Not very detailed but here goes. Napoleonic Wars end with Germany divided between some kind of uber-Prussia/North German Confederation, a Confederation of the Rhine/uber-Bavaria and Austria.
Prussia then decides it really needs some colonies and so sets one up in Western Australia. For some odd reason Britain doesn't go ballistic and crush it (maybe need help against a possible French resurgence).
North Germany then goes to war against Denmark and along with some border regions gets the Danish Virgin Islands in the peace.
Both these colonies are heavily settled with ethnic Germans under a assisted migration scheme.
As both previous colonies have been such successes Prussia also goes ahead with OTL Namibia a bit earlier. As OTL its very nasty to the natives, but does a much better job of settling it, so it has a large German minority or maybe even a majority. Though that's probably ASB, but its culture is defiantly Germanic.
By the the mid 1800's and the boom in popular nationalism, despite the common language and to an extent culture, religious and nationalistic differences mean most people regard themselves as Bavarians or Austrians who happen to speak German, just as the Americans regard themselves as Americans who happen to speak English.
We now have Five Germanies (Prussia, Bavaria/Confed of Rhine, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein), plus three overseas colonies which are part of Prussia.
All is going along very swimmingly until in the 20th century you have a very horrible war that causes the Austrian Empire to break up, leaving Austria on its own. Neither Switzerland or the Confed of the Rhine annex it because they were on opposite sides and now hate each other.
Prussia also loses and as part of the peace treaty must relinquish all ties with its overseas colonies.
Western Australia (for want of a more Germanic name), Namibia and the Virgin Islands are now independent nations.
This leaves you with eight reasonably plausible Germanies. All of the them, apart from the Virgin Island and Liechtenstein, are large enough to be viable and those two can be banking havens.
Prussia then decides it really needs some colonies and so sets one up in Western Australia. For some odd reason Britain doesn't go ballistic and crush it (maybe need help against a possible French resurgence).
North Germany then goes to war against Denmark and along with some border regions gets the Danish Virgin Islands in the peace.
Both these colonies are heavily settled with ethnic Germans under a assisted migration scheme.
As both previous colonies have been such successes Prussia also goes ahead with OTL Namibia a bit earlier. As OTL its very nasty to the natives, but does a much better job of settling it, so it has a large German minority or maybe even a majority. Though that's probably ASB, but its culture is defiantly Germanic.
By the the mid 1800's and the boom in popular nationalism, despite the common language and to an extent culture, religious and nationalistic differences mean most people regard themselves as Bavarians or Austrians who happen to speak German, just as the Americans regard themselves as Americans who happen to speak English.
We now have Five Germanies (Prussia, Bavaria/Confed of Rhine, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein), plus three overseas colonies which are part of Prussia.
All is going along very swimmingly until in the 20th century you have a very horrible war that causes the Austrian Empire to break up, leaving Austria on its own. Neither Switzerland or the Confed of the Rhine annex it because they were on opposite sides and now hate each other.
Prussia also loses and as part of the peace treaty must relinquish all ties with its overseas colonies.
Western Australia (for want of a more Germanic name), Namibia and the Virgin Islands are now independent nations.
This leaves you with eight reasonably plausible Germanies. All of the them, apart from the Virgin Island and Liechtenstein, are large enough to be viable and those two can be banking havens.