LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Teutonic Knights: German Order
built 607 days ago
Founded during the Third Crusade, the Teutonic Knights were a German military order modeled on the Hospitallers. By the 13th century the order had begun to shift its focus from the Holy Land to Europe. From 1211 to 1225 it waged war against pagans in Transylvania and effectively Christianized the region, but it was subsequently expelled by the king of Hungary.
Source:
Originally based in Acre, the Teutonic Knights was a crusading order of knights created in in the 12 century for the purpose of give medical aid to pilgrims to the holy places. Although they did not originally have a military mission, the need for more combattants against the Muslims forced them to re-organize along military lines in 1198 and adopt the title Ritter, or Knight. They wore a white uniform with a black cross.
Source:
When the mission of the order in Palestine was nearing its end, the Teutonic Knights moved their headquarter to Venice. Despite the fact, that their mission of conquering the Holy land was ended, they wanted to introduce the idea of religious crusades to Eastern Europe, on the border with pagan nations. The Knights offered their services to the local Christian rulers posing as religiously motivated mercenaries. Nevertheless, they hoped that using their influence in the Holy Roman Empire could help them become territorial proprietors of the newly conquered lands.
Source:
The Teutonic Knights soon drove eastward, or converted to Christianity, the sparsely settled native Prussian people, and assumed sovereignty over East Purssia. They encouraged the immigration of German families of farmers and artisans, and their domain on the south shore of the Baltic became a self-contained German state, outside the Holy Roman Empire. The boundaries varied, at one time reaching the Gulf of Finland ( see Historical Atlas, by William R. Shepherd, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1911, maps 77, 79, 87, 99, 119). "The hundred years from 1309 to 1409 were the Golden Age of the Teutonic Knights, Young nobles from all over Europe found no greater honor than to come out and fight under their banner and be Knighted by their Grand Master" (Fay, op. cit., pp. 32-33). As the years passed, the function of the Teutonic Knights as defenders, or potential defenders, of the Christian West remained unchanged.
Source:
In 1929 the Teutonic Knights were converted to a purely spiritual Roman Catholic religious order and were renamed Deutscher Orden ("German Order"). After Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany, the Teutonic Order was abolished throughout the Großdeutsches Reich from 1938-1945, although the Nazis used imagery of the medieval Teutonic Knights for propaganda purposes. The Order survived in Italy... and was reconstituted in Germany and Austria in 1945.
Source:
The Order of the Teutonic Knights was established in 1198 AD during the Third Crusade as a brotherhood for nursing wounded soldiers. They named themselves "The Lords of Amber" and dominated the Baltic region for centuries.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
German Order