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The abolition of Prussia took place on 25 February 1947 through a decree of the Allied Control Council, the governing body of post-World War II occupied Germany and Austria. The rationale was that by doing away with the state that had been at the center of German militarism and reaction, it would be easier to preserve the peace and for Germany to develop democratically.
Prussia was for many centuries a major power in north-central Europe, based around the cities of Berlin and Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). It rose to particular prominence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, due for the most part to the strength of its military. During the reign of the Great Elector Frederick William (r. 1640–1688), Prussia increased its military to 40,000 men and instituted an effective military administration. When his grandson Frederick William I (r. 1713–1740) undertook large-scale military reforms, he began the country's tradition of an expansive military budget, which rose to consume 80% of Prussia's entire annual budget. By the time of his death in 1740, the Prussian Army had grown into a standing army of 83,000 men. In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years' War (1759–1763), his son Frederick the Great (r. 1740–1786) won Silesia from the Habsburg Empire and raised Prussia to the level of a great European power. By that time, the large Prussian landowners known as Junkers had a virtual monopoly on the kingdom's officer corps, a position that they would for the most part maintain throughout the remainder of Prussia's existence.[1]
Defeats at the hands of Napoleon's armies in the battles of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 forced Prussia to modernize its army's tactics and weaponry. The improvements helped Prussia to victories over Denmark in the 1864 Second Schleswig War, Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and France in the Franco-Prussian War. The wars culminated in unification of Germany under Prussia's leadership and the exclusion of Austria from the new German Empire. Prussia was at the core of the Imperial German Army, especially its officers, and Prussian militarism became part of German nationalism.[2] Under Otto von Bismarck, who was chancellor of the Empire from 1871 to 1890, the military imperatives of punctuality, orderliness and discipline became civilian virtues as well.[3]
Following the First World War, the new Free State of Prussia bore most of Germany's territorial losses but remained the dominant state of the Weimar Republic, accounting for about three-fifths of both its land area and population. Even before Adolf Hitler came to power, the republican Prussian government had been effectively abolished by the 1932 Prussian coup d'état. Following World War II, almost all of Germany's territorial losses were again from areas that had been part of Prussia.
Prussia was officially abolished by Control Council Law No. 46, passed by the Allied occupation authorities on 25 February 1947. Its reconstitution was also opposed by powerful German postwar politicians, especially the first West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.[4]
The territories of Prussia as of 1937 (mainly its twelve provinces) became the following entities after the Second World War:
- City of Berlin: split in 1948 into West Berlin and East Berlin, reunified in 1990 to form the State of Berlin.
- Brandenburg: territories east of the rivers Oder and Neisse became part of Poland in 1945. The rest was a state of East Germany between 1947 and 1952, at which point it was dissolved under an East German administrative reform. Since 1990, the state of Brandenburg exists again.
- East Prussia: split into Poland's Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast.
- Hanover: merged in 1946 with the states of Brunswick, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe to form the state of Lower Saxony.
- Hesse-Nassau: the majority of the province was merged with the People's State of Hesse to form the state of Hesse. Some western parts, forming the modern day Westerwaldkreis and Rhein-Lahn-Kreis, were merged with the Rhine Province and Bavarian Palatinate to form the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
- Hohenzollern: merged with the southern parts of Württemberg to form the state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern in 1945. In 1952 Württemberg-Hohenzollern merged with South Baden and Württemberg-Baden to form the state of Baden-Württemberg.
- Lower Silesia: the majority of the province is now part of Poland, mostly within the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Some small parts west of the Oder-Neisse line around Görlitz are part of the state of Saxony.
- Pomerania: split by the Oder-Neisse line between Poland and Germany. The Polish part is now part of the Pomeranian and West Pomeranian Voivodeships, while the German part merged with Mecklenburg to form the East German state of Mecklenburg, which was abolished in 1952 and recreated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1990 during German reunification.
- Posen-West Prussia: today part of Poland, mainly as part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship.
- Rhineland: split in two in 1946. The northern part merged with the province of Westphalia and the Free State of Lippe to form the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while the southern part merged with Oldenburgish Birkenfeld, the Rhenish Hesse part of the People's State of Hesse and Bavarian Palatinate to form the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
- Saxony: The two regions around Magdeburg and Halle (Saale) merged with the Free State of Anhalt to form the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which was abolished in the 1952 administrative reform and then recreated in 1990 during German reunification. The region around Erfurt merged with the Weimar state of Thuringia to form the East German state of Thuringia, which was also abolished in 1952 and recreated in 1990.
- Schleswig-Holstein: became the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
- Upper Silesia: part of Poland, mainly as the Opole Voivodeship.
- Westphalia: merged with the northern part of the Rhine Province and the Free State of Lippe to form the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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.[a]
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.
Control Council Law No. 46, signed on 25 February, liquidates the State of Prussia, its central government, and all its agencies. This law is in the nature of a confirming action; the eleven provinces and administrative districts of prewar Prussia have since the beginning of the occupation been split up among the Soviet, British, and American Zones and Poland.[5]
The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) suspended the law by a decision of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union when the Soviet Control Commission in East Germany was dissolved on 20 September 1955. The reunited Germany formally repealed Law No. 46 on 23 November 2007 when it enacted the Second Law on the Settlement of Occupation Law (Zweites Gesetz zur Bereinigung des Besatzungsrechts).[6]
Prussia's abolition resulted in the Prussian Academy of Arts dropping 'Prussian' from its name in 1945 before finally being disbanded in 1955.[7] The Prussian Academy of Sciences was renamed in 1972. It was abolished and replaced by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1992 as part of the process of German reunification.
- eventually the Basic Law for West and reunified Germany, as well as the Constitution of East Germany
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