June 15, 1888: Death of Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia

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Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Crown Prince of Prussia, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm I, German Empire, House of Hohenzollern, Liberal, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Royal, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of the United Kingdom

Friedrich III (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl; October 18, 1831 – June 15, 1888) Friedrich III was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days between March and June 1888, during the Year of the Three Emperors.

Known informally as “Fritz”, was a scion of the House of Hohenzollern, rulers of Prussia, then the most powerful of the German states he was the only son of Emperor Wilhelm I who was the second son of King Friedrich Wilhelm III and, having been raised in the military traditions of the Hohenzollerns, developed into a strict disciplinarian.

German Emperor Friedrich III as Crown Prince of Prussia

Fritz’s father, Emperor Wilhelm I, King of Prussia married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, herself the Augusta was the second daughter of Charles Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

Princess Augusta had been raised in the more intellectual and artistic atmosphere of Weimar, which gave its citizens greater participation in politics and limited the powers of its rulers through a constitution; Augusta was well known across Europe for her liberal views.

Because of their differences, the couple did not have a happy marriage and, as a result, Friedrich grew up in a troubled household, which left him with memories of a lonely childhood. He had one sister, Louise (later Grand Duchess of Baden), who was seven years his junior and very close to him.

Friedrich III was raised in his family’s tradition of military service. Although celebrated as a young man for his leadership and successes during the Second Schleswig, Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, he nevertheless professed a hatred of warfare and was praised by friends and enemies alike for his humane conduct.

Following the unification of Germany in 1871 his father, then King of Prussia, became the German Emperor. Upon Wilhelm’s death at the age of ninety on March 9, 1888, the thrones passed to Frederick, who had by then been German Crown Prince for seventeen years and Crown Prince of Prussia for twenty-seven years.

Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom

Friedrich married Victoria, Princess Royal, oldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The couple were well-matched; their shared liberal ideology led them to seek greater representation for commoners in the government.

Friedrich, in spite of his conservative militaristic family background, had developed liberal tendencies as a result of his ties with Britain and his studies at the University of Bonn.

As the Crown Prince, he often opposed the conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, particularly in speaking out against Bismarck’s policy of uniting Germany through force, and in urging that the power of the Chancellorship be curbed. Liberals in both Germany and Britain hoped that as emperor, Frederick would move to liberalise the German Empire.

Frederick and Victoria were great admirers of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. They planned to rule as co-monarchs, like Albert and Queen Victoria, and to reform what they saw as flaws in the executive branch that Bismarck had created for himself.

The office of Chancellor, responsible to the Emperor, would be replaced with a British-style cabinet, with ministers responsible to the Reichstag. Government policy would be based on the consensus of the cabinet. Frederick “described the Imperial Constitution as ingeniously contrived chaos.” According to Michael Balfour:

The Crown Prince and Princess shared the outlook of the Progressive Party, and Bismarck was haunted by the fear that should the old Emperor die—and he was now in his seventies—they would call on one of the Progressive leaders to become Chancellor. He sought to guard against such a turn by keeping the Crown Prince from a position of any influence and by using foul means as well as fair to make him unpopular.

However, Friedrich’s illness, suffering from cancer of the larynx, prevented him from effectively establishing policies and measures to achieve this, and such moves as he was able to make were later abandoned by his son and successor, Wilhelm II. The timing of Friedrich III’s death and the length of his reign are important topics among historians.

His premature demise is considered a potential turning point in German history; and whether or not he would have made the Empire more liberal if he had lived longer is still a popular discussion among historians.

March 21, 1871: Otto von Bismarck is created Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire

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Franco-Prussian War, German Emperor Wilhelm I, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Imperial Chancellor of Germany, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of Prussia, Unification of Germany

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, (April 1, 1815 — July 30, 1898) was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. Later created Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg

In 1847, Bismarck, aged thirty-two, was chosen as a representative to the newly created Prussian legislature, the Vereinigter Landtag. There, he gained a reputation as a royalist and reactionary politician with a gift for stinging rhetoric; he openly advocated the idea that the monarch had a divine right to rule.

In March 1848, Prussia faced a revolution (one of the revolutions of 1848 across Europe), which completely overwhelmed King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The monarch, though initially inclined to use armed forces to suppress the rebellion, ultimately declined to leave Berlin for the safety of military headquarters at Potsdam. Bismarck later recorded that there had been a “rattling of sabres in their scabbards” from Prussian officers when they learned that the King would not suppress the revolution by force.

The King offered numerous concessions to the liberals: he wore the black-red-gold revolutionary colours (as seen on the flag of today’s Germany), promised to promulgate a constitution, agreed that Prussia and other German states should merge into a single nation-state, and appointed a liberal, Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen, as Minister President.

Bismarck had at first tried to rouse the peasants of his estate into an army to march on Berlin in the King’s name. He travelled to Berlin in disguise to offer his services, but was instead told to make himself useful by arranging food supplies for the Army from his estates in case they were needed.

The King’s brother, Prince Wilhelm, had fled to England; Bismarck tried to get Wilhelm’s wife Augusta to place their teenage son Friedrich on the Prussian throne in Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s place. Augusta would have none of it, and detested Bismarck thereafter, despite the fact that he later helped restore a working relationship between Wilhelm and his brother the King.

In 1849, Bismarck was elected to the Landtag. At this stage in his career, he opposed the unification of Germany, arguing that Prussia would lose its independence in the process. He accepted his appointment as one of Prussia’s representatives at the Erfurt Parliament, an assembly of German states that met to discuss plans for union, but he only did so to oppose that body’s proposals more effectively.

The parliament failed to bring about unification, for it lacked the support of the two most important German states, Prussia and Austria. In September 1850, after a dispute over Hesse (the Hesse Crisis of 1850), Prussia was humiliated and forced to back down by Austria (supported by Russia) in the so-called Punctation of Olmütz; a plan for the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, proposed by Prussia’s Minister President Radowitz, was also abandoned.

In 1851, Friedrich Wilhelm IV appointed Bismarck as Prussia’s envoy to the Diet of the German Confederation in Frankfurt. Bismarck gave up his elected seat in the Landtag, but was appointed to the Prussian House of Lords a few years later.

Bismarck’s eight years in Frankfurt were marked by changes in his political opinions, detailed in the numerous lengthy memoranda, which he sent to his ministerial superiors in Berlin. No longer under the influence of his ultraconservative Prussian friends, Bismarck became less reactionary and more pragmatic.

He became convinced that to countervail Austria’s newly restored influence, Prussia would have to ally herself with other German states. As a result, he grew to be more accepting of the notion of a united German nation. He gradually came to believe that he and his fellow conservatives had to take the lead in creating a unified nation to keep from being eclipsed. He also believed that the middle-class liberals wanted a unified Germany more than they wanted to break the grip of the traditional forces over society.

In October 1857, Friedrich Wilhelm IV suffered a paralysing stroke, and his brother Wilhelm took over the Prussian government as Regent. Wilhelm was initially seen as a moderate ruler, whose friendship with liberal Britain was symbolised by the recent marriage of his son Friedrich to Victoria, Princess Royal, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter. As part of his “New Course”, Wilhelm brought in new ministers, moderate conservatives known as the Wochenblatt after their newspaper.

Prince Wilhelm became King of Prussia upon his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s death in 1861. The new monarch often came into conflict with the increasingly liberal Prussian Diet (Landtag).

A crisis arose in 1862, when the Diet refused to authorize funding for a proposed re-organization of the army. The King’s ministers could not convince legislators to pass the budget, and the King was unwilling to make concessions.

Wilhelm threatened to abdicate in favour of his son Crown Prince Friedrich, who opposed his doing so, believing that Bismarck was the only politician capable of handling the crisis. However, Wilhelm was ambivalent about appointing a person who demanded unfettered control over foreign affairs.

It was in September 1862, when the Abgeordnetenhaus (House of Deputies) overwhelmingly rejected the proposed budget, that Wilhelm was persuaded to recall Bismarck to Prussia. On September 23, 1862, Wilhelm appointed Bismarck Minister President and Foreign Minister.

Despite the initial distrust of the King and Crown Prince and the loathing of Queen Augusta, Bismarck soon acquired a powerful hold over the King by force of personality and powers of persuasion. Bismarck was intent on maintaining royal supremacy by ending the budget deadlock in the King’s favour, even if he had to use extralegal means to do so.

Under the Constitution, the budget could be passed only after the king and legislature agreed on its terms. Bismarck contended that since the Constitution did not provide for cases in which legislators failed to approve a budget, there was a “legal loophole” in the Constitution and so he could apply the previous year’s budget to keep the government running. Thus, on the basis of the 1861 budget, tax collection continued for four years.

Bismarck masterminded the unification of Germany. He cooperated with King Wilhelm I of Prussia to unify the various German states, a partnership that would last for the rest of Wilhelm’s life.

Bismarck provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France. Following the victory against Austria, he abolished the supranational German Confederation and instead formed the North German Confederation as the first German national state, aligning the smaller North German states behind Prussia, and excluding Austria. Receiving the support of the independent South German states in the Confederation’s defeat of France, he formed the German Empire – which also excluded Austria – and united Germany.

Bismarck served as the Chancellor of Prussia from 1862 until 1867 when he became Chancellor of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1871 and with the creation of the German Empire in 1871 Bismarck was also appointed as the first Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire on March 21st 1871, but retained his Prussian offices, including those of Minister-President and Foreign Minister. He also continued to serve as his own foreign minister. Because of both the imperial and the Prussian offices that he held, Bismarck had near complete control over domestic and foreign policy.

Bismarck on his death bed

Bismarck resigned at Wilhelm II’s insistence on 18 March 18, 1890, at the age of seventy-five. retired to write his memoirs (Thoughts and Memories). In the memoirs Bismarck continued his feud with Wilhelm II by attacking him, and by increasing the drama around every event and by often presenting himself in a favorable light.

Bismarck’s health began to fail in 1896. He was diagnosed with gangrene in his foot, but refused to accept treatment for it; as a result he had difficulty walking and often used a wheelchair. By July 1898 he was a full-time wheelchair user, had trouble breathing, and was almost constantly feverish and in pain. His health rallied momentarily on the 28th, but then sharply deteriorated over the next two days.

He died just after midnight on July 30, 1898, at the age of eighty-three in Friedrichsruh, where he is entombed in the Bismarck Mausoleum. He was succeeded as Prince Bismarck by his eldest son, Herbert. Bismarck managed a posthumous snub of Wilhelm II by having his own sarcophagus inscribed with the words, “A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I”.

October 14, 1872: Death of Prince Albrecht of Prussia

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Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, German Emperor Wilhelm I, House of Orange-Nassau, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Morganatic Marriage, Prince Albert of Prussia, Prinz-Albrecht-Palais, Wilhelmstraße, Willem I of the Netherlands

Prince Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht of Prussia (October 4, 1809 – October 14, 1872) was the fifth son and youngest child of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and she was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s father, Charles, was a brother of Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III of the United Kingdom, and her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Louise’s maternal grandmother, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.

At the time of her birth, Louise’s father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (he would not succeed his brother as Duke until 1794), and consequently she was not born in a court, but rather in a less formal home.

Prince Albrecht’s parents fled to East Prussia after the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon, and Albrecht was born in Königsberg. Two of Albrecht’s elder brothers were Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia from 1840 till 1861, and Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from 1861 to 1888 and German Emperor from 1871 until 1888.

In 1819 Albrecht joined the Prussian Army as a lieutenant and held the rank of a general of cavalry in 1852. He took part in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War as a cavalry corps commander at the battles of Gitschin and Königgrätz. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 he led a cavalry division at the battles of Wissembourg, Wörth and Sedan.

Prince Albrecht later joined the forces of his nephew Prince Friedrich Charles of Prussia and Friedrich Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in the campaign against the Armée de la Loire.

After the war Albrecht was awarded the title of a Generaloberst. He died in Berlin, where he is buried at the Charlottenburg Palace Park Mausoleum. He was the 74th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword.

Family

In The Hague, on 14 September 1830 Albert married his cousin Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau the daughter of King Willem I of the Netherlands and Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia the fourth child of eight born to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

The marriage was dissolved on March 28, 1849. They had five children:

Charlotte (1831 – 1855), married the future Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

A son (1832). He was either stillborn or lived only a few hours.

Albrecht (1837 – 1906), married Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, had 3 sons.

Elisabeth (August 27, 1840 – October 9, 1840).

Alexandrine (1842 – 1906), married Duke Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Princess Marianne was a woman who thought and lived very unconventionally for her time. Because she left her unfaithful husband Prince Albrecht of Prussia and had an illegitimate son (she openly recognized him) with her partner Johannes van Rossum (with whom she also lived in a common-law marriage), she was banished from the Kingdom of Prussia.

Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau

In Berlin on June 13, 1853, Albert married secondly, Rosalie Wilhelmine Johanna von Rauch, daughter of Gustav von Rauch, chief of the Prussian General Staff 1812-1813 and Prussian Minister of War 1837–1841. She was created Countess of Hohenau on May 28, 1853. They had two sons:

Georg Albrecht Wilhelm, Count of Hohenau (1854 – 1930). married to Princess Margarethe of Hohenlohe-Öhringen (1865-1940), daughter of Hugo zu Hohenlohe-Öhringen.

Bernhard Wilhelm Albrecht Frederick, Count of Hohenau (1857 – 1914).

As this second union was considered a morganatic marriage, the couple temporarily had to avoid the Prussian court. Albrecht acquired a vineyard in Loschwitz near Dresden, Saxony, where he had a residence, Albrechtsberg Castle, erected in 1854.

Aftermath

In 1830 Albrecht had acquired a city palace in Berlin on Wilhelmstraße, then called Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. An adjacent street off Wilhelmstraße laid out in 1891 was named Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. After the Nazi Machtergreifung it became notorious as the seat of the Gestapo and the Reichsführer-SS.

The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais itself from 1934 served as the headquarters of the SS Sicherheitsdienst under Reinhard Heydrich, from 1939 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. In 1944 the building was heavily damaged by air raids and finally razed to the ground in 1955, leaving the foundations and cellars exposed to the open air. They remain so today, and are used as part of the Topography of Terror project.

February 25, 1947: Abolition of the State of Prussia.

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Abolition of Prussia, German Emperor Wilhelm I, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Kingdom of Prussia, The Great War, World War I, World War ii

Prussia was for many centuries a major power in north-central Europe, based around the cities of Berlin and Königsberg, and rose to particular prominence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Following its victory in the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia became the driving force in creating a German Empire that excluded Austria (a Kleindeutsches Reich) and in 1871 King Wilhelm I of Prussia became German Emperor.

Following the First World War, after the abdication of German Emperor Wilhelm II who was also King of Prussia and the abolition of the Monarchy, the new Free State of Prussia bore most of Germany’s territorial losses but remained the dominant state of the Weimar Republic. During the Nazi era, the states of the Weimar Republic remained but were sidelined. Following World War II almost all of Germany’s territorial losses were from areas that had been part of Prussia.

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German Emperor Wilhelm II

Prussia was abolished by Control Council Law No. 46, passed by the Allied occupation authorities, on February 25, 1947.

This resulted in the 1954 disbanding of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1972 the Prussian Academy of Sciences was renamed. It was abolished and replaced by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1992 as part of German Reunification.

Control Council Law No. 46:

The Prussian State which from early days has been a bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany has de facto ceased to exist.

Guided by the interests of preservation of peace and security of peoples and with the desire to assure further reconstruction of the political life of Germany on a democratic basis, the Control Council enacts as follows:

Article I
The Prussian State together with its central government and all its agencies are abolished.

Article II
Territories which were a part of the Prussian State and which are at present under the supreme authority of the Control Council will receive the status of Länder or will be absorbed into Länder.
The provisions of this Article are subject to such revision and other provisions as may be agreed upon by the Control Council, or as may be laid down in the future Constitution of Germany.

Article III
The State and administrative functions as well as the assets and liabilities of the former Prussian State will be transferred to appropriate Länder, subject to such agreements as may be necessary and made by the Allied Control Council.

Article IV
This law becomes effective on the day of its signature.
Signed in Berlin on February 25, 1947.