German States

Posted by Lorri Brown Oct 23, 2007

Following the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, at the beginning of the 19th century, the German Confederation was formed by several of the German states. After the revolutions of 1848, the states failed to unify under one constitution, and this led the way for Prussian dominance during the next twenty years.

In 1871, the German Empire was declared, with the uniting of the North German Confederation (formed in 1866) with the Southern German states. The new German Empire was made up of former kingdoms, duchies, principalities and cities, listed below. The king of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm I, was the official head of the new Empire.

KingdomsBavaria

Prussia (the largest state)

Saxony

Wurtemberg

Grand Duchies

Baeden

Hesse- Home to Castle Frankenstein

Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Saxe-Weimar-Egenach

Duchies

Anhalt

Brunswick

Holstein

Saxe-Altenburg

Saxe-Coburg & Gotha

Saxe-Meiningen

Scheswig

Principalities

Lippe

Oldenburg-Ruess

Schaumburg-Lippe

Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt

Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

Waldek-Pyrmont

Cities

Lubek

Bremen

Hamburg

Imperial Territories

Alsace-Lorraine

Sources:

Barraclough, Geoffrey. Atlas of World History. Ann Arbor: Harper Collins, 2001.

Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior. From the Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. Brookline, MA. 1994.