What Was Prussia?

“Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books.”
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia

Before Germany there was Prussia. Without Prussia there would have been no Germany.

But what on earth was this mythical land anyway?

Vox pop that question publicly now and more often than not you will be met with stunned silence – or the awkward suggestion that it might have something to do with old mother Russia – or maybe Persia.

What exactly Prussia was has always been defined by the era in which the question has been asked.

By virtue of its wildly different forms, you would receive a different definition if the question were asked in 1945, 1845, or 1745. So old is the quandary that the same could be said for 1445 and 1245. A truly European dilemma.

What can be stated with great certainty is that Prussia no longer exists. Joining the long list of fellow fallen states: Biafra, Rhodesia, Gran Colombia, Sikkim, the Zulu Kingdom, the Orange Free State…

While many of these sovereign states have disappeared into obscurity, the impact of the rise and fall of the once mighty European power of Prussia can still be felt.

Europe without Germany now would be unimaginable but Germany without Prussia would be simply inconceivable. In more than one measure of the word.

Dealing with the question of the former – there would still be the awkward alliance of Austria and Switzerland, enough to preserve the diphthongs and clunky compound nouns (see: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft) of the language, and the measurably superior original Viennese Schnitzel.

For better or worse, Europe without Germany would be a substantially different place, but Germany without Prussia would likely have never existed.

So integral as it was to the growth and eventual unification of Germany.

From its colonial origins in the forcible Christianisation of the flatlands of the North European Plain to the height of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and the Prussian-led declaration of German nationhood, Prussia endured – and ensured the transition from monastic state, to Kingdom, and then Empire.