Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as "the Great Elector" because of his military and political achievements. Frederick William was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Westphalian political order of north-central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor.
The Rhin is a 133.3-kilometre (82.8 mi) long river in Brandenburg, Germany, right tributary to the river Havel. It flows through the city Neuruppin and several lakes. A few kilometres downstream from Rhinow it flows into the Havel, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) upstream from where the Havel meets the Elbe.
Brandenburg-Prussia is the historiographic denomination for the Early Modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618. Another consequence of the intermarriage was the incorporation of the lower Rhenish principalities of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg after the Treaty of Xanten in 1614.
The Scanian War was a part of the Northern Wars involving the union of Denmark–Norway, Brandenburg and Sweden. It was fought from 1675 to 1679 mainly on Scanian soil, in the former Danish and Norway provinces along the border with Sweden, and in Northern Germany. While the latter battles are regarded as a theater of the Scanian war in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish historiography, they are seen as a separate war in German historiography, called the Swedish-Brandenburgian War.
Fehrbelliner Platz is a station of the Berlin U-Bahn located in the Wilmersdorf district on the and the lines.
The Battle of Fehrbellin was fought on June 18, 1675, between Swedish and Brandenburg-Prussian troops. The Swedes, under Count Waldemar von Wrangel, had invaded and occupied parts of Brandenburg from their possessions in Pomerania, but were repelled by the forces of Frederick William, the Great Elector, under his Feldmarschall Georg von Derfflinger near the town of Fehrbellin. Along with the Battle of Warsaw (1656), Fehrbellin was crucial in establishing the prestige of Frederick William and Brandenburg-Prussia's army.
Georg von Derfflinger was a field marshal in the army of Brandenburg-Prussia during and after the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).
Fehrbellin is a municipality in Germany, located 60 km NW of Berlin. It had 9,310 inhabitants as of 2005, but has since declined to 8,606 inhabitants in 2012.
Lichtenau is a municipality in the district of Paderborn, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
"The Great Sleigh Drive" from December 1678 to February 1679 was a daring and bold maneuver by Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, to drive Swedish forces out of the Duchy of Prussia, a territory of his which had been invaded by the Swedes in November 1678.
Ernst Bahr is a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. He was born in Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War.
The Bishopric of Havelberg was a Roman Catholic diocese founded by King Otto I of Germany in 946, from 968 a suffragan to the Archbishops of Magedeburg. A Prince-bishopric (Hochstift) from 1151, Havelberg as a result of the Protestant Reformation was secularised and finally annexed by the margraves of Brandenburg in 1598.
John George II was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Dessau from 1660 to 1693.
Frederick II of Hesse-Homburg, also known as the Prince of Homburg was Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. He was also a successful and experienced general for the crowns of both Sweden and of Brandenburg, but is best remembered as the eponymous hero of Heinrich von Kleist's play Der Prinz von Homburg.
The Prince of Homburg is a play by Heinrich von Kleist written in 1809–10, but not performed until 1821, after the author's death.
The Battle of Fehrbellin was a battle at Fehrbellin of the Seven Years' War between Swedish and Prussian forces, fought on 28 September 1758.
The Swedish invasion of Brandenburg (1674–75) involved the occupation of the undefended Margraviate of Brandenburg by a Swedish army launched from Swedish Pomerania during the period 26 December 1674 to the end of June 1675. The Swedish invasion sparked the Swedish-Brandenburg War that, following further declarations of war by European powers allied with Brandenburg, expanded into a North European conflict that did not end until 1679.
The Rhinluch is a fen landscape in the German state of Brandenburg, bisected by the river Rhin to which it owes its name. This wetland region lies north of Fehrbellin in the county of Ostprignitz-Ruppin. The upper Rhinluch covers an area of about 23,000 hectares. The suffix luch is used to describe several wet areas in the state of Brandenburg, in which, prior to the advent of modern drainage systems, water remained largely stagnant rather than flowing.
The Skirmish at Nauen, took place on 27 [O.S. 1675] 6 near the town of Nauen between the vanguard of the Brandenburg-Prussian army and Swedish rearguard units during the Swedish-Brandenburg War.
