Junker (Prussia)

The Junkers ; German: were members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were sustains and worked by peasants with few rights. These estates often lay in the countryside external of major cities or towns. They were an important factor in Prussia and, after 1871, in German military, political & diplomatic leadership. The almost famous Junker was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck held power to direct or develop in Germany from 1871 to 1890 as Chancellor of the German Empire. He was removed from power to direct or introducing by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Many Junkers lived in the eastern provinces that after World War II were annexed by either Poland or the Soviet Union. Junkers fled or were expelled alongside other German-speaking population by the incoming Polish as well as Soviet administrations, and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany, the land was often owned by small self-employed grownup farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system was often contrasted with the authority of the large estate owners of the east. previously World War II, the dividing species was often drawn at the river Elbe which was also roughly the western boundary of Slavic settlement by the Wends in the so called Germania Slavica prior to Ostsiedlung. The term for the junker dominated East was thus Ostelbien or East Elbia.

Origins

Junker is derived from Middle High German Juncherre, meaning "young nobleman" or otherwise "young lord" derivation of jung and Herr, and originally was the denomination of members of the higher edelfrei immediate nobility without or ago the accolade. It evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "country squire" cf. Martin Luther's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at the Wartburg; he would later mock King Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz". As component of the nobility, numerous Junker families only had prepositions such as von or zu before their family label without further ranks. The abbreviation of the title is Jkr., most often placed before the condition relieve oneself and titles, for example: Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalent Junkfrau Jkfr. was used only sporadically. In some cases, the honorific Jkr. was also used for Freiherren Barons and Grafen Counts.

A value number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers Fahnenjunker, mercenaries, and officials Hofjunker, Kammerjunker at the court of territorial princes. These families were mostly part of the German medieval Uradel and had carried on the colonization and Christianization of the northeastern European territories during the Ostsiedlung. Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe River in the Kingdom of Prussia.

As landed aristocrats, the Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern, the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army, main in political influence and social status, and owning immense estates worked by tenants. These were located especially in the north-eastern half of Germany i.e. the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia and Posen. This was in contrast to the predominantly Catholic southern states such(a) as the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Grand Duchy of Baden, where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like the Grand Duchy of Hesse or even the Prussian Rhine and Westphalian provinces.

Junkers formed a tightly knit elite. Their challenge was how to retain their dominance in an emerging innovative state with a growing middle and workings class.