Berlin
Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries include IT, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions.
The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod.
In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
German Empire
The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base.
In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system.
The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same.
The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
World War II
World War II, known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.
The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery.
Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is not universally agreed upon.
It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
Prussian estates
They were at first composed of officials of six big cities of the region, Culm, Danzig, Königsberg and Thorn. Later, representatives of towns as well as nobility were included. The estates met on four times per year, and discussed issues such as commerce. Obligations would be changed if new coins, too plentifully issued. Thus a law was passed by the Diet of Teutonic Prussia in 1418, thus creditors and recipients of nominally fixed revenues were not to lose by debasement-induced inflation. The Estates drifted towards the Kingdom of Poland in their political alignment, norman Housley noted that The alienation of the Prussian Estates represented a massive political failure on the part of the Order. The estates eventually became governed by Kingdom of Poland, on 10 December 1525 at their session in Königsberg the Prussian estates established the Lutheran Church in Ducal Prussia by deciding the Church Order. Nicolaus Copernicus, canon of the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, addressed the Prussian estates with three memoranda, in fact little essays, on currency reform, debasements continued to ruin Prussian finances, the groat had been debased by 1/5 to 1/6 of its prior bullion content.
In 1517,1519 and again in 1526 he suggested to return to the law passed in 1418, especially the cities refused that. At least the estates refused to peg the Prussian currency to the Polish, under the Hohenzollerns absolutist rule the power of the Estates increasingly diminished. The West and East Prussian Estates, again played a role in the transformation from feudal traditional agriculture to agricultural business, the Silesian Wars of 1740-1763 had required high taxes, such that many Prussian tax-payers went into debt. Feudal manor estates were not free property sellable at the will of their holders or – in case of over-indebtedness – by way of execution prompted by the creditors of the holders, so the holders of feudal manor estates found it difficult to borrow against their estates. Members of the Estates, by status mostly noble landed manor holders, in order to overcome the restrictions on selling manor estates to fulfil outstanding debts, the manor estate holders formed a corporation of mutually liable debtors.
So solvent manor estate holders had to step in for over-indebted borrowers, coovering over-indebted borrowers imposed hardship for the solvent manor-estate holders. This affected many opinions and even aroused appeals to abolish the system of manor estate holding. In the Napoleonic era the East Prussian Estates gained some political influence again, in return the Estates reached a wider representation of further parts of the population. The last excepted group - the Jews - became citizens in 1812, on 23 January Count Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten, president of the Estates assembly, called its members for 5 February 1813. The hesitant king could not stop this anymore, but only approve it, only in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848 did Prussia receive its first constitution providing for the Prussian Landtag as the parliament of the kingdom
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles.
The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war.
On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Belgium and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini
Prussia
Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them.
In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany.
The country grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s, he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germanys position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, in 1862, King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a position he would hold until 1890. He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in its defeat of France, in 1871, he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of realpolitik and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the Iron Chancellor, German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy.
He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. A master of politics at home, Bismarck created the first welfare state in the modern world. In the 1870s, he allied himself with the Liberals and fought the Catholic Church in what was called the Kulturkampf and he lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forming a powerful Centre party and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck reversed himself, ended the Kulturkampf, broke with the Liberals, imposed protective tariffs, a devout Lutheran, he was loyal to his king, who argued with Bismarck but in the end supported him against the advice of his wife and his heir. Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck largely controlled domestic and foreign affairs, until he was removed by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, bismarck—a Junker himself—was strong-willed and sometimes judged overbearing, but he could be polite and witty. Occasionally he displayed a violent temper, and he kept his power by threatening resignation time and again.
He possessed not only a national and international vision but the short-term ability to juggle complex developments. As the leader of what historians call revolutionary conservatism, Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists, many historians praise him as a visionary who was instrumental in uniting Germany and, once that had been accomplished, kept the peace in Europe through adroit diplomacy. Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, a family estate situated west of Berlin in the Prussian province of Saxony. He had two siblings and Malwine, the world saw Bismarck as a typical Prussian Junker, an image that he encouraged by wearing military uniforms. Bismarck was well educated and cosmopolitan with a gift for conversation, in addition to his native German, he was fluent in English, Italian and Russian. Bismarck was educated at Johann Ernst Plamanns elementary school, and the Friedrich-Wilhelm, from 1832 to 1833, he studied law at the University of Göttingen, where he was a member of the Corps Hannovera, and enrolled at the University of Berlin.
In 1838, while stationed as an army reservist in Greifswald, at Göttingen, Bismarck befriended the American student John Lothrop Motley
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour.
In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage.
Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
Junker (Prussia)
The Junkers were the members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights and they were an important factor in Prussian and, after 1871, German military and diplomatic leadership. The most famous Junker was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and it evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as country squire. As part of the nobility, many Junker families only had such as von or zu before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of Junker is Jkr, most often placed before the given name and titles, for example, Jkr. The female equivalent Junkfrau was used only sporadically, in some cases, the honorific Jkr. was used for Freiherren and Grafen. A good number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers and these families were mostly part of the German medieval Uradel and had carried on the colonization and Christianization of the northeastern European territories during the Ostsiedlung.
Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, as landed aristocrats, the Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. The Junkers held a monopoly on all agriculture in the East Elbian part of the German Reich. Around 1900 they modernized their farming operations to increase productivity and they sold off less productive land, invested more heavily in blooded cattle and hogs, used new fertilizers, increased grain production, and improved productivity per worker. They obtained high tariffs that reduced competition from American grain and meat and their political influence extended from the German Empire of 1871–1918 through the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933. It was said that if Prussia ruled Germany, the Junkers ruled Prussia and their political interests were served by the German Conservative Party in the Reichstag and the extraparliamentary Agriculturists League. This political class held tremendous power over industrial classes and government alike, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was a noted Junker, though his family descended from the Altmark region west of the Elbe.
Landowners like Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and the members of the Kreisau Circle were part of the German resistance to Nazi Germany rule, as World War II turned against Nazi Germany several senior Junkers in the Army participated in Colonel Claus von Stauffenbergs assassination attempt of 20 July 1944. Fifty-eight were executed when the failed, among them Erwin von Witzleben and Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort. As most of large estates, especially in Brandenburg and Western Pomerania, had belonged to Junkers. From 1952 smaller estates were collectivised and incorporated into Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften, after German reunification, some Junkers tried to regain their former estates through civil lawsuits. Other families, have purchased or leased back their ancestral homes from the current owners
Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV, the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, reigned as King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861. In politics, he was a conservative, and in 1849 rejected the title of Emperor of the Germans offered by the Frankfurt Parliament as not the Parliaments to give, in 1857, he suffered a stroke and was left incapacitated until his death. Born to Frederick William III by his wife Queen Louise, he was the favourite son. Frederick William was educated by tutors, many of whom were experienced civil servants. He gained experience by serving in the Prussian Army during the War of Liberation against Napoleon in 1814. In 1823 he married Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, since she was a Roman Catholic, the preparations for this marriage included difficult negotiations which ended with her conversion to Lutheranism. There were two wedding ceremonies—one in Munich, and another in Berlin, the couple had a very harmonious marriage, but childless. Frederick William opposed the idea of a unified German state, believing that Austria was divinely ordained to rule over Germany, Frederick William became King of Prussia on the death of his father in 1840.
Through a personal union, he became the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. In 1842, he gave his fathers menagerie at Pfaueninsel to the new Berlin Zoo, despite being a devout Lutheran, his Romantic leanings led him to settle the Cologne church conflict by releasing the imprisoned Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, the Archbishop of Cologne. He patronized further construction of Cologne Cathedral, Cologne having become part of Prussia in 1815, in 1844, he attended the celebrations marking the completion of the cathedral, becoming the first king of Prussia to enter a Roman Catholic building. He committed himself to German unification, formed a government, convened a national assembly. Once his position was more secure again, however, he quickly had the army reoccupy Berlin and in December dissolved the assembly, Frederick William would only accept the imperial crown after being elected by the German princes, as per the former empires ancient customs. In the kings eyes, only a reconstituted College of Electors could possess such authority, with the failed attempt by the Frankfurt Parliament to include the Habsburgs into a newly unified German Empire, the Parliament turned to Prussia.
Seeing Austrian ambivalence towards Prussia taking a powerful role in German affairs. All German states, excluding those of the Habsburgs, would be unified under Hohenzollern authority, the German Confederation remained the common government of German Europe. The lower house was elected by all taxpayers, but in a system based on the amount of taxes paid. This constitution remained in effect until the dissolution of the Prussian kingdom in 1918, Frederick William IV is buried with his wife in the crypt underneath the Church of Peace in the park of Sanssouci, at Potsdam
Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg
Graf Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg was a German statesman. He served as the first Minister President of Prussia for ten days during the Revolution of 1848 and his parents divorced, when he was three years old. Having finished his studies in Berlin and Göttingen in 1825, he joined the Prussian Guards Uhlans regiment as One-year volunteer, in 1830 he was appointed Landrat official in the Uckermark district and in 1833 he became Vice-president of the Pomeranian Stralsund government region. One year he assumed the position of President in the Aix-la-Chapelle region, from 1838 in Merseburg. In 1840 he became governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen, in 1842 Arnim was called back to Berlin, to be appointed Prussian State Minister of the Interior. Nevertheless, he resigned in 1845, after his plans to draft a Prussian Constitution were aborted by King Frederick William IV, when the March Revolution broke out in 1848, his services were again in demand. He belonged to the newly established Prussian House of Representatives from 1849, Arnim is known to this day for his remarks as Prussian Interior Minister during the Vormärz era concerning Heinrich Heines poem The Silesian Weavers.
The verses were published in the Vorwärts, weekly newspaper after a 1844 riot in the Province of Silesia, which also inspired the drama The Weavers by Gerhart Hauptmann. In a report to King Frederick William IV he described Heines poetry as an address to the poor amongst the populace, held in an inflammatory tone and filled with criminal utterances. Subsequently, the Royal Prussian Kammergericht banned the poem, which in 1846 led to a sentence for a person who had dared to publicly recite it. Arnim died on 8 January 1868 at his Boitzenburg estate
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