Protestant Prussia

The Protestant, Prussian north-east — less an organic region than a state built by will. From the 17th century the Hohenzollerns welded Brandenburg to the Teutonic Knights' Baltic lands into a drilled, bureaucratic military power — 'an army with a state' — that unified Germany by blood and iron and stamped the Empire with its Junker values, giving the country its disciplined civil service, universal schooling and General Staff, but also the authoritarian militarism the 20th century turned catastrophic. Prussia was abolished by the Allies in 1947 and its eastern lands lost; the remnant, including Berlin — twice divided and reunited — lived through the GDR, and the former East still lags the west.

• Existed: 1525 CE – present
• Type: Entity