Abolition of Prussia

The abolition of Prussia took place on 25 February 1947 through a decree of the Allied Control Council, the governing body of post-World War II occupied Germany and Austria. The rationale was that by doing away with the state that had been at the center of German militarism and reaction, it would be easier to preserve the peace and for Germany to develop democratically.

Not to be confused with Dissolution of the Russian Empire.

: split in 1948 into West Berlin and East Berlin, reunified in 1990 to form the State of Berlin.

City of Berlin

: territories east of the rivers Oder and Neisse became part of Poland in 1945. The rest was a state of East Germany between 1947 and 1952, at which point it was dissolved under an East German administrative reform. Since 1990, the state of Brandenburg exists again.

Brandenburg

: split into Poland's Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast.

East Prussia

: merged in 1946 with the states of Brunswick, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe to form the state of Lower Saxony.

Hanover

: the majority of the province was merged with the People's State of Hesse to form the state of Hesse. Some western parts were merged with the Rhine Province and Bavarian Palatinate to form the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Hesse-Nassau

: merged with the southern parts of Württemberg to form the state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern in 1945. In 1952 Württemberg-Hohenzollern merged with South Baden and Württemberg-Baden to form the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Hohenzollern

: the majority of the province is now part of Poland, mostly within the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Some small parts west of the Oder-Neisse line around Görlitz are part of the state of Saxony.

Lower Silesia

: split by the Oder-Neisse line between Poland and Germany. The Polish part is now part of the Pomeranian and West Pomeranian Voivodeships, while the German part merged with Mecklenburg to form the East German state of Mecklenburg, which was abolished in 1952. As of 1990 the territory is part of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Pomerania

: today part of Poland.

Posen-West Prussia

: split in two in 1946. The northern part merged with the province of Westphalia and the Free State of Lippe to form the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while the southern part merged with Oldenburgish Birkenfeld, the Rhenish Hesse part of the People's State of Hesse and Bavarian Palatinate to form the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Rhineland

: The two regions around Magdeburg and Halle (Saale) merged with the Free State of Anhalt to form the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which was abolished in the 1952 administrative reform and then recreated in 1990 during German reunification. The region around Erfurt merged with the Weimar state of Thuringia to form the East German state of Thuringia, which was also abolished in 1952 and recreated in 1990.

Saxony

: became the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Schleswig-Holstein

: part of Poland, mainly as the Opole Voivodeship.

Upper Silesia

: merged with the northern part of the Rhine Province and the Free State of Lippe to form the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Westphalia

The territories of Prussia as of 1937 (mainly its twelve provinces) became the following entities after the Second World War:

Later history[edit]

The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) suspended the law by a decision of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union when the Soviet Control Commission in East Germany was dissolved on 20 September 1955. The reunited Germany formally repealed Law No. 46 on 23 November 2007 when it enacted the Second Law on the Settlement of Occupation Law (Zweites Gesetz zur Bereinigung des Besatzungsrechts).^[6]

Prussia's abolition resulted in the 1954 disbanding of the Prussian Academy of Arts.^[7] The Prussian Academy of Sciences was renamed in 1972. It was abolished and replaced by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1992 as part of the process of German reunification.