The Holy Roman Empire, and German Nationalism

Thermopylae

So, presume that for some reason (let's presume no Napoleonic Conquest. Use whatever PoD you like) the Holy Roman Empire lives on.

How would the Holy Roman Empire have proceeded to develop, and would it have hindered or helped the formation of a unified state?
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
I think it depends a lot on what happens to France, to be honest. If Austria manage to make the old switcheroo of Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands, then they're well on their way to slowly turning the HRE, or at least its Catholic parts, into their own centralised empire.
 

Thermopylae

Oh, getting Catholic parts of Germany unified is the easy part. It's getting all Germans under a national banner with a surviving HRE that's tricky. The very institution that is the HRE seems to me to prevent unification, as it stresses royal (or at least, Ducal) interests, not national interests. The Deutshcer Bund on the other hand did not prevent this sort of thing.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Hapsburg said:
Maybe post-1815, the HRE is reestablished, instead of the German Confederation?
Click to expand...
The German Confederation pretty much was a reestablished HRE, only with Austria demoted to a less privileged position. The GC of course was no barrier for German unification. So, really, I could see the same happening in a TL where the HRE survives, but Austria is similarly forced down. Perhaps the Prussians win a war and then remodel the HRE so that they and the Austrians have equal status? I think that's what Tony Jones did in Puritan World...
 
Hapsburg

Hapsburg

Banned
On some ATL website, I forget which, some guy made this story wherein Prussia brings Austria and Bohemia into union in 1866. He had Austria be downgraded to a Kingdom, with the same monarch as Bohemia. William takes the title "Holy Roman Emperor" instead of "German Emperor", but the state is functionally the same as the German Empire in 1871.
Strangely, the guy's main POD was a Stuart Restoration and the granted of Dominion status to America. I'll see if I can find the site, it was quite interesting...

Edit: Found it- http://www.tateville.com/althistory/Stuart-1.html
 

Earling

I don't know about liberalism but the enlightenment is certainly effecting the HRE in a significant way. Then you ofcourse have Kant.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Before the French revolution, enlightened absolutism was *the* thing. The question is, how things would develop. Neither Frederick the Great nor Joseph II had comparable successors. Would some monarch introduce the old Roman idea of adopted successors (I'd like that), to make sure that the next monarch is capable? Would some monarch be toppled/get his power officially stripped away by his cabinet? Would they introduce a kind of democracy?
 
Hapsburg

Hapsburg

Banned
Well, what if they had children to succeed them? And they train their heirs to be as enlightened and just as they themselves are. That could cause the Enlightenment to continue going, and not end abruptly in the early 19th century.
Now, and interesting side-effect would be an alliance between Prussia and Austria instead of antagonism. They already were moving closer to friendship during the 1780s, after the Bavarian War. That trend could continue, and eventually lead to a marriage alliance between a son and daughter of the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs. With no divisive choice between Prussian or Austrian leadership, Germany could then be united with great rapidity.
 
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