History of germany

Prussia and the Teutonic knights: 1225-1525

The Teutonic knights, short of work in the Holy Land, adopt a new form of crusade in about 1225. A prince of Poland, Conrad of Mazovia, asks them to control his unruly neighbours, the pagan Prussians - tribes who have lived for many centuries in the lands northeast of Germany, bordering the Baltic sea. The knights prepare their campaign carefully, establishing in advance their rights over any land they may conquer. In 1230 Conrad formally cedes to the order his territories on the west bank of the Vistula. 

During the next thirty years the knights fight their way east along the coast as far as the Neman river, building castles to hold down the Prussians and sharing out the land as feudal fiefs for German families. 
In 1261 an uprising by the Prussians almost succeeds in evicting the Teutonic knights. It takes the knights some twenty years to regain full control. They achieve their purpose by giving feudal rights to many more families and by importing large numbers of German peasants to till the land (their iron ploughs are more effective than the wooden implements of the Prussians in this heavily wooded region). 
The knights improve their security when they seize Gdansk in 1308 and annexe the coast west to the Oder (the region known as Pomerania). This links Prussia with the German empire. But it has a very adverse effect on its southern neighbours, cutting Poland off from the sea. 
The knights retain this territory for a century, until Poland and Lithuania win a crushing victory over the order at Grunwald in 1410. The disposal of Prussian territory between Poland and the knights is eventually agreed in a treaty at Torun in 1466. The western part of Prussia, around the Vistula, is incorporated in the Polish kingdom. Further west along the coast, Pomerania(annexed by the knights in 1308-9) is now restored to Poland. 
But the eastern part of Prussia, more densely settled by Germans, is granted to the order as a feudal duchy owing allegiance to Poland. 
This arrangement lasts until then Reformation. In 1525, under Lutheran influence, the high master dissolves the Teutonic Order in Prussia. However he retains his own position at the head of the duchy, owing allegiance just as before to the Polish crown. But he is now the secular duke of Prussia, a position capable of becoming hereditary. 
The name of this last high master in the region is Albert. He is a member of the Hohenzollernfamily. Prussia becomes one of his family's most significant possessions.