AHC: Germany United by ........ Switerland

We've had a lot of "AHC: the Netherlands unify Germany" threads over the years. I'm thinking now of the other West Germanic nation which is about equally as "German" as the Netherlands: Switzerland. Is there any way they could have become the dominant player in a German Confederation and somehow unified Germany?

By "Switzerland" I mean any state which is somehow a successor of the Old Swiss Confederacy. It doesn't have to include all the territory of the modern Switzerland, and doesn't have to remain as a Confederal Republic (it could adopt a monarchy at some time in the same way that OTL's Netherlands did). It doesn't have to remain culturally Swiss but bonus points if Swiss German forms the basis for TTL's Standardized German. Bonus points if its capital remains in the German-speaking part of OTL Switzerland.

Extra bonus points if TTL's name for Germany is a cognate of "Switzerland".

POD is any time after 1315 Pact of Brunnen. Probably easiest POD is before the Swiss Confederacy leaves the HRE.
 
Have the Städtekrieg 1384/5 go differently. Could easily have produced a mega-Switzerland comprising Alsace, today's Baden-Wurttemberg, Franconia, the Middle Rhineland and parts of Thuringia and Hesse.

From there, your 15th century ff. looks irrecognisable. An entirely new player on the stage. Might accrue more members by supporting other communes achieving independence from their feudal overlords, and might ally with or replace the Hanseatic League. Also, with its military power, it might become active in Northern Italy and in the 100yw.
Total habsburg-screw and Flanders', Brabant's etc. accession in an alliance with England are in the cards.
The name could remain "Eidgenossenschaft" or maybe "Große Eidgenossenschaft" throughout the centuries.
 
Top