Brandenburg (region)

Brandenburg (region), historic region and state in the united Federal Republic of Germany. The region constituted the nucleus of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1871) and of the German Empire (1871-1918), with Berlin as the capital. The city of Potsdam is its capital.

The earliest known inhabitants of Brandenburg were the Suevi, a Germanic people. During the early Middle Ages a number of Slavic tribes occupied the region. In the 10th century they were conquered and Christianized by the German king Henry I. Henry's son, Emperor Otto I, divided the territory into two margravates, or counties, which were later united as the margravate of Brandenburg. In the centuries that followed, German settlers colonized the area, and the size and influence of the margravate increased, mostly at the expense of Poland and Bohemia. From 1323 to 1411 Brandenburg was ruled by princes of the houses of Wittelsbach and Luxembourg. In 1356 Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV recognized it as one of the seven imperial electorates. In 1415 Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund placed the electorate under the rule of Frederick, burgrave of Nürnberg (1371-1440). Frederick, a prince of the house of Hohenzollern, and his successors quelled the turbulent nobility, established a centralized government, and greatly extended the boundaries of the electorate. The Reformation was introduced about 1540, and the electors of Brandenburg subsequently became leading champions of the Protestant cause. In 1614 Elector John Sigismund ordered preparation of the Confession of Brandenburg, a declaration of faith, to reconcile the tenets of Lutheranism and Calvinism and to terminate disputes provoked by the Augsburg Confession. In 1618 John Sigismund gained, through marriage, the duchy of Prussia (the southern parts of the former fief of the Teutonic Order; (see Teutonic Knights).

Although large sections of the region were devastated during the first two decades of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Brandenburg-Prussia emerged as one of the strongest states in Germany under the rule of Frederick William, known as the Great Elector. In 1701 Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I established Brandenburg-Prussia as the kingdom of Prussia under Frederick William's son, Frederick III, who then became Frederick I of Prussia. Thereafter, the history of Brandenburg until the defeat of Germany in World War II is inseparable from Prussian history. At the Berlin Conference in 1945 part of Brandenburg was given to Poland. The rest was placed in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, and from 1947, when Prussia was dissolved as a political entity, until 1952 it retained the name Brandenburg as a state (Land) in the former state of East Germany. In 1990 East and West Germany united and became the Federal Republic of Germany.