Valdemar II
Banned
Sure, the topic is still alive.
But the desire of the man in the street would more often include Austria than not.
Without Bismarck's initiative of 1870, there was hardly another chance for the
Kleindeutsche Lösung soon.
And I do see a significant probability that no German state including Prussia, Saxony,
and Bavaria would form (for long or forever).
But the Northern German Union suggested in the opening post does would already comprise
sth like 80% of the actual German population of 1872.
More like 65% (there's also Germans in Austria, Switzerland, France and Luxembourg)