Norddeutscher Bund

Norddeutscher Bund (North German Confederation), a federal association founded in 1866 after the defeat of Austria by Prussia (see Deutscher Krieg). It was designed by Bismarck, possibly as a half-way house to a unified German state without Austria. A constitution was adopted which included a North German Reichstag and named the king of Prussia as its federal president. The constitution was so drawn up that it could easily be modified at a future date.

Prussia was overwhelmingly powerful in the Confederation, since it had increased its existing majority of the population by the annexation of those North German states which had taken the Austrian side (Hanover, Electoral Hesse, Nassau, and the Free City of Frankfurt), as well as the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, about which the war was fought (see Schleswig-Holsteinische Frage). The original members of the North German Confederation, apart from Prussia, were Oldenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Lippe, Schaumburg-Lippe, Braunschweig, Anhalt, Sachsen-Weimar, Sachsen-Altenburg, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, and Reuß jüngere Linie, to which were added certain opponents of Prussia, the kingdom of Saxony, the territory of Grand Ducal Hesse (Hessen-Darmstadt) north of the Main, Sachsen-Meiningen, and Reuß ältere Linie. The Norddeutscher Bund ceased to exist with the proclamation of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in January 1871.