AHC: Keep Germany divided

Britain or France could have at the very least made it significantly more difficult. If either the USA or the USSR had opposed unification after 1989, it would not have happened. Even against just Britain and France, Kohl could well have chosen his European project over unification (which, after all, he knew would be very difficult even under the most favourable circumstances). But I think your best bet is that, for whatever reason, the USA decides it will not support unification.
 
Well, according to some German Nationalists in the nineteenth century, it is. Austria is fairly german, and was even more so back then.:D

Your best bet is a north/south split, along linguistic and religious differences. So basically a giant Austria including Bavaria, and a Prussia-like North German power.

Anything else will mean you have to suppress nationalists. Not impossible, but difficult.
 
Britain or France could have at the very least made it significantly more difficult. If either the USA or the USSR had opposed unification after 1989, it would not have happened. Even against just Britain and France, Kohl could well have chosen his European project over unification (which, after all, he knew would be very difficult even under the most favourable circumstances). But I think your best bet is that, for whatever reason, the USA decides it will not support unification.

Isn't that re-unification?

Are we talking 1870s? Because I suppose having no napoleon may help with the original unification.. Harder to get 100s of tiny states to agree.
 
... why are you comming with post1900 suggestions in an pre-1900 thread?

should be relatively simple ... stop Prussia's North Germanic Confederation, from opposing powers not wanted such a strong player on the stage or simply kill off someone critical for Prussia's acsent somewhere in the 1700s or something as simple as making someone other than the Brandenburg Hollenzollerns inherit Duchy of Prussia or letting the Ansbach Hollenzollern line that held it continue onwards. Duke Albert Frederik had 5 daugthers and 2 sons, both dying while less than ½year old (while two of the girls died following birthing their first childs), flip the coin on genders and it might very well succed
 
The southern states could prevent the unification with Prussia in the lead by creating their own federation I'd immagine. That would be most awesome since then Prussia would remain independent though there would also be some kind of Germany.

Another idea would be to have Saxony and Bavaria fall to the Habsburgs making Austria stronger in Germany and preventing a new Empire from rising.
 
Just have Victoria dead early without issue, Hanover reunited with the British Crown.
Hanoverians would develop a distinct identity eventually, and view Prussians as tyrannical and opressive.
 
Have Austria and its german allies win the war in 1866. They actually were rather close to winning.
You could even have France enter the coalition against Prussia.

Or start earlier and have Napoleon being victories of the russian campaign or of the 6th coalition campaign (he actually was rather close to winning it). The french empire keeps dominating the core of Germany in the Rhineland confederacy, and keeps Austria and Prussia (or what remained of it) out of german affairs.
 
Have Austria and its german allies win the war in 1866. They actually were rather close to winning.
You could even have France enter the coalition against Prussia.

Or start earlier and have Napoleon being victories of the russian campaign or of the 6th coalition campaign (he actually was rather close to winning it). The french empire keeps dominating the core of Germany in the Rhineland confederacy, and keeps Austria and Prussia (or what remained of it) out of german affairs.

In the event of the first scenario, what then stops Austria forming Germany and the Prussians being the ones left out in the cold? Germany still unites just under a different aegis.

The second could work, but how can the French hold onto so much territory for too long? You may have a rebellion in which French German lands rise up and form a unified state to better guard against future French domination. (I am assuming that regional rivalries will dissipate as a result of French domination - leaving only a sense of a unified German identity)
 
Austria did not want to unite the whole of Germany. That's why it had most german States in the war of 1866.

And Neither Bavaria, nor Wurtemberg, nor Hanover, nor other german States wanted to be united under the rule of Prussia or Austria. This point is true concernant France too. France did not want to occupy the german confederacy. It just wanted the Rhine confederacy to remain under french hegemony. And the Rhine confederacy would have remained under french hegemony if Napoleon had not been defeated and had kept in politically dominating the western half of Europe.
 
I think if you could find a way to make the 7 Weeks War (or equivalent) much longer and devastating we could end up with the South/North German (much like during the wars of religion) Nationalism with Austria/Prussia uniting or at the least dominating their respective spheres.

Either that or a full scale Astro-Prussian war in the 1790s, this would leave Austria defeated as without Reichenbach Revolutionary France and Prussia will surely be allies against Austria (whom a number of the Ruling class were blaming for most of Frances problems due to the 7 Years' War.) At least temporarily, this would leave a bad blood between the North/South as the Northern Germans were more revolutionary (at least from what I can tell) and Prussia was supporting revolutions across Europe.
 
You can't stop a nation from becoming a nation.

Depends how you define nation, but if you mean independent state... Then yes. You can. Ask Kurds, Basques, Chechens, Catalans etc etc

If you mean indefinitely then that's possible (as predicting the future is impossible to any degree of certainty), but the amount of secessionist movements and minority ethnicities without a state of their own disagrees with you.

Being a single ethnic group does not mean that unification is inevitable (and the extent to which Germans were a single group is debatable; Austrians were German until the country formed without them- ethnicity and identity are malleable.)

The colonists in America rebelled because they were being denied their rights as Englishmen.. They subsequently formed a new and seperate identity. ( http://www1.assumption.edu/ahc/1770s/coreconstitution.html )
 
Your goal, if you choose to accept it, is to make sure Germany is never united. Good luck.

Germany, as generally defined in the 1700s, has never been united, except perhaps in 1939-1944.

Austria was part of Germany, but except for that brief period has always been a separate state.

The "Germany" that was created in 1870 did not include a lot of people who had thought they were Germans living in Germany - all the ethnic Germans of the Austrian Empire (but not those in Hungary).

However, suppose we accept that the Wilhelmine state, and its Weimar, Nazi, and Bundesrepublik successors, was Germany, and that the Austrian fraction doesn't really count.

We need to divide "Germany" more equally or into more pieces.

So: Fritz dies in the Seven Years War. Austria regains Silesia. A few years later, Emperor Joseph II engineers his exchange of the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria (Fritz isn't around to veto it).

Some kind of revolutionary convulsion shakes Europe about a generation later, leading to the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, with mediatization of the ecclesiastical states, Imperial Cities, minor principalities, and Imperial Knightdoms. However, the Habsburgs don't write off "Hither Austria", their scattering of small domains on the upper Danube. OTL they were separated from Austria by Bavaria; ITTL, Bavaria links them to Austria. Austria acquires a broad stripe of land from Bavaria to the Rhine along the Swiss border.

When the smoke clears, after another century, Austria includes about 40% of "Germany". The rest has united in a loose "German Federation".
 

Redbeard

Banned
A lot of plausible PoDs could be found but the later the more difficult - not surprising.

Kohl probabkly utilised a very narrow window of political opporunity when Germany was reunited after the cold war, but even if that opportunity for some reason had not been utilised I think keeping two (free) Germanys apart would not last for many years.

Even having the Austrians win in 1866 (or French in 1970-71) will not guarantee the conservative German powers staying in power vs. the German nationalists.

Napoleonic wars, before nationalism seriously becomes a popular case, can have several plausible PoDs. On eof my favourites is Napoleon being defeated at Hanau in October 1813. In OTL a combined Austro-Bavarian army of almost 50.000 men tried to block the retreat of what they thought was only straglers from the battle of Leipzig, but showed up to Napoleon himself with the Imperial Guard and the remnants of serveral armycorps.

At least one, preferably two PoDs are needed:

1st PoD: Austro-Bavarian commander Wrede has much better intelligence on the French army retreating from Leipzig (need to).

2nd PoD: Strong forces of the allied main army make a more close pursuit of the retreating French (nice to).

With 1st PoD Wrede can deploy accordingly and have several good opportunities in the terrain which the French have to follow (I have actually recon'ed it myself some years ago :) ). Wrede has more than 100 guns under his command, incl. 7 batteries of 12 pdr. Arranged in a grand battery with ammo (ammo train was left behind in OTL) supported by cavalry and infantry (9000 cavalry was available) the panic cry of "La Garde recule!" is likely to appear almost two years ahead of schedule.

If the Guard is indeed repulsed I don't think the 2nd PoD is necessary, but it will of course underline the trend.

Anyway, if a Bavarian commander is granted the title: "The man who defeated Napoleon" the power balance in Germany will be changed for ever. Bavaria by 1813 had plans about being the "big bully" in Southern Germany and anyway will have much increased legitemacy and strength to resist Prussian attempts to claim the leadership of all Germany.

We might still end up with some kind of German Union, but much too loose to be called an Empire but IMHO a division between south and north Germany is more likely.

Regards

Redbeard
 
In the long run it would be difficult to keep a "Germany" from forming. The Germans had a fairly common language, culture and even the Holy Roman Empire as background.

When industrialisation, railroads and expanded trade begins to have huge impact (say 1830-1850) it would be impossible to keep the 300+ german states that made up the HRE. Some consolidation would happen, if only by economics of scale.

And how long could some counts, cardinals and princes continue to rule over a population where the level of education and organisation steadily raises? The German trade unions were IOTL among the most well organized by 1890 - how could the microstates go against the worker movement (without Preussia taking a leading role that later ended up as IOTL)?

But Germany could be delayed. Just let the French reformists succeed during the 1780s and the Revolution would never lead to Napoleon and expansionist wars. No external pressure would mean far less German nationalism.
 
There is already a cultural split between North and South - Prussia being defeated by Austria is a late enough POD even - what you need is just to delay a little longer, and soon the larger Kingdoms could form new national identities - Prussians, Saxons, Hanoverians, Baverians all could be new nationalities if Prussian expansion is contained.
 
- Austria wins the Seven Years' War: Silesia is reunited with the Habsburgs, Saxony grabs a small chunk, and East Prussia goes to the Russians
- French Revolution happens on schedule, and is eventually defeated by the British-Austrian-Russian alliance
- In the peace deal that follows, Russia and Britain want to stop France doing it again, but are put off a German Federation because it would be dominated by Austria
- Instead, a policy of new buffer states against France is created: large enough to satisfy Britain but small enough they don't threaten Austria
- Baden and Wurttemburg are united into the Kingdom of Swabia; the Kingdom of Hannover mops up territory to the West; Saxony and the Austrian Netherlands both get extra land; and the rest of the domains are used to create new kingdoms of the Rhine, Hesse, and Franconia. Mecklenburg gets compensated with the other bit of Mecklenburg and Western Pommerania
- The new stronger states mean they put down the pan-German push during the 1840s, but East Prussia declares independence from Russia, and Silesia and the Austrian Netherlands break free of Austria.
- With state-building throughout the 19th Century, these states all build their own identity, and feel as German as Austria and Switzerland do today.
 
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