A large number of historians place the final stagnation and subsequent crippling of the HRE in the decades following the Thirty Years War. This was due to several key facts.
1. Up to one third of all Germans were killed due to famines, battles, rogue mercenaries, massacres of towns, etc...
2. Following the treaty of westphalia, the emperor retained little more than archaic ceremonial rights as his base of power. In truth, his position was promoted, supported, and if need be eliminated by the various electors throughout the empire.
3. Religion now became the choice of individual state rulers, and thus eliminated even any previous influence of the court.
4. The end of the war saw the rise of new states such as Prussia and the Hapsburg Domains, which had previously played only minor roles in the running of the ERE.
5. Armies of foreign nations now roamed at will through much of the empire's territory, with French eyeing the Rhine as a boundary, and constant conflict involving Poland, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden, to name a few.