AH Challenge: Hamburg as German Capital

Zioneer

Banned
I've got a challenge for the AH.commers. Make the city of Hamburg the capital of a united German state. By united German state, it can be anything from a Prussia (called Germany) that doesn't include Bavaria, to a more northernly Holy Roman Empire, and etc.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
It's incredible hard, while Hamburg like quite well for dominance of North Germany, its position as a free city ensure that it can't build up dominance. But there a three way to get it as capital

1: As a compromise capital of a confederation of North German states, I think a POD before 1648 are needed.

2: The Hamburgian Empire, here we need to give Hamburg a land empire, a good way could be to kill the Hanse, so Hamburg need to flex it muscles on it own.

3: Hamburg doesn't become a free city.

I have a idea, the Oldenburg family succed in gaining control over Hamburg in the early 17th century (they had a good claim to it), the Gottorp family dies out in the same periodes giving the Gottorps control over thye entire Schleswig-Holstein. But the in the war with Sweden the Oldenburgs lose their Denmark-Norway and are limited to Schleswig-Holstein and estblish the rich city of Hamburg as capital, later as in OTL they inheriated the County of Oldenburg and in a later war they gain Bremen-Verden and Vorpommern from Sweden and are raised to Electors like Hanover was. Through a lucky marriage they gain control over Brunswick-Lüneburg and later make a few good conquests. At the same time Prussia make a few bad choices, so it it doesn't become the major North German power. While OTL French Revolution doesn't happen something similar happens and after the Wars Holstein gain control over most of North Rhine-Westphalia resulting in it becoming the industrial powerhouse of the 19th century and using that position to unify Germany behind it.
 

Susano

Banned
With the right tweaking the free city status might not be a disadvantage. It requires an early PoD of course, but several medieval Emperors tried to build out the central power against the nobility by supporting the Free Cities. This never worked out even in the slightest, but if we assume it does, then Free Cities even have an advantage in such matters. Of course, in such a case most likely a South German city would become capital, like Nuremberg or Ulm or maybe even Frankfurt. In North Germany at that time Lübeck was dominant, as the First City of the Hansa. The Hansa is a possible angle, of course, but as said, that would require explanation of why it is Hamburg and not Lübeck.
 
As mentioned by Susano, the best bet I can think of is a surviving Hanseatic League with internal struggles somewhere along the line making the center of the Hanse Hamburg rather than Lübeck. We are of course talking about a very early PoD.
 
I think it'll either need to be a very early or a very late POD. What I could see is the Welf dynasty succeeding at building up a power base that later serves to coalesce 'Germany' around it the way the Capetian Ile de France did. Hamburg was a town in Welf lands, and its position will make it important as soon as the Baltic and upper elbe open up for trade and settlement. It is also clpose enough to the 'South' (in these terms, the Westfalia and Rhineland) that it won't put the ruler too far away from the action if he uses it. And it has lost out as episcopal residence, so having a duke may look attractive. Of course all that is before Hamburg becomes in any way important or powerful, so it's more a matter of 'a capital in the place we have Hamburg today'.

A Hanseatic land empire is all but impossible. the structure of the Hanse makes any such ambitions near impossible. And Hamburg *was* a serious territrorial power with extensive holdings along the Stecknitz, the Lübeck corridor (jointly with Lübeck), East Frisia, the upper Elbe and up the Alster and Ossenweg. That was about as well as any such city could realistically hope to do.

I'm thinking later on it could serve as a compromise capoirtal simply because it has no history of royal residence or political power projection. A democratic North German League might pick it. Or - for a really far out idea - post-1945 the Labour government goes *really* left and is met halfway by a more accommodating USSR due to a series of convenient heart attacks in the politburo. THis makes a three-way confrontatzion - capitalist USA versus nationalist-traditionalist France (threatened by its own strong Communist movement) versus Labour Britain and Communist Russia. Enter the 'Bi-Zone', complete with its 'Western' enclave in US-occupied Bremen and its quest for a new capital. Berlin is tainted by Prussian militarism. Hannover's a village. The Ruhr isn't a city. Cologne is too close to the enemy. Dresden won't be acceptable to the northerners. And Hamburg, conveniently, has lots of empty space to build the infrastructure of government.

I don't think so, either. But the image is cool.
 
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