Napoleon’s Mercy. Each had its own king, its own army, and its own war minister.
Prussia was the largest of the German kingdoms, the most populous, and the most important state of the German Empire. The Hohenzollerns were the ruling family. In 1618, the merger of the Markgraviate (Markgrafschaft) of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia, led to the formation of the double state, the Electorate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia, the latter renamed in 1701 as the Kingdom of Prussia. The Brandenburg Hohenzollerns joined the reformation as Lutherans and later turned to Calvinism. Prussia was a member state of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866. After the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia became the leading member state of the North German Confederation in 1867 and then a member state of the Imperial German Empire in 1871.
It is easy to get confused when discussing the kings of Prussia. Remember that Prussia had a hereditary monarchy along the male line of the Hohenzollerns. As you follow the generations, you will also see that the Hohenzollerns were related by marriage to many of the royal families in the other German states. Fredrick the Great (Fredrick II) ruled from May 1740–August 1786 and was married to Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern.
He was followed by his nephew, Friedrich Wilhelm II (August 1786–November 1797), whose love life was legendary. His son, Friedrich Wilhelm III succeeded him (November 1797–June 1840). Friedrich Wilhelm III had ten children with Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; their daughter was the Tsarina Alexandra. After Louise’s death, he entered into a morganatic marriage with Auguste von Harrach. It was Friedrich Wilhelm III who led Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV (the son of Friedrich Wilhelm III) was king from June 1840–January 1861. He was married to Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria and was a member of the Lutheran Church. He created a new constitution with two chambers but retained much of the power to himself.
Wilhelm I, the second son of Friedrich Wilhelm III (and Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s brother), became regent for Friedrich Wilhelm IV (who had suffered a stroke) from October 1858 until the monarch’s death in 1861. Wilhelm I was King of Prussia during the wars against Denmark, Austria, and France and was married to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Their only daughter became Louise, Grand Duchess of Baden. He was declared the first German Kaiser in 1871 and ruled until 9 March 1888. This was the grandfather of the wartime Kaiser and was declared “Wilhelm the Great” by his grandson.
His son, Friedrich III, who had been Crown Prince for 27 years, ascended the throne as the second Kaiser for only 99 days, 9 March 1888–15 June 1888, succumbing to throat cancer. His famous saying, “Lerne Leiden ohne zu klagen,” roughly translated was, “Learn to suffer without complaining.” Friedrich III had married Princess Victoria, the oldest daughter of Queen Victoria. Both shared a liberal and England-friendly ideology, and there has been much speculation that the Great War could have been avoided had he reigned for a longer time.
Friedrich III’s son, Wilhelm II (Friedrich Victor Wilhelm Albert Hohenzollern), became the third and last Kaiser and King of Prussia. He took over 15 June 1888 and abdicated 9 November 1918. Wilhelm was the eldest child of Friedrich III and Victoria, and during a breech birth he suffered an injury to his left arm. There is some speculation that he may have suffered light brain damage as well. Any pictures of him are posed to hide the deformity. Wilhelm was married to Auguste Victoria, Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg and they had seven children—six sons and one daughter. Upon his abdication, the family fled to the Netherlands, where he lived until his death. During their exile, Auguste Victoria died after suffering through her youngest son’s divorce and subsequent suicide. Wilhelm II then married Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz. She was the daughter of Heinrich XXII, Prince of Reuss-Greiz and his wife, Princess Ida of Schaumburg-Lippe. Attempts to extradite him and try him for war crimes did not succeed.
Prussia had two houses of parliament. The king alone exercised the executive power, had the supreme command of the army, and was head of the protestant church; however, the king shared the legislative power with the Prussian parliament. The legislative assembly or Landtag consisted of two chambers. The consent of both houses, as well as the king, was required before a measure could pass. The chambers had control of the finances and controlled taxes. The upper chamber, Herrenhaus, contained both hereditary and non-hereditary members. The hereditary members were the adult princes of the house of Hohenzollern, the important princes and counts of the old imperial nobility, and the heads of the great territorial nobility. The non-hereditary members were chosen for life by the king from the ranks of the rich landowners and manufacturers. The elevation into the Herrenhaus was usually accompanied by granting the honorary title of a Kommerzienrat (Commercial Counselor); sometimes elevation to nobility followed soon after. The lower house, or Abgeordnetenhaus, consisted of 433 members who were elected for periods of five years by indirect suffrage that included all male citizens who were at least 25. This system used the Prussian three-tier system of elections. Based on the election of 1908, if all of the votes had been of equal value, the Social Democrats would have had 113 of 443 seats. With the three-tier system, the SPD won only seven.
Imperial Germany’s national identity was built on the nobility. The noble families east of the Elbe River originally founded Prussia. Collectively, they became known as Junkers, a well-worn word that few people truly understand. They were the landed nobility—people who generated their income from the land and the estates that they owned. They had many privileges including a great deal of control over of the accession of officers into the military.
The three-tiered system of voting that the Junkers wielded inside the kingdom of Prussia was enormously influential. Basically, all male voters over the age of 25 were divided into three classes based on the amount of tax revenue they provided. The richest five percent, which included the Junkers, was Class One. The next richest 15 percent was Class Two. The remaining 80 percent was Class Three. Each class had an equal share of the vote for representatives to the Landtag or Prussian territorial parliament—the top five percent had as much clout as the bottom 80 percent; however, only 20 percent of the possible voters in Class Three turned out to vote.
Obviously, the Junkers were not willing to cede this advantage, as the Landtag was responsible for legislation covering commerce, tariffs, and banking. They benefited disproportionately from the tariff protectionism especially in the 1890s. The three-tiered system of voting kept the Class One members in charge of the Kingdom of Prussia. In exchange for these privileges, the Junkers were to give blind loyalty and fealty to the King of Prussia. When the King of Prussia became the Kaiser under the Kleindeutschland unification, the power of the Junkers grew. In 1894, these estate holders did support the founding of an agrarian league, but they supported neither socialism nor the mechanized wonders of the Industrial Revolution. As rural landowners, they distrusted workers in the big cities.
It is essential to remember that the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire were separate entities. The King of Prussia was at the same time German Emperor, and the Prime Minister of Prussia was also the imperial Chancellor. The ministries of war and foreign affairs were the same as those of the empire. It was sometimes difficult to determine which hat the individual was wearing. The imperial government administered the customs, postal, and telegraph services. Prussia had seventeen votes in the Bundesrat and sent more than half of the members to the Reichstag. Many individuals were deputies of both the imperial and Prussian parliaments. The imperial Reichstag and Prussian Landtagwere often in session at the same time, and legislation in the Kingdom was often accorded a lower priority The Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia often shared diplomats.
The population in 1914 was 42.1 million, of whom 68 percent was Protestant. Prussia comprised 12 separate provinces that were internal parts of the Kingdom of Prussia. Frequently they are confused with separate states. This is especially true of the Prussian state of Saxony, which was adjacent to the Kingdom of Saxony. The kingdom was 348,657 km². The capital of the Kingdom of Prussia was Berlin.