Prussia
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50 free Prussia trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Prussia began as a remote duchy on the Baltic and grew into the state that unified Germany, before being wiped off the map in 1947. Along the way it gathered a patchwork of provinces stretching from the Rhine to the Russian border, each with its own capital, history and character. This quiz covers the Prussian provinces and the cities that governed them, the rulers and soldiers who made the kingdom a major power, the wars that won and lost its territory, and the surprising places where the Prussian name survives. It suits history fans, students of German and European history, and anyone curious about a country that no longer exists. The questions run from easy openers to tougher ones on provincial capitals and politics.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Latin name for Prussia survives in football club names in Dortmund and Mönchengladbach?
Borussia
Borussia is the Latin name for Prussia, and Dortmund and Mönchengladbach both lay in Prussian provinces when their clubs were founded.
Q 02Which crop did Frederick the Great promote so keenly that visitors still leave it on his grave?
Potatoes
Potatoes earned Frederick the nickname Der Kartoffelkönig, the Potato King, for introducing the new crop to his country.
Q 03King of Prussia, a community famous for its huge shopping mall, is in which US state?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's King of Prussia took its name from an 18th-century tavern, the King of Prussia Inn, which honoured Frederick the Great.
Q 04Which material lined the room, later looted by the Nazis, that Prussia gave Russia's tsar in 1716?
Amber
Amber panels backed with gold leaf made up the room, which the Prussians handed over to seal an alliance against Sweden.
Q 05Königsberg, the old capital of East Prussia, took which new name after the Soviet Union annexed it?
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad honours the Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin, who had died shortly before the city was renamed in 1946.
Q 06Which Prussian province on the Baltic, governed from Stettin, shares its name with a fluffy toy dog?
Pomerania
Pomerania gave its name to the Pomeranian, a spitz breed whose smaller variety became popular after Queen Victoria owned one.
Q 07Prussic acid, first made from the pigment Prussian blue, is an old name for which deadly poison?
Hydrogen cyanide
Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from Prussian blue in 1782 by the Swedish chemist Scheele, and Germans still call it Blausäure, literally blue acid.
Q 08Which high-kicking parade march, now used by armies worldwide, began in 18th-century Prussian drill?
Goose step
The goose step was known in Prussia as the Stechschritt, or piercing step, and began as a way of keeping troops in line as they advanced.
Q 09What is the German name for the spiked leather helmet that the Prussian army adopted in 1842?
Pickelhaube
The Pickelhaube was widely imitated by other armies, and Germany's own troops wore it until a steel helmet began replacing it in 1916.
Q 10Which Prussian-born officer drilled George Washington's Continental Army at Valley Forge in 1778?
Friedrich von Steuben
Friedrich von Steuben wrote his drills in French because he spoke little English, and his manual stayed in US Army use until 1814.
Q 11Which Austrian province did Frederick the Great seize in 1740 and then fight three wars to keep?
Silesia
Silesia was invaded weeks after Emperor Charles VI died without a male heir, and its coal later fuelled Prussian industry.
Q 12Which Baltic port, West Prussia's chief city, became a League of Nations 'Free City' in 1920?
Danzig
Danzig and nearly 200 surrounding localities formed a city-state that lasted until 1939; the port is now Gdańsk.
Q 13Which kingdom, once ruled in personal union with Britain, did Prussia annex as a province in 1866?
Hanover
Hanover had voted to mobilise troops against Prussia in June 1866, and its British link had ended because its law kept Queen Victoria off the throne.
Q 21Which crusading order conquered the pagan Old Prussians and ruled their land from Marienburg Castle?
Teutonic Knights
The Teutonic Knights moved their headquarters from Venice to Marienburg in 1309, putting themselves beyond the reach of secular rulers.
Q 22Which dynasty ruled Prussia as dukes, kings and German emperors until its last monarch fell in 1918?
Hohenzollern
The Hohenzollern family took its name from a castle in Swabia, and a Catholic branch of it went on to rule Romania until 1947.
Q 23In 1525 the Duchy of Prussia became the first state to make which faith its official church?
Lutheranism
Lutheranism came on the advice of Martin Luther himself, who urged Duke Albert to turn the land of a monastic order into his own principality.
Q 14Which twin duchies did Denmark lose in 1864, only for them to become a Prussian province?
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein was at first occupied jointly by Prussia and Austria, and their dispute over running it set off the war of 1866.
Q 15Which Rhine Province city saw its Gothic cathedral completed in 1880, with Prussia paying a third?
Cologne
Cologne celebrated the completion as a national event, 632 years after building began; a civic association raised the other two-thirds.
Q 16Which city, where the Moselle joins the Rhine, was the official capital of Prussia's Rhine Province?
Koblenz
Koblenz kept the title although the provincial assembly met in Düsseldorf, and Prussia built its Ehrenbreitstein fortress to guard the middle Rhine against French invasion.
Q 17Which city, host of talks ending the Thirty Years' War, became capital of Prussian Westphalia?
Münster
Münster hosted the 1648 talks between the Holy Roman Emperor and France, while the emperor's envoys dealt with Sweden in nearby Osnabrück.
Q 18Which city, famed for a vacuum experiment with two hemispheres, was capital of Prussian Saxony?
Magdeburg
Magdeburg's mayor, the scientist von Guericke, showed that teams of horses could not pull the hemispheres apart once the air inside was pumped out.
Q 19Which free city, where Holy Roman Emperors were crowned until 1792, did Prussia annex in 1866?
Frankfurt
Frankfurt was annexed by decree of the Prussian king in September 1866 and folded into the new province of Hesse-Nassau.
Q 20Which grand duchy, created for Prussia in 1815 from Polish lands, became a regular province in 1848?
Posen
Posen at first had a Polish prince, Antoni Radziwiłł, as the king's governor, and the kings of Prussia kept the title of its grand duke until 1918.
Q 24Which persecuted religious minority did the Great Elector invite to Brandenburg-Prussia with his 1685 Edict of Potsdam?
Huguenots
Huguenots, French Protestants fleeing Louis XIV, took up the offer about 20,000 strong; it promised refugees rent-free housing for up to four years.
Q 25Which Prussian 'Soldier King' collected unusually tall recruits for his Potsdam Giants regiment?
Frederick William I
Frederick William I stood only about 1.60 m tall himself, and foreign rulers sent him tall soldiers to win his friendship.
Q 26Which instrument did Frederick the Great play so keenly that he wrote 121 sonatas for it?
Flute
The flute sonatas were often written with Johann Joachim Quantz, his boyhood tutor, who joined the court in 1741 as composer and instrument maker.
Q 27Which French Enlightenment writer moved to Potsdam in 1750 as the guest of Frederick the Great?
Voltaire
Voltaire was made a royal chamberlain on 20,000 livres a year, but a feud with the head of the Berlin Academy soured his stay.
Q 28Which rococo summer palace did Frederick the Great build above terraced vineyards at Potsdam?
Sanssouci
Sanssouci, French for carefree, is also where Frederick asked to be buried, a wish granted only in 1991, when his casket was interred on its vineyard terrace.
Q 29Which Russian empress, born a German princess in Prussian Stettin, helped Prussia partition Poland?
Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great was born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729, when her father was a Prussian general serving as governor of Stettin.
Q 30Which Russian tsar saved Frederick the Great in 1762 by abruptly quitting the Seven Years' War?
Peter III
Peter III also handed back the territory Russia had conquered, and after a reign of just 186 days he was overthrown by his own wife.