The wiki page on the Teutonic Knights founding is a little sparse and i was just hoping for some clarification as to how the Teutonic Knights differed from the Hospitallers. Their purposes and actions seem very similar except that the Hospitallers appear to have been created first? Just looking for some juxtaposition of these two very similar groups, thank you.
The Hospitallers were formed to protect Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Originally just monks, they eventually evolved into a military organization, protecting the Christian crusader kingdoms. The Hospitallers were associated with the Benedictine Order.
The Teutonic knights were a similar religious-military organization, but their remit mostly involved the areas in East Prussia and Pomerania, against the pagan Wends. They were associated with the Augustinian order. There were many different religious-military organizations, some that operated in the Holy Land, some in North East Europe, and some in Spain, associated with different orders of monks.
EDIT: If you want a good book on the Hospitaller's operation during the Crusader states period, check out The Hospitallers and the Holy Land: Financing the Latin East by Judith Bronstein http://books.google.ie/books/about/The_Hospitallers_and_the_Holy_Land.html?id=vVFpbui2E8QC&redir_esc=y