Are there interesting timelines in which Cologne stays something like the primate city of Germany? It was the biggest city in the Holy Roman Empire until well into the 16th century. It was too far inland to ever be a maritime entrepot like Antwerp or Amsterdam - IIRC the main competitors to Amsterdam around the time of the Sack of Antwerp were Hamburg, London, and Bremen - but it could plausibly be a main city for intra-German trade up the Rhine.
Cologne-wank
- Thread starter Alon
- Start date
Cologne was and is an already important town, but i think it could remain a paramount city in Germany if it were to become the capital of a major state capable of warding off the Dutch, French, and other German states from the Rhineland. Perhaps have the Electorate-Archbishopic win the War of Limburg Succession in the late 13th century, and build it up from there.
Okay, now I'm trying to shoehorn it into an Early Modern POD in which the Protestants win the alt-Thirty Years' War and the archbishoprics turn into major states with dynasties established by notable generals. Same POD also prevents the centripetal force leading to the growth of Berlin in the 18th century, so the 19th century cultural institutions that developed here, turning Berlin into one of the world's largest and richest cities by the early 20th century, instead develop in western cities like Cologne and Frankfurt.
Burgundians do not die out and get even luckier with their inheritances and "inheritances". They use it to gobble up not just OTL Burgundian Circle but a (large) part of the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian circle as well. If they lose the duchy of Burgundy to France at some point and have the time to consolidate their possessions, perhaps if a war like the 30 years War happens and they can take what they haven't up to that point, Cologne could very well end up the capital of this polity (more prestigious than Brussels, less beholden to merchant interests than Antwerp and Amsterdam).