Grand Duchy of Baden

The Grand Duchy of Baden was the German polity of the upper Rhine's east bank, sovereign from 1806 to 1871 and then a member of the German Empire until 1918. Its roots ran to a twelfth-century margraviate, split into Baden-Durlach and Baden-Baden, reunited in 1771 under Charles Frederick. Raised to an electorate in 1803 and a grand duchy in 1806 as Napoleon's ally in the Confederation of the Rhine, Baden grew fat on secularised church lands. From Karlsruhe it governed as Germany's liberal schoolmaster: the first chamber, the freest press, the earliest railways, a university at Heidelberg and Freiburg that drew all Europe. It joined the Empire in 1871 without losing its dynasty or its habits. In 1918 revolution took the Grand Duke Frederick II with the other princes; the republic of Baden followed, then the Nazi Gau, and in 1952 the land merged into Baden-Wurttemberg with Stuttgart as capital.