Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/April 7, 2007

In the TFA on Germany of Today (April 7), I would like to discuss the sentence "The country was first unified as a nation-state amidst the Franco-Prussian War in 1871." I feel there is general agreement that the first German state was the Holy Roman Empire, which dates back either to Charlemagne and the year 800 or (more frequently cited) Otto the Great and the year 962, when Otto was coronated emperor of the HRE.

The HRE was abolished in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

Accordingly, the unification of 1871 was not Germany's first unification, but a reunification. This becomes also manifest in the generally accepted expression of "Third Reich", which refers to the Ottonic Empire as the first German Empire, to the short-lived Imperial Germany of 1871 - 1918 as the Second Empire and the Hitler regime (which should last 1000 years but collapsed after twelve...) as the Third Empire.