News from German Friends

On the occasion of the 200th year of death of Queen Luise, the Foundation for Prussian Castles and Gardens, so the house of Prussia, proclaimed 2010 as year of Luise ("Luisenjahr"). Until today, historians unanimously acknowledge that Queen Louise played a key role in preventing Prussia to collapse internally after the heavy military defeat at the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt on 14 October 1806. Legendary is also an encounter of Luise with Napoleon Bonaparte on 6 July 1807 in Tilsit.

The newspaper Die Welt reports about the ambiguous relationship of modern Germany to Prussia. On the one hand, the State of Prussia was disbanded in 1947 by the victorious powers of World War II as a "hotbed of militarism", on the other hand one can historically not even think of Germany without Prussia. Already the fact, that radical democrats had to extort forcibly the commitmet to "Deutschtum" from King Frederick William IV of Prussia at the March Revolution of 1948 gives evidence how false and unfair the accusation of Prussia as the "hoard of the exaggerated german identity ("Hort der Deutschtümelei") actually is.

The German Monarchist Society plans for July 2010 the reestablishment of the Queen Luise Union ("Königin Luise Bund"), a monarchist womens organistion, that was banned by the Nazis in 1934.