Why was Germany disunited for so long?

[Dereich]

Germany took longer then almost any other European nation to unite and I don't really understand why. I get the other big 19th century nation, Italy, as France and Austria spend centuries tugging at it like a ragdoll. But Germany didn't have that, and had an overarching government in the HRE. Why didn't it ever pull itself together and unify like France or even arguably Poland did?

Edit: I guess this technically shouldn't be here as it isn't US history, but I'm not sure where else it would go.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't even know where to begin. Anyone else want to go first?

[Beet]

Gregory VII.

[Yelnoc]

But Germany ... had an overarching government in the HRE.

Have you ever heard the saying that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire? 

[Tetro Kornbluth]

A much, much better question is what united France (and revealingly, how it was united) during this period. Once you answer that, you answer your first question.

[The Mikado]

A much, much better question is what united France (and revealingly, how it was united) during this period. Once you answer that, you answer your first question.

The seizure of Normandy and the lands north of the Loire under Philip II Augustus greatly expanded the royal demesne and ended the problem that plagued earlier French rulers of not having any say outside the Ile de France, followed by Louis VIII and St. Louis expanding French power into the Languedoc through the Albigensian Crusade, thus leaving a large and powerful swathe of land under Capetian hands, compared to the utter collapse of the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Germany (and Sicily) within the HRE and the position where the Emperor had less real power than many of his vassals?

Was thinking of making an effortpost, but...this will do for now.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

A much, much better question is what united France (and revealingly, how it was united) during this period. Once you answer that, you answer your first question.

The seizure of Normandy and the lands north of the Loire under Philip II Augustus greatly expanded the royal demesne and ended the problem that plagued earlier French rulers of not having any say outside the Ile de France, followed by Louis VIII and St. Louis expanding French power into the Languedoc through the Albigensian Crusade, thus leaving a large and powerful swathe of land under Capetian hands, compared to the utter collapse of the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Germany (and Sicily) within the HRE and the position where the Emperor had less real power than many of his vassals?

Was thinking of making an effortpost, but...this will do for now.

I was thinking more of how France became a 'cultural unity' but yes, this would be the first bit.

[J. J.]

Many factors, but I should note that Italy did not get Venice until 1870-01, at the same time as Germany.

1.  Religious disunity.

2.  A battle between two great powers who had it in their interest to use Germany as a buffer zone.

3.  Neither of those great powers was a wholly German state.

4.  A large foreign influence in the internal affairs (i.e. Holstein, Hanover, Luxemburg, even Saxony, and Sweden).

[ingemann]

Germany took longer then almost any other European nation to unite and I don't really understand why. I get the other big 19th century nation, Italy, as France and Austria spend centuries tugging at it like a ragdoll. But Germany didn't have that, and had an overarching government in the HRE. Why didn't it ever pull itself together and unify like France or even arguably Poland did?

Edit: I guess this technically shouldn't be here as it isn't US history, but I'm not sure where else it would go.

Germany was until the 16th century not significant more disunited than France, but as the French religious war ended with the central power strengthen versus the "princes", in Germany it ended with the princes ending up as the de facto independent in much of the empire. Much of it had with the difference in inherience, in France they had Salic succession, while the king and emperor of Germany was elected by the seven traditional electors (Bohemia, Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg, Trier, Cologne and Mainz) and later the two new ones (Bavaria and Hanover). As the electors was territorial princes, they had little interest in the emperor expanding his power, and the emperor had to keep bribe them to get his son elected, which kept him from expanding his power against the territorial princes even the minor one without a vote.
An other major problem for the central power was that the emperor stayed Catholic, while most of the major princes converted, With the princes conversion they confiscated Church property (sharing it with the minor nobility), which lead to a significant increase in their revenue  putting them in a stronger position versus the emperor while at the same time making the local clergy into the prince local representants (making it easier to force laws down over the peasantry's heads), the Habsburg emperor on the other had to deal with large church property in his own domains, lack of local representants and a population who was hostile to the church power (outside Tyrol in the Austrian Habsburg's domains the local nobles, burghers and peasantry more or less converted to Lutheranism, and it took two century for the Habsburg to reconvert them). France did not have the same problem as the Habsburg as the Catholic Church had given the French king the power to appoint the clergy and ecclessial administrators in the French domains.

[minionofmidas]

Germany took longer then almost any other European nation to unite and I don't really understand why. I get the other big 19th century nation, Italy, as France and Austria spend centuries tugging at it like a ragdoll. But Germany didn't have that, and had an overarching government in the HRE. Why didn't it ever pull itself together and unify like France or even arguably Poland did?

Edit: I guess this technically shouldn't be here as it isn't US history, but I'm not sure where else it would go.

Germany was until the 16th century not significant more disunited than France, but as the French religious war ended with the central power strengthen versus the "princes", in Germany it ended with the princes ending up as the de facto independent in much of the empire.

While with hindsight the important decisions seem to be in the 13th century (in both countries, yet again!) a lot of that may be due more to humans' minds' inability to not create a narrative everywhere than with hindsight actually being 20/20. Certainly up to the reformation, Germans thought the Empire reformable (and Maximilian I actually tried.) So yeah, I think I agree with that.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Why didn't it ever pull itself together and unify like France or even arguably Poland did?

It should be noted that Poland was unified, then de-unified (fragmentation period with semi-sovereign local dukes and weak High Duke) and the unified again.

[minionofmidas]

Why didn't it ever pull itself together and unify like France or even arguably Poland did?

It should be noted that Poland was unified, then de-unified (fragmentation period with semi-sovereign local dukes and weak High Duke) and the unified again.

And then de-unified again.