User blog comment:The Spie/Head-Canon Jossing And Its Complications/@comment-1616397-20091207050017

Your procession is incorrect de facto, and in many cases de jure. Rulers of German states could and did ignore Imperial edicts over the centuries. I see Holy Roman Empire after the reign of Frederick II (not Old Fritz, but the Holy Roman Emperor of the same name and number) as being like Prussia is in modern-day strips: a remnant of something that still exists in mind but not really in fact. HRE never grew up because his growth stopped either at Frederick II's death or when the title of Holy Roman Emperor became for all intents and purposes attached to the Habsburg family. After the 13th Century, the Holy Roman Empire never really represented Germany or the German people. Certainly the citizens of the constituent states of the Empire never thought of themselves as being Imperial citizens. They were subjects of the local state first and foremost. The Empire acted more like a combination of a neutered EU and NATO, with occasional papal blessing. You know the statement: "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire".

The Confederation of the Rhine is irrelevant. It was an artificial governmental structure imposed by the French and never developed a "life" of its own, if you catch my meaning. There would have been no nation-tan for it.

Imagine the situation with the German Confederation being similar to that of the United Kingdom. There is no United Kingdom nation-tan; there is England, the representation of one part of the Union, acting in that role and speaking for the other constituent members of the Union.

Here's how I imagine the events of 1816 went (assume for this exercise that France was telling the truth about HRE being dead). The German states wanted to make this work. There should have been an infant nation-tan appearing at this point to represent the new organization. However, none did. The reason for this was that the German states still had strong identities and long histories, and there was very little suborning of state authority to the new Confederation government. But there still needed to be a nation-tan to represent this new government.

They now have a problem, and the United Kingdom provides the solution. HRE is dead. There is no new infant nation-tan to represent the German Confederation. One of their own would become German Confederation in addition to representing his home state.

Now, who would it be? The obvious candidate was a certain thoroughly awesome lover of birds, but there was no way that the remainder of the German states were going to let Gilbo speak for them (even though he ended up dominating the eventual winner of this contest for decades). Some of the other candidates:

Bavaria? Catholic when most of the other German states were Protestant. Saxony? Too fragmented and weak; maybe if Augustus the Strong were still around, he would have got the job. Hanover? Living in Arthur's house at the time. Holstein? Living in Denmark's house at the time, and, if you wanted to get technical about it, the Duke of Holstein was Ivan's boss. And so on and so forth through the other states. Either too weak, too small, too dominated by other nations, or too damn scary to put in charge.

Except for one nation. The guy who was hosting the get-together in the first place: Hesse (the Confederation parliament was based in Frankfurt). No one really hated him. He didn't scare anyone. He was a war veteran (Hessian mercenaries and all that). His economy was solid and he had long experience of trade. His population was urbanizing, but he still had a good rural balance. He was a good choice.

So Ludwig became German Confederation, then German Empire, then Weimar Republic, then Nazi Germany, then the Federal Republic of Germany, all while remaining the nation-tan of Hesse. I'm still putting together my case for him being the Free City Of Frankfurt before that.

So let's look at the procession:

Holy Roman Empire^ -> individual German states^^ -> French occupational government known as Confederation of the Rhine -> German Confederation^^^, but with individual German states holding primacy^^ -> German Empire^^^ -> Weimar Republic^^^ -> Nazi Germany^^^ -> Federal Republic of Germany^^^

^ - HRE is nation-tan; period lasts from December 25th, 800 to approximately 1300.

^^ - Gilbert, Ludwig, Saxony, Bavaria et al are nation-tans.

^^^ - Ludwig is nation-tan.

Hope that explains things.