Der Große Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm

Friedrich Wilhelm, Der Große Kurfürst (Berlin, 1620-88, Potsdam), succeeded as Elector of Brandenburg in 1640. He had been brought up as a Calvinist, and in conformity with the policy of the Peace of Augsburg (see Augsburger Religionsfriede), cuius regio, eius religio, soon to be confirmed in the Peace of Westphalia (see Westfälischer Friede) in 1648, made the Reformed Church the dominant church in Brandenburg. Friedrich Wilhelm was the first decisive character and skilled politician after a long line of insignificant rulers, and, for good or ill, set Brandenburg (later to expand to Prussia) on a course of opportunistic alliances for territorial gain— ‘Realpolitik’, in fact, before the word was created. His acquisitions included Minden, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg. His great ambition to annex Vorpommern (the district round Stettin) failed, in spite of a brilliant victory over the Swedish army at Fehrbellin in 1675, through the opposition of Louis XIV. The Elector prudently encouraged the immigration of French Calvinists driven out by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He ruled despotically, but sought to relieve the burdens of the citizenry and to curb the independence of the landed nobility. He raised his military forces to a high level of efficiency. He is an important character in H. von Kleist's play Prinz Friedrich von Homburg.