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THE
BEGINNINGS OF THE PRUSSIAN STATE
In
1413 a Hohenzollern Count
of Nürnberg (Nuremberg) in southern Germany bought the distant
marquisate of
Brandenburg, in present day NE Germany. For the next three hundred
years the
family built up its powerbase in and around Berlin. Then in 1701 the
family bought the title of "King in Prussia" by buying Prussia, a
territory in NE Poland. Eventually the Hohenzollerns came to rule the
whole of Germany, under Kaiser Wilhelm the First. This book shows how
the
relentless, ruthless Hohenzollerns grasped their chances between 1620
and 1786. Yet
without question, one ruler amongst the Hohenzollerns stands head and
shoulders above his relatives, unquestionably the most ruthless of them
all, the warmonger Frederick
the Great. |