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Hohenzollern Family Tree - Prussia's Royal House from Frederick the Great to Kaiser Wilhelm II
The House of Hohenzollern is the German dynasty that ruled Brandenburg from 1415, held the Prussian crown from 1701, and gave Germany its three emperors between 1871 and the fall of the monarchy in 1918. This tree follows the senior Prussian line in one unbroken descent, from Frederick William the Great Elector, through the kings of Prussia and the German Emperors, down to Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, the present head of the house.
## Origins
The family takes its name from Hohenzollern Castle on a hill in the Swabian Alb, where a line of counts is recorded from the eleventh century. A Swabian Zollern married into the burgraviate of Nuremberg in 1192, and the Franconian branch that grew from it spent two centuries accumulating lands and credit with the Holy Roman Emperors. The decisive moment came in 1415, when Emperor Sigismund invested Frederick VI of Nuremberg as Elector of Brandenburg in return for his political and financial support. The Duchy of Prussia, a separate inheritance lying outside the Empire, passed to the Brandenburg electors in 1618, and Frederick William, the Great Elector, welded the two into a single functioning state after the devastation of the Thirty Years' War.
## Notable members
Frederick I turned the electorate into a kingdom in 1701. His son Frederick William I, the Soldier King, built the army and the treasury that his own son, **Frederick the Great**, used to seize Silesia and to make Prussia a European power, while also composing music, building Sanssouci and corresponding with Voltaire. **Queen Louise** became the emotional centre of Prussian resistance to Napoleon. **Wilhelm I**, with Otto von Bismarck as his minister president, was proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles in 1871. His son **Frederick III** and the liberal English princess he married, Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria, reigned for only ninety nine days. **Wilhelm II**, the last Kaiser, abdicated in 1918 and died in Dutch exile in 1941.
## Significance
No other German family shaped the modern state so directly. Hohenzollern rulers created the Prussian civil service, compulsory schooling and the general staff, sponsored the Berlin academies and the Humboldt university model, and then used Prussian power to unify Germany around themselves. The monarchy ended with the revolution of November 1918, but the house continues as a private family: the headship passed from Wilhelm II to his eldest son, then to Louis Ferdinand, and in 1994 to Georg Friedrich, whose own father and uncles are part of the succession story told in this tree.
## Quick facts
| Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Family name | Hohenzollern |
| Place of origin | Hohenzollern Castle, Swabia, southern Germany |
| Ruled | Brandenburg from 1415, Prussia from 1618, Germany from 1871 |
| Royal title | King in Prussia from 1701, King of Prussia from 1772 |
| Imperial title | German Emperor, 1871 to 1918 |
| German Emperors | Wilhelm I, Frederick III, Wilhelm II |
| Monarchy ended | 9 November 1918 |
| Present head of the house | Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, since 1994 |
| Principal residences | Berlin City Palace, Sanssouci and Cecilienhof at Potsdam, Charlottenburg |
| Branch shown here | The senior Prussian line only, not Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen |
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