What had prussian army got to do with German troops during WW2?

Question

Pardon my ignorance.

Answer 1

Ok, Lot of Big answers, so I will keep mine simple...

Prussia was the Home of A man named Bismarck.
Bismarck, decided to make Germany, Because Prussia was part of the Holy Roman Empire and most people spoke German, into a Real nation. His policy was called... Blood and Iron.
With war he conquered all of the German States, then Set Kaiser William I as Monarch, taking the title of Chancellor for himself. Good old Bismarck then ran a string of alliances across Europe that would protect it from a Dual Front war, something his Predecessors still managed to get into.
With the Death of Kaiser Will the First, and the Rise of K Will the 2nd, Bismarck gets sacked, and all hell breaks lose, AKA WWI.
WWI ends, Poland gets re-created and, Just to be Mean, France makes Germany give Poland a Strip of land that severs Prussia from the Main Nation. Which later starts WWII.
Ok that went longer then I wanted it too, Ah Well.

Answer 2

from wikipedia.org:

Prussia was, most recently, a historic state originating in Brandenburg, an area which for centuries had substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of Prussia was Berlin.

With the end of the Hohenzollern monarchy in Germany following World War I, Prussia became part of the Weimar Republic in 1919. Prussia as a state was abolished de facto by the Nazis in 1934 and de jure by the Allied Powers in 1945.

Since then, the term's relevance has been limited to historical, geographical, or cultural usages. Even today, a certain kind of ethic is called "Prussian virtues", for instance: perfect organization, sacrifice, rule of law, obedience to authority and militarism, but also reliability, tolerance, thriftiness, punctuality, modesty, and diligence. Many Prussians believed that these virtues were part of the reasons for the rise of their country.

Answer 3

The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 – May 10, 1871) was declared by France on Prussia, which was backed by the North German Confederation and the south German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The conflict marked the culmination of tension between the two powers following Prussia's rise to dominance in Germany, which before 1866 was still a loose federation of quasi-independent territories.

The war began over the ascension of a candidate from the Sigmaringen branch of the Hohenzollern royal family to the vacant Spanish throne as Isabella II had abdicated in 1868. This was strongly opposed by France who issued an ultimatum to King Wilhelm I of Prussia to have the candidacy withdrawn, which was done. Aiming to humiliate Prussia, Emperor Napoleon III of France then required Wilhelm to apologize and renounce any possible further Hohenzollern candidature to the Spanish throne. King Wilhelm, surprised at his holiday resort by the French ambassador, denied the French request. Prussia's Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, edited the King's account of his meeting with the French ambassador to make the encounter more heated than it really was. Known as the Ems Dispatch, it was released to the press. It was designed to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I had insulted the French Count Benedetti, and to give the German people the impression that the Count had insulted the King. It succeeded in both of its aims.

The French people and their parliament reacted with outrage; Napoleon III mobilized and declared war on Prussia only, but effectively also on the states of southern Germany. The German armies quickly mobilized and within a few weeks controlled large amounts of land in eastern France. Their success was due in part to rapid mobilization by train, to Prussian General Staff leadership and to innovative Krupp artillery. Napoleon III was captured with his whole army at the Battle of Sedan, yet this did not end the war, as a republic was declared in Paris on September 4, 1870, marking the creation of the Third Republic of France under the Government of National Defense and later the "Versaillais government" of Adolphe Thiers. The immediate result was an extension to the war as the Republic proclaimed a continuation of the fight.

Over a five-month campaign, the German armies defeated the newly recruited French armies in a series of battles fought across northern France. Following a prolonged siege, the French capital Paris fell on January 28, 1871. Ten days earlier, the German states had proclaimed their union under the Prussian King, uniting Germany as a nation-state, the German Empire. The final peace Treaty of Frankfurt was signed May 10, 1871, during the time of the bloody Paris Commune of 1871.

In France and Germany the war is known as the Franco-German War (French: Guerre franco-allemande de 1870 German: Deutsch-Französischer Krieg), which perhaps more accurately describes the combatants rather than simply France and Prussia alone.

Answer 4

Hello =)

The prussians were the "military elite" of Germany. They represented the "professional officer corps" during WWI and well into the beginning of WWII. The German President, During Hitlers ascension was Paul Von Hindenburg, The very Prussian General who urged Kaiser Wilhelm's final surrender at the end of WWI. They, in large, were horrified by the ambitions of Hitler, as they considered themselves above such ridiculous values, but were powerless to stop it.

Namaste,

--Tom

Answer 5

in the second WW there where many officers in the German army that where of Prussian origin ( some had done active service in the army in the WW I ) because Prussian was in the history of Germany a region where many knights and solders where of origin.

Answer 6

East and West Prussia was part of Germany at that time, stolen from Poland during another war and is now part of Poland again.
Therefore the were just soldiers of the army of the Third Reich.