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The Duchy of Saxony is granted to the Ascanian Albert the Bear. 1139: Due to his marriage to Lothar's only daughter Gertrude of Supplingenburg, Henry still holds substantial lands within the Duchy of Saxony. Henry fiercely resists Albert's attempts to take possession of Saxony. Preparing an attack on the Duchy of Bavaria, Henry dies unexpectedly.
The Emperor Henry V (1106–1125) gave the Duchy of Saxony in fief to Count Lothair of Supplinburg, who in 1125 became King of Germany, and at his death (1137) transferred the Duchy of Saxony to his son-in-law, Duke Henry the Proud, of the princely family of the Welf (Guelph).
The old Saxon coats of arms today lives on in the coats of arms of Lower Saxony and Westphalia.. The original Duchy of Saxony comprised the lands of the Saxons in the north-western part of present-day Germany, namely, the contemporary German state of Lower Saxony as well as Westphalia and Western Saxony-Anhalt, not corresponding to the modern German state of Saxony.
Anhalt-Dessau was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire and later a duchy of the German Confederation. Ruled by the House of Ascania, it was created in 1396 following the partition of the Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, and finally merged into the re-united Duchy of Anhalt in 1863. The capital of the state was Dessau in present-day Saxony-Anhalt.
The dukes of Saxony became kings (Henry I, the Fowler, 919) and later the first emperors (Henry's son, Otto I, the Great) of Germany during the tenth century, but they lost this position in 1024. The duchy was divided in 1180 when Duke Henry the Lion refused to follow his cousin, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, into war in Lombardy.
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg were the only remaining duchies (Weimar-Eisenach was the merger of the personal union of Weimar and Eisenach into one title since 1809, being raised to a Grand Duchy in 1815, and officially Grand Duchy of Saxony since 1903) at the time of the German Revolution of 1918.
The German Empire consisted of 25 constituent states and an imperial territory, the largest of which was Prussia.These states, or Staaten (or Bundesstaaten, i.e. federated states, a name derived from the previous North German Confederation; they became known as Länder during the Weimar Republic) each had votes in the Bundesrat, which gave them representation at a federal level.
Following the defeat of Saxony's ally Prussia at the Battle of Jena in October 1806, Saxony joined the Confederation of the Rhine, subordinating itself to the First French Empire, then the dominant power in Central Europe. On 20 December 1806 Frederick Augustus III, the last elector of Saxony, became King Frederick Augustus I.