Back Norddeutscher Bund ALS Norþgermanisca Aþgebeorscipe ANG الاتحاد الألماني الشمالي Arabic Confederación Alemana del Norte AST Şimali Alman İttifaqı Azerbaijani قوزئی آلمان کونفدراسیونو AZB Паўночнагерманскі саюз Byelorussian Северногермански съюз Bulgarian Kengevread Hanternoz Alamagn Breton Confederació Alemanya del Nord Catalan
North German Confederation Norddeutscher Bund | |||||||||
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| 1866–1870 | |||||||||
 The North German Confederation (red). The southern German states that joined in 1871 to form the German Empire are in orange. Alsace-Lorraine, the territory annexed following the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, is in a paler orange. | |||||||||
| Capital | Berlin | ||||||||
| Presidency | |||||||||
| Chancellor | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| 16 April 1866 | |||||||||
| 1 July | |||||||||
| 18 January 1870 | |||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | DE | ||||||||
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The North German Confederation (German: Norddeutscher Bund), was first a military alliance of 22 states of northern Germany, and later a federal state. It was preceded by a Zollverein, a customs union that allowed free trade among most German states. The Confederation started in August 1866, and the Kingdom of Prussia was the leading state. On July 1st 1867, the North German Constitution made the alliance a federal state.
An Austrian-Prussian rivalry, starting in the 1700s, had led to the Austro-Prussian War of July/August 1866. Immediate causes for the war had been the unsettled question of Slesvig-Holstein (which Prussia intended to annex) and a reform of the German Confederation. After a victory in summer 1866, agreements with Austria and France allowed Prussia to reshape the political landscape in Northern Germany (north of the river Main). The leading politician of Prussia was minister president Otto von Bismarck, serving under king William I.
On 18 August 1866, Prussia and most of the north German states signed the August Treaty. They agreed on a military alliance and declared their intention to create a federal state.[1] (Some other states joined soon.) A federal state is different from an alliance as it has a federal government and legislation, and it is different from a unitary state as there are still rather powerful states below the federal level. Plans for a federal state in Germany had existed since the year 1848.
- ↑ Michael Kotulla: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Vom Alten Reich bis Weimar (1495–1934). Springer, Berlin 2008, pp. 490/491.