William I, or Wilhelm I, was King of Prussia from 1861 and German Emperor from 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his brother Frederick William IV. During the reign of his grandson Wilhelm II, he was known as Wilhelm the Great.
Frederick William IV, the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, was king of Prussia from 7 June 1840 until his death on 2 January 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he was deeply religious and believed that he ruled by divine right. He feared revolutions, and his ideal state was one governed by the Christian estates of the realm rather than a constitutional monarchy.
The Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen is a non-profit organization for Germans who were evacuated or expelled from East Prussia during World War II and as well as people who emigrated in more recent times, exercising their right to German citizenship, based on a 1913 German law. It was formed on 3 October 1948 by East Prussian refugees in West Germany.
Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia was the eldest child of the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and his consort Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, and thus a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, and distant cousin to many British royals, such as Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III. As Emperor Wilhelm's heir, he was the last Crown Prince of the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, until the abolition of the monarchy.
Karl Hermann Johannes Thiele was a German zoologist specialized in malacology. Thiele was born in Goldap, East Prussia. His Handbuch der systematischen Weichtierkunde is a standard work. From 1904 until his retirement in 1925 he was the curator of the malacological collection at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Thiele described more than 1.500 new species of molluscs; until today their types are deposited with the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. Especially important are his works on the Mollusca of the First German Antarctica Expedition and of the German Deep Sea Expedition aboard the vessel Valdivia.
Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck was a prolific German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Linnaeus. He described approximately 7,000 plant species. His last official act as president of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina was to admit Charles Darwin as a member. He was the author of numerous monographs on botany and zoology and majority of his best-known works deal with fungi.
The Order of the Black Eagle was the highest order of chivalry in the Kingdom of Prussia. The order was founded on 17 January 1701 by Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg. In his Dutch exile after World War I, deposed Emperor Wilhelm II continued to award the order to his family. He made his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, a Lady in the Order of the Black Eagle.
Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia, nicknamed "Auwi", was the fourth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. A vocal supporter of Nazism and of Adolf Hitler, he joined the Nazi party in 1930 and rose to the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer.
The House von der Goltz is the name of an old and influential German noble family whose members occupied many important political and military positions in the Kingdom of Prussia and later in the German Empire.
Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was the last prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen before the territory was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1849. Afterwards he continued to be titular prince of his house and, with the death of the last prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen in 1869, of the entire House of Hohenzollern. He served as Minister President of Prussia from 1858 to 1862, the only Hohenzollern prince to hold the post. His second son, Karl, became king of Romania. The offer of the throne of Spain to his eldest son, Leopold, was one of the causes of the Franco-Prussian War, which led to the unification of Germany and the creation of the German Empire.
August Friedrich Ferdinand Graf von der Goltz was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Prussia between 1808 and 1814, the first person to hold that title.
Curt Gustav Friedrich Walther von Gottberg was a high-ranking SS Obergruppenführer who served as Higher SS and Police Leader for central Russia and, from September 1943, as the Generalkommissar (Commissioner-General) of occupied Belarus, combining the highest civil and police powers in that jurisdiction during the Second World War.
Prince Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Joseph Christian Olaf of Prussia was the eldest child of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At his birth, he was second in line to the German throne and was expected to succeed to the throne after the deaths of his grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm II, and his father, Crown Prince Wilhelm. Both, however, outlived him.
Count Joachim Karl Ludwig Mortimer von Maltzan, Freiherr von Wartenberg und Penzlin was a Prussian diplomat and Foreign Minister from 1841 to 1842.
Army Group C was an army group of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. In its first deployment between 1939 and 1941, its main assignment was the defense of the Franco-German border during the Phony War and the Western Campaign, after which it was moved to East Prussia to become Army Group North. When Army Group C was recreated from 1943 to 1945, it was used to coordinate German forces on the Italian front.
Wilhelm Heinrich Michael Louis Ferdinand Friedrich Franz Wladimir Prinz von Preussen was a descendant of the Hohenzollern dynasty which ruled Germany until the end of World War I. His great-grandfather Wilhelm II was the German Emperor and King of Prussia until 1918. Although Kaiser Wilhelm died in exile and his family was stripped of much of its wealth and recognition of its rank and titles by the German Republic, Michael spent nearly all of his life in Germany.
Prince Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht, Prince of Prussia was a Prussian officer, member of the house of Hohenzollern, and a great-grandson of Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. He was persecuted for being homosexual.
Oskar Michael Hans Karl Prinz von Preussen is a member of the House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling house of Germany. He is the thirty-seventh Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John.
Gerhard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger was a German conductor.
Wilhelm Bernhard, Count von der Goltz was a German nobleman, Prussian officer and diplomat.
