X-Nico

38 unusual facts about Prussia


Anton von Schmerling

This brought him into opposition to the party of Prussian supremacy; and when they attained a majority, he resigned, and was succeeded by Heinrich von Gagern.

After the abortive election of king Frederick William IV of Prussia to be emperor, he, with the other Austrians, left Frankfurt.

Bernhard Heinrich Overberg

The village schools at that time were very poor; in Prussia a number of discharged non-commissioned officers made a pretence of teaching, while in Westphalia, mere day labourers wielded the "stick" (of class discipline).

Bowman Malcolm

Two-cylinder von Borries compound locomotives had been performing sterling service on express trains in Prussia.

Budjak

Budjak was also home to a number of ethnic Germans known as Bessarabian Germans, originally from Württemberg and Prussia, who settled the region in the early 19th century, after it became part of the Russian Empire.

Calvörde Castle

The little town, along with several nearby villages, belonged to the castle and formed a Brunswick exclave in what later became Prussian territory.

Congress of Hanover

The Austrians were preparing for a war with Prussia in which they would need France as allies, and so they had no wish to risk offending them.

Divorce

The Enlightened absolutist, King Frederick II ("the Great") of Prussia enshrined a new divorce law in 1752, in which marriage was declared to be a purely private concern, allowing divorce to be granted on the basis of mutual consent.

Earl of Stair

He sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish Representative Peer from 1793 to 1807 and from 1820 to 1821 and also served as Ambassador to Prussia.

Emile Wauters

He received the Order of Merit of Prussia, and is Commander of the Order of Leopold, and of that of St. Michael of Bavaria, Officer of the Légion d'honneur, among other awards.

Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick

In Berlin, Ernst met and fell in love with the Emperor William II's only daughter, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia.

Bismarck did this because the duke had never formally renounced his claims to the kingdom of Hanover, which had been annexed to Prussia in 1866 following the end of the Austro-Prussian War (Hanover had sided with losing Austria).

Erwin Planck

In August 1939, a group including Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, Planck, and Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht approached General Georg Thomas, head of the Defence Economy and Armament Office asking him to do something to thwart the outbreak of the forthcoming war.

Francis Palmes

From February 1708 Palmes travelled extensively, undertaking mission to the United Provinces, Hanover, Prussia, Vienna and Savoy in order to concert measures with the allies.

François Hotman

His fame was such that overtures were made to him by the courts of Prussia and Hesse, and by Elizabeth I of England.

Germany–Greece relations

Greece and Prussia established diplomatic relations in 1834, the same year both countries exchanged embassies.

Germany–Holy See relations

In the mid-19th century, the Catholic Church was also seen as a political power, even in Protestant Prussia, exerting a strong influence on a fourth of the people.

Gertrud Elisabeth Mara

She was permanently engaged for the Prussian court in Berlin, but her marriage to a debauched celllist named Mara created difficulties, and in 1780 she was released.

Government Delegation for Poland

The Bureau's main task was to document the Polish claims on German lands east of the Oder river and the area of Prussia as well as planning of their post-war development.

Hanoverian prince

Despite Hanover's annexation by Prussia in 1866, male-line descendants of George III continue to style themselves as a prince or princess of Hanover.

Heinrich Alexander von Arnim

Heinrich Alexander (from 1841 Freiherr) von Arnim(-Suckow) (born 13 February 1798 in Berlin; died 5 January 1861 in Düsseldorf) was a Prussian statesman.

Jakob Salomon Bartholdy

Jakob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy (May 13, 1779 – July 27, 1825) was a Prussian diplomat, born Jakob Salomon in Berlin of Jewish parentage, and educated at the University of Halle.

Joe Gaetjens

His great-grandfather Thomas, a native of Bremen, had been sent to Haiti by Frederick William III, the King of Prussia, as a business emissary.

John George, Elector of Brandenburg

Upon the death of his kinsman Albert I, Duke of Prussia in 1568, the Duchy of Prussia was inherited by the latter's underage son Albert Frederick.

Kaiser-Walzer

The waltz was originally titled Hand in Hand and was intended as a toast made in August of that year by Austrian emperor Franz Josef on the occasion of his visit to the German Kaiser Wilhelm II where it was symbolic as a 'toast of friendship' extended by Austria to Germany.

Kaliopa House

According to a legend, the house was bestowed upon the beautiful Kaliopa (born Maria Kalish), the wife of the Prussian consul Kalish, by the governor of the Danubian Vilayet, Midhat Pasha, who was in love with her.

Kornel Ujejski

Ujejski was involved in Poland's struggle for independence after it had been partitioned and erased from the map of Europe by neighbouring countries (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austrian Empire).

La Terre

The war with Prussia had just broken out, and Jean, disgusted with his life, again enlisted in the service of his country.

Louis Gurlitt

Being from Holsten he chose the German side in the conflicts in 1848 and 1864, when Prussia won the war and Schleswig-Holstein which was under the reign of the Danish king.

Oxapampa

In March 1857 a group of 300 Tyrolean and Prussian settlers, consisting mainly of poor peasant families and couples who weren't allowed to marry in their home countries, boarded the “Norton” to go to Peru.

Paul Wolff Metternich

Paul Graf Wolff Metternich zur Gracht (December 5, 1853 - 1934) was a Prussian and German ambassador in London (1901-1912) and Constantinople (1915-1916).

Pontine Marshes

Near the end of the 19th century, a Prussian officer, Major Fedor Maria von Donat (1847–1919), had an idea; he would build a channel that followed the base of the mountains, cutting through a sand dune at Terracina.

Rosthern Junior College

Many came from Manitoba, but others arrived directly from colonies in Russia, from the Danzig region of Prussia and from Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota where they had settled in the 1870s.

Rudolf Diels

He joined the Prussian interior ministry in 1930 and was promoted to an advisory position in the Prussian police in 1932, targeting political radicals, both Communists and Nazis.

Rudolf von Scheliha

Scheliha was born in Zessel, Oels, Silesia (now Cieśle, Gmina Oleśnica, Poland), as the son of a Prussian squire.

Sønderborg Castle

After the war of 1864, the province and the castle became Prussian property and served as barracks from 1867 until the area was reunified with Denmark in 1920.

Staffort

During the 18th and 19th centuries nearly 100 inhabitants left the village to relocate in America, Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Jutland, Prussia, Russia, Serbia and Styria.

The World Moves On

The story opens 185 years ago when two families, cotton merchants in England and America, with branches in France and Prussia swear to stand by each other in a belief that a great business firmly established in four countries will be able to withstand even such another calamity as the Napoleonic Wars from which Europe is slowly recovering.


Administrative division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

On July 29, 1657 they signed the Treaty of Wehlau in Wehlau (Polish: Welawa; now Znamensk), whereby Frederick William renounced a previous Swedish-Prussian alliance and John Casimir recognised Frederick William's full sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia.

Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein

He was Lord Chamberlain for two crown princes, became in 1710 Imperial Count (Reichsgraf) of the Holy Roman Empire and Count (Graf) in Prussia after the Battle of Malplaquet in which he successfully led the Prussian forces under Prince Eugene.

Alexandra of Glucksburg

Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1887–1957), wife of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia

Augustus III of Poland

English translation: August III, by the grace of God, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia (i.e. Galicia), Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Podlaskie, Livonia, Smolensk, Severia, Chernihiv, and also hereditary Duke of Saxony and Prince-elector.

Austro-Prussian War

The war left Prussia dominant in German politics (since Austria was now excluded from Germany and no longer the top German state), and German nationalism would compel the remaining independent states to ally with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and then to accede to the crowning of King Wilhelm as German Emperor.

Battle of Hennersdorf

The Battle of Hennersdorf, sometimes referred to as Catholic-Hennersdorf, was a minor encounter that took place on November 23, 1745 in Katholisch-Hennersdorf in Silesia (Prussia, present-day Poland) during the War of the Austrian Succession.

Bolesław Domański

Domański was a fighter for the rights of the Polish minority in Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia, at the time a Prussian province on the border of Germany and Poland, as well as for the rights of Polish emigrants in the Ruhr area.

Charles Sprague Pearce

He received medals at the Paris Salon and elsewhere, and was made Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, decorated with the Order of Leopold, Belgium, the Order of the Red Eagle, Prussia, and the Order of the Dannebrog, Denmark.

Chatham Ministry

Its major foreign policy objective - to secure Britain a major alliance partner in Europe that would end its diplomatic isolation - failed when Frederick the Great of Prussia rejected an offer to reform the Anglo-Prussian Alliance.

Chief fireman

In imperial Prussia, the title was known as brandmeister (from German Brand - "fire" and Meister - literally "master") and was the police officer, the chief of one of city fire-fighting crews.

Christoph Hartknoch

Hartknoch's extensive scientific body of works contributed greatly to knowledge of Prussia, Pomerania, Samogitia, Courland, and Poland.

Duchy of Magdeburg

The Halle region (Saalkreis), an exclave of the province, was surrounded by the Principality of Anhalt, the County of Mansfeld (acquired by Prussia in 1790), and the Electorate of Saxony.

Duchy of Oldenburg

In 1937 (with the Greater Hamburg Act), it lost the exclave districts of Eutin near the Baltic coast and Birkenfeld in southwestern Germany to Prussia and gained the City of Wilhelmshaven; however, this was a formality, as the Hitler régime had de facto abolished the federal states in 1934.

Elbing, Kansas

The railroad wanted to call the town Regier but Mr. Regier suggested three other possibilities: Elbing, Danzig and Marienburg, all cities in Prussia where he had lived.

German town law

Magdeburg law was popular around the March of Meißen and Upper Saxony and was the source of several variants, including Neumarkt-Magdeburg law (Środa Śląska), used extensively in Upper Silesia, and Kulm law, used in the territory of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia and along the lower Vistula in Eastern Pomerania.

Grumbkow

Joachim Ernst von Grumbkow (1637–1690), general and politician of Brandenburg-Prussia

Gustaf Douglas

Gustaf Archibald Siegwart Douglas (born 3 March 1938) is the oldest son of count Carl Ludvig Douglas (26 July 1908 Stjärnorp - 21 January 1961 Rio de Janeiro), a Swedish nobleman and diplomat who was Royal Swedish Ambassador to Brazil, and his Prussian wife Ottora Maria Haas-Heye (13 February 1910 Partenkirchen - 17 July 2001).

Henry of Stolberg-Wernigerode

Count Henry was canon of the cathedral in Halberstadt, Knight of the Prussian Royal Order of the Black Eagle and a member of the Order of Saint John.

Jean Roemer

At the close of the war he visited the great military establishments of France, Prussia, and Austria, and completed his studies in Lombardy under the guidance and auspices of Field-Marshal Count Radetzky.

Jean-Baptiste Bernard Viénot de Vaublanc

Nevertheless, Jean-Baptiste makes it to Gambinen in Prussia, near Vilnius, Lithuania, before finally succumbing to the ravages of war.

Joakim Stulić

His search for a sponsor and printer then took him to Bohemia, Saxony and Prussia.

Johann Baptist Alzog

He defended with ardour the Archbishop of that city, Martin von Dunin, during his persecution by the Prussian government, became vicar-capitular, professor and regens at Hildesheim in 1845, and in 1853 was appointed to the chair of Church History in the University of Freiburg (Breisgau); at the same time he was appointed an ecclesiastical councillor (geistlicher Rat).

Kaisermarsch

The victory in the Franco-Prussian War and the consequent proclamation of William I, King of Prussia, as German Emperor spurred patriotism and incited several German composers to write patriotic music dedicated to the nation and the new empire.

Kemna concentration camp

These "big shots", as the SA called them, included Heinrich Hirtsiefer, a former Prussian Vice Minister President, Wilhelm Bökenkrüger, a former director of the Wuppertal employment office, and Georg Petersdorff, the secretary of the Düsseldorf and Cologne Reichsbanner Gaue.

Klara Löbenstein

Löbenstein was born in Hildesheim, Prussia on February 15, 1883 to merchant Lehmann Löbenstein and his wife Sofie (née Schönfeld).

Leo August Pochhammer

Leo August Pochhammer (25 August 1841, Stendal – 24 March 1920, Kiel) was a Prussian mathematician who was educated in Berlin, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1863 under Ernst Kummer.

Lord John series

Set in 1758, the story finds Lord John in Prussia serving as the English liaison officer to the First Regiment of Hanoverian Foot.

Marianne Kirchgessner

After that she traveled throughout Europe for ten years, visiting Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg and Magdeburg, playing four times at the Prussian court for King Friedrich Wilhelm II in Berlin.

Max Saalmüller

Max Saalmüller (26 November 1832 in Römhild, Germany – 12 October 1890 in Bockenheim (Frankfurt am Main)) was a Prussian Lieutenant colonel and German entomologist.

Max Wyndham, 2nd Baron Egremont

Egremont studied modern history at Oxford University and has written books about Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Arthur Balfour and Sir Edward Spears, as well as a historical travelogue of East Prussia.

Melbourne Hebrew Congregation

The 1850s saw the arrival of some 300 Jewish families from London and the Province of Posen, Prussia to Melbourne, prompting the construction of a new larger synagogue on the Bourke Street site.

Military tradition

In Prussia and the German Empire, states relied on their own history as a state rather than as a regiment, while some specific regiments within elite formations did maintaining unit histories.

Niccolò Marini

He was highly decorated as well, having been made Commander of the Order of Queen Isabel of Spain, of the Order of the Crown of Prussia, and of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and an Officer of the Légion d'honneur.

Pauw

Cornelius de Pauw (1739–1799), Dutch scholar at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia

Princess Irene

Princess Irene, Duchess of Aosta (1904 – 1974), daughter of Constantine I of Greece and his wife, the former Princess Sophie of Prussia

Princess Louise of Schleswig-Holstein

Princess Louise Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1866-1952), daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, wife of Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia

Retterath

Under Prussian administration, Retterath was a municipality in the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Kelberg in the Adenau district.

Royal Hanoverian State Railways

The Göttingen–Arenshausen and NortheimEllrich lines were not completed until after the transfer of the Hanoverian State Railways to Prussia after the War of 1866.

SMS Scharnhorst

The ship was named after the Prussian reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.

St. Mary's, Wisconsin

St. Mary's was first settled in 1856 by families who had immigrated to America from Stommeln, northwest of Köln (Cologne), Prussia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

St. Nicholas Cathedral, Elbląg

Following King Sigismund III's Prussian regency contract (1605) with Joachim Frederick of Brandenburg and his Prussian enfeoffment contract (Treaty of Warsaw, 1611) with John Sigismund of Brandenburg these two rulers of Ducal Prussia guaranteed free practice of Catholic religion in prevailingly Lutheran Prussia.

Sweden–Ukraine relations

Finally an agreement was signed between Sweden and three Ukrainian commanders (Ivan Bohun, the leader of the Ukrainian Protestants Yuri Nemyrych and Ivan Kovalivsky) on 6 October 1657 in Korsun where Sweden acknowledged the Ukrainian borders all the way to Wisła in the west and Prussia in the north.

Vasily Blyukher

Despite his German surname, he was not of German descent as is sometimes written: the name was given to his family by a 19th-century landlord after a famous Prussian Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher.

William Losh

In addition to being an alkali manufacturer he worked as a colliery agent and as consul for Prussia, the Scandinavian countries and, later, for Turkey.

Wojciech Bartosz Głowacki

Polish forces, 15,000 strong, were defeated by a combined Prussian and Russian army, some 27,000 strong.