Gera

Gera was a lordship in the White Elster valley of the Vogtland. In 1337 the Vogts of Weida, ancestors of the House of Reuss, held it under the nominal overlordship of Quedlinburg Abbey.

Overlordship passed to the Wettins in 1358, and Gera was nearly destroyed in the Saxon Fratricidal War in 1450. The Wettins introduced the Reformation in 1533; after the Schmalkaldic War the territory passed nominally to Bohemia, while the Reuss family ruled it. In 1806 Napoleon made Gera his headquarters before Jena.