1.
Berlin
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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, parks, 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, politics, 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 also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, 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
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Margravine Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt
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Margravine Anna Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt was a Prussian princess. She was a daughter of Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Schwedt and his wife Princess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia, Elisabeth Louise was one of five children born to Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Dorothea of Prussia. Her siblings included Sophia Dorothea, Duchess of Württemberg, and Philippine, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel and her father was a son of Philip William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Princess Johanna Charlotte of Anhalt-Dessau. Her mother was a daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, through her mother, Elisabeth Louise was a niece of Frederick the Great. On 27 September 1755 in Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin, Elisabeth Louise married her uncle Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia and he was eight years older than she and was a younger son of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. Louise was described as nice, witty and kind, the Swedish Princess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte described her at the time of her visit in 1798, In the afternoon, we visited this Princess, who lives at Bellevue in the outskirts of Berlin. It is a villa, very suitable for a private person. The reception here was quite disimilar from the one at my aunt, Princess Ferdinand is stiff and made it obvious that she wished to impress us. I was of course polite, but after I had noticed, the Princess is no longer young, has surely been beautiful, looks like an aristocratic Frenchwoman but not like a Princess, for she has nothing royal about her. I do not think she is clever, but she can make a pleasant conversation and is quite confident. Elisabeth Louise was one of the few members of the house to remain in Berlin during the French occupation in 1806. One visitor to her in 1813–14 commented that, I never saw such a formal, stiff, disagreeable old woman - vieille cour outree, Augustus Ferdinand died in Berlin on 2 May 1813. Elisabeth Louise died seven years later, on 22 February 1820 and she is buried in Berlin Cathedral
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Prince Augustus of Prussia
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Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich August of Prussia, known in English as Prince Augustus, was a Prussian general. Born on Friedrichsfelde Palace, he was the youngest son of Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, the brother of King Frederick the Great, Augustus joined the Prussian army as a young man, earning the rank of captain by eighteen years old. In 1803, he became a major and was granted an infantry battalion of his own, three years later, now a lieutenant colonel, he and his battalion took part in the Battle of Auerstedt. His brother, Prince Louis Ferdinand, had killed by the French army under Napoleon I four days earlier. Augustus himself was captured and held by the French until 1807, in March 1808, his cousin, King Frederick William III of Prussia, made him brigadier general. The Prince spent the five years reorganizing the Prussian artillery together with Gerhard von Scharnhorst. Seven years after the failure of the Prussian army at Auerstedt and he continued his campaign against Napoleon throughout 1814. In the winter 1814-1815, Augustus attended the Congress of Vienna and he moved to the north of France in June 1818 and then back to Berlin after the war had ended. He spent his last years inspecting artillery units in various garrison towns and he died suddenly in Bromberg during one such trip, and was buried in Staats- und Domchor Berlin. Although he was one of the richest landowners in Prussia, his estates were reverted to the Crown upon his death, the mother of his eldest children was his first mistress, Karoline Friederike Wichmann, with whom he cohabited from 1805 until 1817. She was ennobled as Baroness von Waldenburg and his second extramarital relationship was with Auguste Arend, later ennobled as Baroness von Prillwitz. It began in 1818, lasted until her death in 1834, at the time of his death, he was the last surviving grandchild of Frederick William I of Prussia
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Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
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House of Hohenzollern
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The House of Hohenzollern is a dynasty of former princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family arose in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century, the first ancestor of the Hohenzollerns was mentioned in 1061. They may have derived from the Burchardinger dynasty, the Hohenzollern family split into two branches, the Catholic Swabian branch and the Protestant Franconian branch, which later became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Swabian branch ruled the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until 1849, members of the Franconian branch became Margrave of Brandenburg in 1415 and Duke of Prussia in 1525. The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were ruled in personal union after 1618 and were called Brandenburg-Prussia, germanys defeat in World War I in 1918 led to the German Revolution. The Hohenzollerns were overthrown and the Weimar Republic was established, thus bringing an end to the German monarchy, Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is the current head of the royal Prussian line, while Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern is the head of the princely Swabian line. Zollern, from 1218 Hohenzollern, was a county of the Holy Roman Empire and its ruling dynasty was first mentioned in 1061. The Hohenzollerns named their estates after Hohenzollern Castle in the Swabian Alps, the Hohenzollern Castle still belongs to the family today. According to the medieval chronicler Berthold of Reichenau, Burkhard I, Count of Zollern was born before 1025, the Zollerns received the comital title from Emperor Henry V in 1111. As loyal vassals of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty, they were able to enlarge their territory. In 1218 the burgraviate passed to Fredericks younger son Conrad I, he became the ancestor of the Franconian Hohenzollern branch. 1150-1155 and 1160, Gotfried of Zimmern, 4th oldest son of Frederick I before 1171 – c,1200, Frederick III/I Count Frederick III of Zollern was a loyal retainer of the Holy Roman Emperors Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI. In about 1185 he married Sophia of Raabs, the daughter of Conrad II, after the death of Conrad II who left no male heirs, Frederick III was granted Nuremberg in 1192 as Burgrave Frederick I of Nuremberg-Zollern. Since then the name has been Hohenzollern. The younger brother, Conrad III, received the burgraviate of Nuremberg from his older brother Frederick IV in 1218, members of the Franconian line eventually became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Franconian line later converted to Protestantism, the cadet Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Conrad I, Burgrave of Nuremberg. Beginning in the 16th century, this branch of the family became Protestant and decided on expansion through marriage, the family supported the Hohenstaufen and Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire during the 12th to 15th centuries, being rewarded with several territorial grants. He ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach after 1398, from 1420, he became Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach
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Frederick William I of Prussia
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Frederick William I, known as the Soldier King, was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death, as well as the father of Frederick the Great. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel and he was born in Berlin to Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia Charlotte of Hanover. During his first years, he was raised by the Huguenot governess Marthe de Roucoulle and his father had successfully acquired the title King for the margraves of Brandenburg. During his own reign, Frederick William I did much to centralize and he replaced mandatory military service among the middle class with an annual tax, established schools and hospitals, and resettled East Prussia. The king encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times, in short, Frederick William I concerned himself with every aspect of his relatively small country, planning to satisfy all that was needed for Prussia to defend itself. His rule was absolutist and he was a firm autocrat and he practiced rigid, frugal economy, never started a war, and led a simple and austere lifestyle, in contrast to the lavish court his father had presided over. At his death, there was a surplus in the royal treasury. He intervened briefly in the Great Northern War in order to gain a portion of Swedish Pomerania, Frederick Williams reforms left his son Frederick with the most formidable army in Europe, which Frederick used to increase Prussias power. The observation that the pen is mightier than the sword has sometimes been attributed to him, although a highly effective ruler, Frederick William had a perpetually short temper which sometimes drove him to physically attack servants at the slightest provocation. His violent nature was further exacerbated by his inherited porphyritic illness, Frederick William died in 1740 at age 51 and was interred at the Garrison Church in Potsdam. The coffins were discovered by occupying American Forces, who re-interred the bodies in St. Elisabeths Church in Marburg in 1946. The original black marble sarcophagus collapsed at Burg Hohenzollern—the current one is a copper copy and his eldest surviving son was Frederick II, born in 1712. Frederick William wanted him to become a fine soldier, as a small child, Fritz was awakened each morning by the firing of a cannon. At the age of 6, he was given his own regiment of children to drill as cadets, the love and affection Frederick William had for his heir initially was soon destroyed due to their increasingly different personalities. Frederick William ordered Fritz to undergo an education, live a simple Protestant lifestyle. However, the intellectual Fritz was more interested in music, books and French culture, as Fritzs defiance for his fathers rules increased, Frederick William would frequently beat or humiliate Fritz. Fritz was beaten for being thrown off a horse and wearing gloves in cold weather. After the prince attempted to flee to England with his tutor, Hans Hermann von Katte, the enraged King had Katte beheaded before the eyes of the prince, the court declared itself not competent in this case
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Sophia Dorothea of Hanover
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Sophia Dorothea of Hanover was a Queen consort in Prussia as wife of Frederick William I. She was the sister of George II of Great Britain and the mother of Frederick II of Prussia, Sophia Dorothea was born on 16 March 1687, in Hanover. She was the daughter of George Louis of Hanover, later King George I of Great Britain. She was detested by her brother, King George II of Great Britain. Sophia Dorothea married her cousin, Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia, heir apparent to the Prussian throne and they had met as children under the care of their grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, and had disliked each other ever since. Sophia Dorothea differed from her husband in every aspect and the marriage suffered as a result, one of the most important differences between them was that Sophia Dorothea, unlike her husband, loved entertainment. Frederick William contemplated to divorce her the year they married. Her husband ascended the throne in 1713 and Sophia Dorothea became queen and she was nicknamed Olympia for her regal bearing. Her children were terrorized and frequently beaten by Frederick William, who may have suffered from porphyria, Sophia Dorothea was interested in art, science, literature and fashion. She was not described as a beauty, and she was scarred from smallpox and it was the opinion of her daughter Wilhelmine that her father treated her mother unjustly. His manner toward her was described as rough, and he is noted to have used uncivil language toward her and his usual bad manners toward her were so noted that the opposite was seen as a surprise. In 1726 Sophia Dorothea inherited a sum of three million from her mother, and Frederick William was noted to suddenly treat her very well and this was regarded to be very unusual, and the Imperial ambassador reported that his changed behavior was merely because he wanted her money. When she never received it, because her brother refused to release the sum, Frederick William disliked Sophia Dorotheas early ambition to have Frederick marry Princess Amelia of Great Britain and Wilhelmine marry Frederick, Prince of Wales. He also accused her of having damaged his relationship to their children and she had a good relationship with her son, Frederick, later known as Frederick the Great, who was very attached to her and deeply mourned her death. She spent many days talking to him in the library and was informed of his plans to escape from his fathers custody in 1728, after he withdrew from the Prussian court, she corresponded with him from the fortress of Küstrin. In 1740, her spouse died, and was succeeded by their son, when she died eighteen years after her sons accession, her death was described as a great blow to Frederick. Thea Leitner, Skandal bei Hof, Ueberreuter,1993, ISBN 3-8000-3492-1 Media related to Sophia Dorothea of Hanover at Wikimedia Commons
