A divided Germany

If, with a POD in the 17th century, Germany never unified, what smaller (but not small) countries could arise?

So basicly the situation is that the larger countries managed to gobble up the small one (including the Netherlands East-Frisia and Denmark Holstein for example). In the 19th century no German nationalism arises (or is at least small enough not to matter). In the end what is now Germany consists out of a small number of smallish countries (in the way that the Netherlands or Denmark are smallish.


Personaly I was thinking of Brunswick in the NW (could be Hanover, but I like the name Brunswick better, especialy in German: Braunschweig), in the NE Prussia-Brandenburg, Saxony, in the south Bavaria (and Austria), Possibly Baden and Würtemberg). So assuming Prussia-Brandenburg lacks any territory in the west and France got the palatinate and Trier, what country could arise in western Germany?
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
30 years war never happens or is much much shorter leading to much much lower casualties meaning the Holy Roman Empire isn't Zombified and is still a viable organization that lasts til modern day.

Divided Germany acceived!:D
 
Since the HRE kept going - how effectively I'll leave to the experts - until it was abolished by fiat, I think whether it was viable or not has to be weighed with that in mind.

It might not have been an effective state and it might have been a coalition with issues (Bavaria in the War of Spanish Succession comes to mind), but it at a minimum was still some sort of thing until it was ended for reasons other than falling apart.
 
I could see the HRE empire collapse at some point. Especialy if non HRE countries are nibbling away parts from it.

Roughly my idea was that France gains Trier and the Palatinate, which means the HRE loses 2 electors.

Maybe the HRE collapses because Austria becomes republican. For example we get an Austrian revolution, instead of a French revolution.
 
Disaster at Leuthen TL have 4½ "germany's" and some small stuff as of 1850s 100 years after PoD... Prussia to the northeast, A-H to the far east (both all but abandoning their german-ness), Saxony-Bavaria in the center, League of the Rhine in the northwest, and a number of small statelets in the southwest and around Hannover (which is really a buffer state between Prussia and Denmark/League) ...
 
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