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The Junkers ( ; ) were the members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights. They were an important factor in Prussian and, after 1871, German military, political and diplomatic leadership. The most famous Junker was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.〔Francis Ludwig Carsten, ''A history of the Prussian Junkers'' (1989).〕 Those who lived in the eastern provinces that either were annexed by Poland or the Soviet Union or became East Germany fled or were expelled by the Soviet or the Polish or East German communist regime after 1944 and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany, the land was often owned by small independent farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system was often contrasted with the dominance of the large estate owners of the east. ==Origins== ''Junker'' is derived from Middle High German ''Juncherre'', meaning "young nobleman"〔Duden; Meaning of Junker, in German. ()〕 or otherwise "young lord" (derivation of ''jung'' and ''Herr''), and originally was the title of members of the higher ''edelfrei'' (immediate) nobility without or before the accolade. It evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "country squire" (cf. Martin Luther's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at the Wartburg; he would later mock King Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz"〔Henry VIII: September 1540, 26-30', Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 16: 1540-1541 (1898), p. 51. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=76214 Date accessed: 10 June 2012〕). As part of the nobility, many Junker families only had prepositions such as ''von'' or ''zu'' before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of Junker is Jkr., most often placed before the given name and titles, for example: Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalent ''Junkfrau'' (Jkfr.) was used only sporadically. In some cases, the honorific Jkr. was also used for ''Freiherren'' (Barons) and ''Grafen'' (Counts). A good number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers (''Fahnenjunker''), mercenaries and officials (''Hofjunker'', ''Kammerjunker'') at the court of territorial princes. These families were mostly part of the German medieval ''Uradel'' and had carried on the colonization and Christianization of the northeastern European territories during the ''Ostsiedlung''. Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe River in the Kingdom of Prussia.〔William W. Hagen, ''Ordinary Prussians – Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840'' (Cambridge University Press, 2007) 〕 As landed aristocrats, the Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern, the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army, leading in political influence and social status, and owning immense estates, especially in the north-eastern half of Germany (i.e. the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia and Posen). This was in contrast to the predominantly Catholic southern states such as the kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg or the Grand Duchy of Baden, where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like the Grand Duchy of Hesse or even the Prussian Rhine and Westphalia provinces.〔Hagen, ''Ordinary Prussians – Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840'' (2007) 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Junker (Prussia)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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