Province of Brandenburg

Province of Prussia, Germany

The Province of Brandenburg (Provinz Brandenburg) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Brandenburg was established in 1815 from the Kingdom of Prussia's core territory, comprised the bulk of the historic Margraviate of Brandenburg (excluding Altmark) and the Lower Lusatia region, and became part of the German Empire in 1871. From 1918, Brandenburg was a province of the Free State of Prussia until Prussia was dissolved in 1945 after World War II, and replaced with reduced territory as the State of Brandenburg in East Germany, which was later dissolved in 1952. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, Brandenburg was re established as a federal state of Germany, becoming one of the new states. Brandenburg's provincial capital alternated between Potsdam, Berlin, and Charlottenburg during its existence.

The province comprised large parts of the North German Plain, stretching from the Elbe river in the west to beyond the Oder in the east, where the Neumark region bordered on the Prussian Grand Duchy of Posen (Province of Posen from 1848). Other neighbouring provinces were Pomerania in the northeast, Silesia in the southeast, and Prussian Saxony in the southwest. Brandenburg also shared a common border with the grand duchies of Mecklenburg Schwerin and Mecklenburg Strelitz in the northwest as well as with Anhalt in the west. Beside the Elbe and Oder river areas, the province covered large parts of the Spree and Havel basin. The largest cities were Berlin, located in the centre together with the growing suburbs of Spandau, Charlottenburg, Schöneberg and Neukölln. Larger towns were the royal residence Potsdam and the regional capital Frankfurt (Oder), furthermore Landsberg (present day Gorzów Wielkopolski) in the east, the historic capital Brandenburg an der Havel as well as Cottbus, Forst and Guben (Gubin) in Lower Lusatia.

The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Germanic Suebi. During the Migration Period, they were succeeded by the Polabian Slavs, whose fortress at Brandenburg an der Havel was conquered by the German king Henry the Fowler in 928/29. Henry subdued the Slavic tribes up to the Oder river and his son Otto I established the marca Geronis on their territory, with the government first conferred to the Saxon count Gero. The Northern March was split off in 965, however, large parts were again lost in the Great Slav Rising of 983, and the margravial title did not become hereditary until the time of Albert the Bear, another Saxon count from the noble House of Ascania, who established the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157. His son Margrave Otto I already achieved the dignity of an Arch Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Empire in 1177. Emperor Charles IV by the Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the electoral dignity of the Brandenburg margraves and in 1373 assigned the electorate to his son Wenceslaus in 1373. The Elector of Brandenburg held the seventh rank among the electors of the Empire and had five votes in the Council of Princes. In 1415 Brandenburg was acquired by Burgrave Frederick of Nuremberg, the first member of the Swabian House of Hohenzollern to rule the margraviate. Some Polish activists fled German arrest or conscription to the German army to Poland. During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, persecution further intensified with mass arrests of Polish leaders, activists, editors, entrepreneurs, etc., who were deported to concentration camps, expulsions and closure of remaining Polish organizations, schools and enterprises. During the war, Germany operated several prisoner of war camps, including Stalag III A, Stalag III B, Stalag III C, Stalag III D, Oflag II A, Oflag III A, Oflag III B, Oflag III C, Oflag 8 and Oflag 80 for Polish, Belgian, British, Dutch, French, Serbian, Italian, American, Czechoslovak, Soviet, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian and other Allied POWs with numerous forced labour subcamps in the province. In early 1945, the death marches of prisoners of various nationalities from various dissolved camps passed through the region. In the late days of World War II it was the site of the bloody encounters of the Seelow Heights, at Halbe and finally the Battle of Berlin, won by the Soviet and Polish armies. In 1945, after the war, the Neumark territory east of the Oder–Neisse line was ceded to the Republic of Poland to form the Zielona Gora Voivodeship (initially part of Poznan Voivodeship between 1945 and 1950, became Lubusz Voivodeship in 1998 after merging with Gorzów Voivodeship). The remaining territory became part of the Soviet occupation zone and was transformed into the state of Brandenburg, with Potsdam becoming state capital. In 1949, the state of Brandenburg became part of East Germany and, along with the other states of Eastern Germany, in 1952 was dissolved and divided into administrative districts. Brandenburg's territory roughly corresponded with the districts of Potsdam, Frankfurt/Oder and Cottbus. In 1990, following German reunification, Brandenburg was re established as a state of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Prussian central government appointed for every province an Oberpräsident ("Upper President") carrying out central prerogatives on the provincial level and supervising the implementation of central policy on the lower levels of administration. Since 1875, with the strengthening of self rule within the provinces, the urban and rural districts (Kreise) elected representatives for the provincial Landtage diets. These parliaments legislated within the competences transferred to the provinces. The provincial diet of Brandenburg elected a provincial executive body (government), the provincial committee (Provinzialausschuss), and a head of province, the Landesdirektor ("Land Director").

From 1822 the province of Brandenburg was divided into two Regierungsbezirke (governorates): Frankfurt and Regierungsbezirk Potsdam. Between 1816 and 1822 there was a third governorate – the Regierungsbezirk Berlin – comprising the urban district of Berlin, the city of Charlottenburg and the municipalities of Gesundbrunnen, Lichtenberg, and Stralau. In 1822 the Berlin region merged into the Potsdam region.

Established in 1816 this governorate, an enclave in the Potsdam region, merged into the latter in 1822.