Religious belief and political faith were closely joined, for the Church was but a department of the State; the King was chief bishop, as he was general of the army, and the sanctity of the Church was transferred to the Crown; to the nobles and peasants, criticism of, or opposition to, the King had in it something of sacrilege; the words "by the Grace of God" added to the royal title were more than an empty phrase.

Society was still organised on the old patriarchal basis: at the bottom was the peasant; above him was the _gnaediger Herr_; above him, _Unser allergnaedigste Herr_, the King, who lived in Berlin; and above him, the _Herr Gott_ in Heaven.
To the inhabitants of South Germany, and the men of the towns, these nobles of Further Pomerania, the _Junker_ as they were called, with their feudal life, their medieval beliefs, their simple monarchism, were the incarnation of political folly; to them liberalism seemed another form of atheism, but in this solitude and fresh air of the great plain was reared a race of men who would always be ready, as their fathers had been, to draw their sword and go out to conquer new provinces for their King to govern..