ALBERT III. (1414-86), elector of Brandenburg, surnamed ACHILLES because of his relentless energy and physical strength, and his combination of shrewdness and knight-errantry, was the third son of Frederick I. of Hohenzollern, elector of Branden burg. Albert was born at Tangermunde on Nov. 9, 1414, and died at Frankfurt on March 11, 1486. On the division of terri tory which followed his father's death in 144o he received the principality of Ansbach; on the death of his brother John in 1464 he inherited Bayreuth; and in 147o, on the abdication of his brother Frederick II., he became elector of Brandenburg. His main object was family aggrandizement, and he became as powerful among the northern as the elector of the Palatinate among the southern princes. He saw that division of inheritance weakened the family power, and he devised the famous Dispositio Achillea of 1473, which decreed that the mark of Brandenburg should descend intact to the eldest son, the younger son receiving the Franconian possessions of the Hohenzollerns. Both sections of the family lands were to descend thenceforward by primo geniture, a new principle in the succession of the German princely houses. He married his daughter Barbara to Henry VI. of Glogau, and after her husband's death secured a part of his Pomeranian lands for his daughter in 1482. The power of Brandenburg de clined with his death. It is said that the old warrior, who had spent the greater part of his life either in fighting against the towns which desired to maintain their independence, or the princes who sought reforms, or in purely dynastic struggles, realized at the end of his life that military strength was useless so long as Germany had no sound peace, no good system of law and no general currency.
See Das kaiserliche Buch des Markgrafen Albrecht Achilles, Vorkur f iirstliche Periode, 1440-70, ed. by C. Hoefler (Bayreuth, 1850) ; Kurfiirstliche Periode, ed. by J. von Minutoli (1850) ; Quellensamm lung zur Geschichte des Hauses Hohenzollern, Band I., ed. by C. A. H. Burkhardt (Jena, 1857) ; O. Franklin, Albrecht Achilles and die Nuremberger, 1449-53 (1866) ; Politische Korrespondenz des Kurf iir sten Albrecht Achilles, 1470-86, ed. by F. Priebatsch (Leipzig, 98) ; J. G. Droysen, Geschichte der preussischen Politik (1855-86).