Germans in a Disunited Germany

hey, all. i've playing Assassin's Creed III and one thing that it reminded me of was that the British employed lots of Germans from the as-yet not-unified Germany as mercenaries during the Revolutionary Wars.

now, one divergence from OTL in my ASB ATL is that Germany is disunited and stays that way (though the German states are closely tied diplomatically). what does everyone think would be the reputation of Germans as a whole outside of *Germany and particularly outside of Europe? could it perhaps be that German mercenaries continue being employed not only by Britain, but by all sorts of countries (similar to the Swiss Guards)?

as a note, the German states ITTL are:

  • Baden
  • Brandenburg (city-state)
  • Hanover
  • Hesse
  • Prussia
  • Saxony
  • South German Confederation (largely Bavaria and Wurttemberg)
  • possibly Pomerania (i'm still deciding if it's independent or part of Sweden)
 
Brandenburg as a city state? How does that work?

Anyways, I suspect the widespread employment of Germans abroad (be it as mercenaries, migrant labour, or settlers) will ebb away around 1900 as the german states develop enough of an industry to absorb the labour force. This development could be retarded, but barring a massive intervention could not be stopped. The states themselves are large enough and will most likely have formed something like OTL's Zollverband. The formation of a unitary state made relatively little difference, seeing how the foreign legion continued to absorb large numbers of Germans once it was opened to them again and how the emigration to the US continued well past 1871. And I am not sold on the idea that only the Empire could produce the industrial boom of the Wilhelmine era.

One thing that could happen, though, is for different German states to have their own migration policies. So you might see - does your Prussia include the Rhine-Ruhr, or is it Hanover? Anyway, whatever states holds those territories not allowing in, say, Catholic migrants from the south, so they would need to look for employment elsewhere. Maybe the ironworks of French Alsace-Lorraine will be peopled with Bavarian and Badensian workers the way IOTL's Ruhr was with Prussian Poles.
 
You know, one thing that would be interesting in a Chinese sense would be a Germany that was somewhat economically unified, so you still get an economic boom, but was politically divided.

It then serves as the battlefield between the Russian Empire and the French during the Great War, during which Austria-Hungary also implodes.

Germany unifies in the 1920s with a "never again" mentality....
 
One thing that could happen, though, is for different German states to have their own migration policies. So you might see - does your Prussia include the Rhine-Ruhr, or is it Hanover?
yes, Prussia ITTL includes Rhine-Ruhr (though a little reduced in the west)
 
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