Deleted member 1487
How would the break off of Switzerland be prevented so that by the modern era German Switzerland is considered an integral part of a unified Germany by the Swiss and Germans alike in the 20th century?
well, obviously I think you need at least a different 30 years' war. Maybe with an earlier POD, switzerland keeps catholic and sides with a winning habsburg in an alt-30yw and gets to keep it's old rights.
Have the future Philip III of Spain die before his father, as his two brothers did OTL. Then in 1598 his half-sister becomes Queen Isabella II, As she is childless, her nephew, the Duke of Savoy-Piedmont, is her heir.
This leaves Switzerland almost totally surrounded by Habsburg-Savoy territory, and makes it very hard for the Swiss to extricate themselves from the Empire, esp if Spain under the new management does better than OTL in the TYW, and later against Louis XIV.
IIRC the Swiss were only able to develop their independence when a several of the major local houses, the Kyburgs and the Zahringens in particular, died out in the main line with their lands to be inherited by either distant relatives or the Holy Roman Emperor leaving them somewhat less closely run. Have them not die out or be inherited by people that will move to the lands in question and govern directly and you could stop the Swiss proto-autonomy from developing to begin with, at that point they're just another part of the Empire that depending on linguistic developments could come to be seen as a natural part of Germany.
Have the future Philip III of Spain die before his father, as his two brothers did OTL. Then in 1598 his half-sister becomes Queen Isabella II, As she is childless, her nephew, the Duke of Savoy-Piedmont, is her heir.
This leaves Switzerland almost totally surrounded by Habsburg-Savoy territory, and makes it very hard for the Swiss to extricate themselves from the Empire, esp if Spain under the new management does better than OTL in the TYW, and later against Louis XIV.
That kind of makes it worse if anything. When you think about it, none of the Hapsburg lands ended up becoming a permanent part of Germany. Bohemia, Burgundy/Netherlands, Luxembourg Italy, and even Lorraine and Austria, were all HRE territories and yet none of which are part of unified modern Germany or considered integral territories, and only included in historical German states thanks to Nazi shenanigans.The Hapsburgs were originally from northern Switzerland (Aargau). Maybe you can have one obsessed with reconquering it?
Yeah, kind of a huge stretch there.
Um, how much of the HRE was acting independently and giving lip service at best to the Emperor by the 1400s?Frankly, you need to go earlier than that. Switzerland was acting independently and forging a separate destiny and identity by the late 15th Century. You might just be able to have it tear itself apart over religious differences during the mid 16th Century and end up becoming a series of minor states that get mediatised later on and gobbled up by the larger powers such as Baden or Austria, but the biggest problem here is that by this time Switzerland's got a lot of French and Italian speakers and a strong heritage of independence and republicanism that are quite hard to overcome.