AHC: Bavaria stays independent from Germany

There are several points you could possibly pull this off, some more plausible than others. The two most plausible points, in my opinion, are both in the 20th century: post WWII, when there was some talk about splitting up Germany even further and having Bavaria be independent (or independent from Germany and united with Austria), and post WWI, with the whole 'Bavarian Social Republic' (name? I just know it was a Communist semi-revolution) thing. If the rest of Germany is sufficiently distracted and/or Russia sends help, you could end up with an independent socialist Bavaria by the 1920s. The post-WW2 one is a lot more probably, though.

However, since this wasn't posted in the post-1900 discussion, that's probably not what you're looking for. It also depends on whether or not union with Austria counts as 'independent'.

There were three states trying to unify Germany under their lead in the 19th century: Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria. This is one of the bigger problems with independent Bavaria pre-1900: as a rule, they were pro-unification. It's been a bit since I read this, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but at some point, Bavaria realized they didn't have enough power/weight/what-have-you to unify Germany themselves (short of horrible devastation in Austria and Prussia that left Bavaria fine), so they threw their support behind Austria, which they considered the lesser of two evils (seeing as it was Catholic)

So if, say, Austria was able to unify southern Germany, which was an option that looked possible pre-Austro-Prussian War, would that count? It's also possible that it could have been just Austria and Bavaria. Post-Austro-Prussian War, I'm not sure how probable it is. If Austria were to do better, at least enough for an honourable loss, rather than being totally crushed, it might work, or give Bavaria enough space to say 'no thanks' to Prussia.

Of course, these are all post-Napoleonic Wars PODs. I'd say post-Napoleon, German unification was pretty much guaranteed. But pre-Napoleon? Yeah, you could have independent Bavaria. But I'm not sure how likely the unification of the rest of Germany would be.

tl;dr: best PODs in the 20th century
 
Have France sied with Austria in the austro-prussian war of 1866.

Prussia is defeated and Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, Hanover and the rest remain fully independant. There may even be some kind of new german confederacy under the joint protection of Austria and France.
 
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