Failed Crusade but Imperial Glory: The Teutonic Knights’ Imperialistic Legacy in Eastern Europe

The Teutonic Knights took part in crusades against pagan Prussia and Lithuania in the 13th and 14th centuries. After Lithuania converted to Catholicism and made an alliance with Poland, the German crusader order eventually fell to insignificance. However, the Teutonic Knights' legacy lived on in the German imagination, being envisioned in the 18th century as a proto-German empire and gaining a place in Adolf Hitler's Nazi ideology in the 20th. This brief survey will look at how the German crusaders left their mark on the Baltic region.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Deliberate Thought" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Episode Thumbnail: "Coat of arms of the Teutonic Order" uploaded to Wikipedia by Madboy74