Was Pufendorf's Criticisms Of The Holy Roman Empire?

The Holy Roman Empire, while one of the longest-lived governments for the region containing the German people, has been criticized by its citizens and historians alike. While the word “empire” connotes strong leadership over vast tracts of land full of people subject to uniform treatment, the Holy Roman Empire was anything but an empire in this respect. Samuel Pufendorf (1667) gives sharp criticism to the Empire’s lack of strong political structure and how it has contributed to military weakness. Emperor Joseph II, in a memorandum to his brother Leopold, Duke of Tuscany, describes how the organization of the Holy Roman Empire could be improved upon to protect the people within its borders. Ernst Moritz Arndt described his frustrations with
Joseph II writes, “they often find themselves forced to neglect their own defense and preservation and to throw themselves into the arms of whatever promises them help.” (0106) With no clear allegiance to each other or to neighboring countries, Germany was open to “the power-hungry ambition” of the princes and becoming “the theater of all wars for three-and-a-half centuries.” (0107) Under the Peace of Westphalia, the various German estates were able to align themselves with neighboring powers: France or Sweden. While Pufendorf warned about these alliances further dividing the Holy Roman Empire and allowing foreign powers to meddle in its affairs (0105), the Peace of Westphalia gave the estates the means to protect themselves from outside invaders using the military might of other nations even though the German people may have “lost the first earthly feelings of a state.” (0107) Another benefit of these political alliances was that Prussia became noted in its military might having defeated several of the allied European and German powers in the Silesian Wars. Though these wars “taught the Germans to fight… their fellow countrymen” (0107) in neighboring Austria and Saxony, these international conflicts helped create some form of political stability through the formation of often complex
Had Joseph II succeeded in a “reform” of allowing the Emperor to exercise more power over the estates (0106), the borders drawn between these warring neighbors may not have created areas where each person could move about the empire to find the freedoms they wished. Ernst Mortiz Arndt frequently questioned what the physical and political borders of the Empire were and how they should be united, but only suggested that the empire dissolve “polyarchy” (0107) without a substantive replacement. Such a dissolution may not have cemented the borders and could have created more conflict for areas containing German people, which an already disorganized government could not support. The political alliances gave military might to principalities to fight for lands that identified as “German”, but may have been contained in other countries. Finally, even though Pufendorf advocated for a more unified empire with “central powers of [the] state are concentrated in one city” (0105), the arts and philosophy would have remained largely unnoticed by commoners and would not have led to the unique cultural regions present in Germany today. Thus, without the disarray of the Holy Roman Empire, would Germany have evolved into the strong cultural and political force we see