Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg

Frederick I, elector of Brandenburg from 1417 and founder of the Brandenburg line of Hohenzollern, had in 1425 handed over the control of Brandenburg to his eldest son, John the Alchemist, returned to Franconia, and devoted the rest of his life to imperial affairs, having himself spent less than six years in Brandenburg.

Active in the negotiations with the Hussites as a champion of religious moderation, he had helped bring about the pacts of Prague (1433) and Iglau (1436), and takes part in the election of Frederick III as German king in 1440.

At his death on September 20 of this year, he leaves his sons firmly in control.

The Division of Altenburg, which follows a dispute over the division of certain Wettin family lands between Frederick II, Elector of Saxony and Duke William III, eventually leads to growing tensions between the two brothers and an inability to agree on who rules which areas.

The Saxon Fratricidal War breaks out after failed attempts at reconciliation.

The war, which lasts or five years, is destructive and has no clear winner before being ended with a peace treaty at Naumburg.

The Saxons loss much of their former power and influence within the different German states and families following the war and subsequent divisions.

Frederick II is the eldest of the seven children of Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, and Catherine of Brunswick and Lunenburg.

After the death of his father in 1428, he had taken over the government together with his younger brothers William III, Henry and Sigismund.

In 1433 the Wettins had finally concluded peace with the Hussites.

In 1438, in what is considered the first federal state parliament of Saxony, the parliament receives the right to find together in case of innovations in fiscal matters, also without summoning by the ruler.

After Henry's death in 1435, and after Sigismund is forced in 1440 to renounce his claim and become a bishop, Frederick and William divide their possessions.

In the Division of Altenburg in 1445, William III had received the Thuringian and Frankish part, and Frederick got the eastern part of the principality.

The mines remain common possessions.

Disputes over the distribution had led, however, in 1446 to the Saxon Fratricidal War, which finds an end only on January 27, 1451, with the peace of Naumburg.

In the Treaty of Eger in 1459, elector Frederick, Duke William III and the king of Bohemia George of Podebrady will fix the borders between Bohemia and Saxony, at the height of the Ore Mountains and the middle of the Elbe.

The border, which still holds today, belongs therefore to the oldest extant borders of Europe.

Brandenburg had pawned the Neumark to the Teutonic Knights in 1402, and it had passed completely under their control in 1429, although the Order neglected the region as well.

After the Teutonic Knights' defeat in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410, the future Grand Master Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg had used the Neumark as a staging ground for an army of German and Hungarian mercenaries which he later used against the forces of King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland.

This had allowed the Order to retain much of its territory in the First Peace of Thorn in 1411.

The Knights' mismanagement leads in 1454/1455 to their pawning of the Neumark back to Brandenburg, by now led by Elector Frederick II of the Hohenzollern dynasty (Treaties of Cölln and Mewe).