Friedrich Wilhelm "the Great Elector" of Brandenburg (16 February 1620-29 April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia from 1 December 1640 to 29 April 1688, succeeding Georg Wilhelm and preceding Friedrich III.
Biography[]
Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern was born in Berlin, Brandenburg-Prussia, Holy Roman Empire in 1620, the son of Elector Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg and Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. He was educated in the Netherlands, and he was considered as a suitor for Princess Christina of Sweden before the idea fell apart amid the Thirty Years' War. He inherited the electorate of Brandenburg in 1640, and he focused on rebuilding his war-ravaged territories and oversaw religious tolerance. He used French subsidies to build up an army that took part in the Second Northern War of 1655-1660, winning sovereignty for Ducal Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm also established a reputation as a great military commander, taking part in Sweden's victory at the Battle of Warsaw in 1656. In 1672, he allied with the Dutch Republic against France during the Franco-Dutch War, and King Louis XIV of France persuaded the Swedes to turn on him, leaving him diplomatically isolated. Although he conquered much of Swedish Pomerania during the Scanian War and destroyed Swedish armies at the Battle of Fehrbellin and the Great Sleigh Drive, he was obliged to return most of it to Sweden under a 1679 peace. He oversaw the centralization of Brandenburg's administration and increased its revenue, and he built an army of 45,000 soldiers by 1678. By the time of his death in 1688, the Great Elector had transformed Prussia into a great power by augmenting and integrating the Hohenzollern family possessions in northern Germany and Prussia.