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babushkalauncher t1_iv1me07 wrote

I don’t think it’s true that Germany was more unified. Bavaria is very different culturally and religiously than Schleswig Holstein. The difference I think was that Germany industrialized pretty evenly across the board, whereas industrialization in Italy initially only took off in Lombardy and the north, leaving the South to languish in poverty as it was mostly agrarian. Even today the south of Italy is much less industrialized than the north.

There was not such a pronounced wealth gap in Germany between regions until the East-West division during the Cold War.

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Lord0fHats t1_iv2te66 wrote

This.

It's worth noting that while Germany was not 'unified' until the 19th century, the regions of Germany had long histories together both of war and cooperation and political connection. The Holy Roman Empire had a long history and its final phases were integral to the formation of Germany.

It's not that Germany was more unified exactly, so much that Germany came into being with a history that made unification into a nation state a smoother process.

Italy in contrast had a long history of division, factional regionalism, and was rapidly unified without that same history of cooperation and political partnership. Its history of distinct and independent city states, dukedoms, and kingdoms didn't carry the same experience of working together into modern Italy like modern Germany.

I guess we could say Germany was more unified, but I think that boils the history down a bit too much.

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Llivsc t1_iv4fam3 wrote

And hardcore Bavarians today don’t like “Germans” very much

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skyblueandblack t1_iv4h05z wrote

Truth. My ex worked with a guy who was from Bavaria, which was in no doubt, as the guy was very insistent that he was Bavarian, not German.

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BertTheNerd t1_iv4k6r6 wrote

For the record, Bavarians call no-Bavarians "Preissen". This has historical reasons too, Prussia gained to unify most northern german states step by step before 1870. Bavaria and, i think, Baden (i should check this) were the last states and it needed a blackmail, war with France and a very sus death of the last king of Bavaria to incorporate this area

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Any-Squirrel-3953 t1_ixt97qt wrote

Also somewhat ethnically diffrent in the south and west,and the north and west

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