There was actually, nothing wrong with this. It lasted for 1,000 years and was only destroyed by Napoleon because quite frankly, he got lucky. If you must complain about it you're some fag whose politics mirrors James Madison or Voltaire.
A big Poo has been done.
This should be Germany's current territory.
Disagree = reddit.
and where is it all now? where are all the witnesses? what is left of it other than a few faint muddied echoes, some old maps and documents and a few other trinkets? there is no glorious german empire, there is no napoleon, there is no past, there is only right now.
>>831252Well right now sucks
why are germs so retarded unironically? germany is a small country how tf couldnt they simply unite it
Jean Bodin on the HRE
>The way in which the Germans define a monarchy is absurd, that is, according to the interpretation of Philip Melanchthon, as the most powerful of all states. It is even more absurd that they think they hold the empire of the Romans, which of course would seem laughable to all who have well in mind the map of the world. The empire of the Romans was most flourishing under Trajan.
>The Germans, however, hold no part of the Roman Empire except Noricum and Vindelicia. Germany is bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, the Vistula, the Carpathian Mountains, and the ocean, but all authority ends at the foothills of the Alps in the south; by the Rhine and a few cities this side of the Rhine in the west; by Silesia, in turn, on the east; by the Baltic regions on the north. How much truer it is of the king of the Turks, who took Byzantium, the capital of the empire, from the Christians, the region of Babylon, which is discussed in the book of Daniel, from the Persians, and joined a great part of his dominion beyond the Danube, up to the mouth of the Dnieper, to the old Roman provinces? Now, if we identify monarchy with force of arms, or with great wealth, or with fertility of areas, or with the number of victories, or with the size of population, or with etymology of the name, or with the fatherland of Daniel, or with the seat of the Babylonian empire, or with the amplitude of sway, it will be more appropriate, certainly, to interpret the prophecy of Daniel as applied to the sultan of the Turks."Turning to foreign nations, what has Germany to oppose to the sultan of the Turks? Or which state can more aptly be called a monarchy? This fact is obvious to everyone–If there is anywhere in the world any majesty of empire and of true monarchy, it must radiate from the Sultan. He owns the richest parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and he rules far and wide over the entire Mediterranean and all but a few of its islands. Moreover, in armed forces and strength he is such that he alone is the equal of almost all the princes, since he drove the armies of the Persians and the Muscovites far beyond the boundaries of the empire. But he seized provinces of the Christians and the empire of the Greeks by force of arms, and even devastated the lands of the Germans. I shall not discuss the prince of Ethiopia, called by his people Jochan Bellul, that is, precious gem, whose empire is little less than all Europe. What of the emperor of the Tartars, who rules tribes barbarous in their savagery, countless in number, unconquered in strength? If you compare Germany with these, you compare a fly to an elephant.
…
>Finally, all the peoples of the earth except Germans, Swiss with their allies, Venetians, Ragusans, Lucchese, and Genoese, who are ruled by the power of Optimates or have Popular governments. But if so many people are uncivilized because they have hereditary kings, oh, where will be the abode of culture? The fact that Aristotle thought it disastrous, however, seems to me much more absurd. For in the first place an interregnum is clearly dangerous, since the State, like a ship, without a pilot, is tossed about by the waves of sedition and often sinks. This happened after the death of Emperor Frederick II. The country, in a state of anarchy, was without an emperor for eighteen years on account of the civil war among the princes.
…
<Jean Bodin: Indigenous, Native People of America Retain Royal Power & Marvel at Rule of Optimates like Germany & Venice
>Moreover, from earliest memory the people of America always have retained the royal power. They do not do this because they have been taught, but from custom. They were not trained by Aristotle, but shaped by their leader, nature. Furthermore, when they hear that the rule of optimates exists in some corners of Italy or Germany, they marvel that this can be.
<Louis XIV on HRE
>An on this subject, my son, lest they should try to impress you sometimes with the wonderful names of Roman Empire, of Caesar, of Imperial Majesty, of successor to the great emperors from whom we derive our origin, I feel obliged to indicate to you how far the emperors of today are removed from the greatness of the titles that they affect.
>When these titles were introduced into our house, it reigned all at once over France, the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and most of Spain, which it had distributed among various individual lords, while preserving sovereignty over it. The bloody defeats of many peoples issuing from the north and from the south for the ruin of Christendom had made the French name the terror of the whole earth. Charlemagne, finally, seeing no king in all Europe, nor, to tell the truth, anywhere else in the world, whose fortunes could compare with his, this title seemed henceforth unsuitable either for them or for him. He had risen to this high point of glory not by the choice of some prince, but by courage and by victories, which are the choice and the votes of Heaven Itself when It has resolved to subordinate the other powers to a single one. And there had not been any dominion as extensive as his except for the four famous monarchies to which the empire of the entire world is attributed, although they had never conquered nor possessed any more than a small part of it, yet important and well known in the world. That of the Romans was the last, entirely extinct in the West and with only some feeble remnants in the East, miserable and languishing.
>However, as if the Roman Empire had recovered its strength and begun to revive in our climes, which was not the case at all, this the greatest title then in the memory of man alone seemed capable of defining and designation the extraordinary loftiness of Charlemagne, and even though this loftiness itself, which he derived only from God and from his sword, gave him every right to assume whatever title he would have wanted, the Pope, who along with the entire Church was extremely indebted to him, was most pleased to contribute whatever he could to his glory and to render this capacity of emperor more authentic to him through a solemn coronation, which, like the consecration, even though it does not give us royalty, proclaims it to the people and renders it more august, more inviolable, and more sacred in us. But this greatness of Charlemagne, which was so fit to establish the title of emperor or even more magnificent ones if there had been any, did not long survive him; diminished first by the partitions that were made then among the sons of France, then by the weakness and by the lack of dedication of his descendants, particularly of the branch that had established itself on this side of the Rhine; for empires, my son, are preserved only as they are acquired, that is, by vigor, by vigilance, and by work.
>The Germans, excluding the princes of our blood, soon thereafter appropriated this dignity, or rather, substituted another in its place that had nothing in common either with the old Roman Empire nor with the new empire of our ancestors, by which they tried, as in all great changes, to arrange that everyone would find his advantage and thus not oppose it. The people and the individual states entered into it owing to the great privileges that were given to them in the name of liberty, the princes of Germany because this dignity was made elective instead of hereditary and they thereby acquired the right to appoint to it, to claim it, or both; the popes, finally, because one always professes to derive it from their authority and, basically, a great and true Roman protector. In this sense, the kings of Spain still titled themselves, only a few years ago, advocates of some of the cities that I have conquered in Flanders, that country being almost entirely divided into different advocates or protectorates of this type.
>But to return to the emperors of today, you can easily, my son, understand from this entire discussion that they are in no way comparable to the old Roman emperors, nor to Charlemagne and his first successors. For, to give them their due, they can be considered merely as heads, or captains-general, of a German republic, rather new by comparison with many other states, and which is neither so great nor so powerful that it should claim any superiority over neighboring nations. Their most important decisions are subject to the deliberations of the Estates of the Empire. One imposes whatever conditions one wants upon them at their election. Most of the members of the republic, that is, the princes and the free cities of Germany, defer to their orders only when they please. In their capacity as emperors they have very little revenue, and if they did not possess other hereditary domains of their own, they would be reduced to residing, out of all the Empire, in the sole city of Bamberg, which the bishop who is its sovereign lord would be obliged to cede to them. Thus many princes who might have attained to this dignity by election have rejected it, believing it to be more a burden than of an honor. An the Elector of Bavaria could have been emperor in my time if he had not refused to appoint himself, as the law permits, by combining his vote with those that I had secured for him in the electoral college.
>I fail to see, therefore, my son, for what reason the kings of France, hereditary kings who can boast that there isn't either a better house, nor greater power, nor more absolute authority than theirs anywhere else in the world today, should rank below these elective princes. It cannot be denied, nonetheless, that the popes, as a consequence of what they had done, have gradually given precedence at the court of Rome to the ambassadors of the Emperor over all the others and most of the courts in Christendom have imitated this example without our predecessors having made any effort to prevent it.
>In short, my son, while I have not believed I should ask for anything new in Christendom on this matter, I have believed even less that, in my position, I should in any way tolerate anything new by which these princes might affect to assume the least superiority over me; and I counsel you to do the same, noting, however, how much virtue is to be esteemed, since, after such a long time, that of the Romans, that of the first Caesars, and that of Charlemagne still secure, without adequate reason, more honor than is due to the empty name and to the empty shadow of their empire.
>>831311Modern germany after we deported them all back to where they belong (and they can keep the west of the rhine for now) sure, but back then you had germans everywhere because of the baltic crusades and shit, the fucking roaches
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