1544 AD., German States, Prussia, Albrecht von Brandenburg, Königsberg mint, Groschen, Saurmasche coll. 5078.

German States, Prussia, Albrecht von Brandenburg (1525-69), 1544 AD.,
Groschen (23 mm / 1,91 g),
Obv.: (Zollern shield of arms) IVSTVS EX FIDE VIVIT 1544 , his bust facing r.
Rev.: ALBER D G MAR BRAИ DVX PRVSS / S , eagle with S on breast.
Saurmasche coll. 5078 (illustr. no. 2678) .

Albert of Prussia (German: Albrecht; Latin: Albertus) (8 July 1490 – 20 March 1568) was the 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and, after converting to Lutheranism, the first duke of the Duchy of Prussia, which was the first state to adopt the Lutheran faith and Protestantism as the official state religion. Albert proved instrumental in the political spread of Protestantism in its early stage.
Because Albert was a member of the Brandenburg-Ansbach branch of the House of Hohenzollern, it had been hoped that his election as Grand Master would reverse the decline of the Teutonic Knights since 1410; Duke Frederick of Saxony of the House of Wettin had been elected for the same reason. Instead, Albert's secularization of the Prussian territories of the Order eventually led to the inheritance of the Duchy of Prussia by the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
Although Albert has received relatively little recognition in German history, his dissolution of the Teutonic State caused the founding of the Duchy of Prussia (and also the Hohernzollern dynasty), which would eventually become arguably the most powerful German state and instrumental in uniting the whole of Germany. Albert is therefore often seen as the father of the Prussian nation, and even as indirectly responsible for the unification of Germany. He was a skilled political administrator and leader, and effectively reversed the decline of the Teutonic Order, until he betrayed it by transforming the order's lands into his own duchy, secularizing it in the process.
He was the first German noble to support Luther's ideas and in 1544 founded the University of Königsberg (the so called Albertina) as a rival to the Roman Catholic Cracow Academy; it was only the second Lutheran university in the German states, after Marburg.
He died of plague at Tapiau (todays Gvardeysk (Russian Гварде́йск​ , Lithuanian: Tepliava/Tepliuva; Polish: Tapiawa/Tapiewo) a town in the Königsberg/Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Pregel/Pregolya River) on 20 March 1568.