Proposals and War Aims That Didn't Happen Map Thread
- Thread starter Beedok
- Start date
No one shall get straight line borders. Not even Vatican City.Are you srs or trollin'?
Crossposting my most recent entry on German state border reorganization proposals because it includes two maps!
Germany 1949 - A Chance For Immediate Reorganization? Walter Christaller & Werner Münchheimer
As should be evident by earlier posts in this little collection of mine, the time between 1945 and 1956 was an especially productive time for German state reorganization proposals due to the non-existance of an official German state and the very young age of the Bundesrepublik, which after its founding even founded and maintained a "Sachverständigen-Ausschuss für die Neugliederung des Bundesgebietes" (expert panel for the restructuring of the federal territory), headed by Hans Luther from 1952 to 1955.
However today I want to focus on two proposals made in 1949. My "only" source for these is in fact the author of one of these two proposals.
First, let's look at a proposal made by Walter Christaller. He was a prolific German geographer, responsible for the Central Place Theory. It states, oversimplified, that settlements that are within a reasonable distance to many other settlements will grow and be able to provide specific services to the surrounding settlements, thus becoming the central place for the grouping, and that this system can scale upwards, to a limited extent. Christaller and a close associate of his, Emil Meynen, were central in the formation of the field of central planning and were very productive after 1945, working intensely first with the American military administration and later with the West German state. After both of their deaths however it came to light that both were actively working with the Nazis to first incorporate Austria into Germany and later, especially in the case of Christaller, to plan the colonization of the "Ostgebiete" within former Poland and the Soviet Union. As a result both of their reputation has been significantly tarnished.
But, after this little bit of a bummer, let's look at Christaller's actual proposal!
This proposal is heavily inspired by Christaller's ideal of the central place. It seeks to divide Germany into eight regions, which are then to be subdivided into states (or Länder). as well as smaller units such as provinces, as well as Gaue and Kreise (both can translate to districts, also Gau as a term for administrations is basically non-existant now due to Nazi connotations, with it only having informal usage in the Austrian state of Salzburg today). This map however only shows the Länder, but it marks Provinz and Gau capitals.
The goal of this proposal was to create regions and Länder based on "geographic-scientific" criteria, aiming to provide administrative units that are economically cohesive. Christaller however was vague on the level of administrative powers each unit should have, which could very well mean that the Länder in his proposal would be more akin to administrative regions, or maybe the regions would function as plenar bodies for the more important Länder.
The proposed regions (with their incredibly bland names) and states are, with their estimated 1939 population in millions:
- Nordwestdeutschland [8.35] with the states of Hamburg-Unterelbe [2.35], Schleswig-Holstein [1.35], Bremen-Friesland [2.05], and Hannover [2.6]
- Westdeutschland [13.1], with the states of Köln-Aachen [2.85], Niederrhein-Berg [3.2], Ruhrstädte [3.5}, Westfalen [2.7], and Trier-Koblenz [0.7]
- West-Mitteldeutschland [5.3], with the states Rhein-Main [3.3], Hessen-Kassel [1.25], and Würzburg or Unterfranken [0.75]
- Saarland, consisting out of only one state [1.0]
- Südwestdeutschland [6.8], with the states of Pfalz [2.3], Baden [0.95], Württemberg or Neckarschwaben [2.45], and Bodensee or Oberschwaben [1.1]
- Süddeutschland or Bayern [5.8], with the states of Oberbayern [2.5], Niederbayern [1.45], and Nordbayern or Ostfranken [1.85]
- Ost-Mitteldeutschland [11.4], with the states of Sachsen-Leipzig [2.45], Sachsen-Dresden [2.45], Erzgebirge-Vogtland [2.45], Thüringen [2.0], and Sachsen-Anhalt [2.05]
- Norddeutschland [8.0] with the states of Berlin Stadt [4.9], Mark Brandenburg [1.65], and Mecklenburg-Pommern [1.45] with the option of splitting it into Mecklenburg [1.05] and Vorpommern [0.4]
Due to the unlikely immediate reunification of Germany, a West German state according to Christaller would only have six regions and twenty states. The disparity between the various Länder specifically is obvious. In his own comments on Christaller's proposal, Werner Münchheimer in particular compares Rhein-Main and Würzburg with each other, since the latter is less than half as big as the former and has less than a quarter of its population, but they share the same administrative designation of a Land. I also find the fact that only two city states would exist very interesting. An enlarged Berlin and the connected urban areas of the Ruhr from Duisburg to Dortmund (and from the looks of things Kamen, Bergkamen, and Lünen, but not Unna and Hamm) are definitely choices.
I also wanna point out, because that's my neck of the woods, that apparently the city of Hagen and the southern bits of the modern Märkischer Kreis centered around the towns of Altena and Lüdenscheid were to be part of Niederrhein-Berg, while the district of Iserlohn (hometown mentioned!) would be part of Westfalen. Which, to be fair, isn't the strangest, because if you look at Catholic dioceses in Germany, you'll find that the Kreis Altena fell under the bishopric of Essen (part of the archbishopric of Cologne), while the Kreis Iserlohn fell under Paderborn. But, you know, all three of these cities were Westphalian according to the Prussians. In general these proposals don't take the historic state borders as gospel. Examples for that are the partition of Bavarian Swabia
The special status granted to the Saarland is an odd concession to the geopolitics of the era when the proposal doesn't make the same concession with the soon-to-be GDR. Though from the looks of things besides maybe some parts of southern Thuringia the borders between Ost-Mitteldeutschland and Norddeutschland and the "West German" regions seems to follow the line separating the Trizone from the Soviet zone.
The second proposal is one by one Werner Münchheimer. Now he is a bit more of an enigma, with me only being able to find scattered bits of info about the man. Apparently later in life he would become Oberregierungsrat within the Federal Ministry of All-German Affairs (from 1969 onwards Federal Ministry of Intra-German Relations, and abolished in 1991), which allowed him to sometimes be part of West German UN delegations, but besides that and a collection of essays from the 40s to early 60s, I can't find anything else on him.
In this 1949 proposal of his, created for his work "Die Neugliederung des Bundesgebiets. Grundlagen - Kritik - Ziele und die Pläne zur "Reichsreform" von 1919-1945" as part of the Frankfurter Geographische Hefte No. 23 (the only source for this post by the way), we see his suggestions on how to restructure the nascent German Republic, which are explicitly in dialogue with the Christaller proposal above.
As you can see, he proposes to divide Germany, in the borders of 1937, into seven states, subdivided into thirty-nine governmental districts. He also includes an intermediary judicial-only subdivision system of eighteen Oberlandesgerichtsbezirke (Higher Court Districts). The district borders aren't shown (in favor of historic district lines), but the capitals are marked and the booklet contains names for these divisions, giving a better clue at where the borders would lie.
Münchheimer, when creating this proposal, followed the principle that each German state should be administratively cohesive and roughly equal.
The western states and their districts are, with their capital listed in brackets:
- Bayern (München) with the districts of Oberbayern (München), Niederbayern (Regensburg), Lechschwaben (Augsburg), Mittelfranken (Nürnberg), Mainfranken (Würzburg), and Oberpfalz (Weiden)
- Hessen (Frankfurt), with the districts of Kurhessen (Kassel), Nassau-Frankfurt (Darmstadt), Rheinhessen (Mainz), the Free City of Frankfurt, and Saarpfalz (Saarbrücken)
- Niederrhein (Köln), with the districts of Berg (Düsseldorf), Jülich (Aachen), Köln (Köln), Moselland (Koblenz), Ruhrland (Essen), Sauerland (Wuppertal), and Münsterland (Münster)
- Niedersachsen (Hannover), with the districts Hannover-Braunschweig (Braunschweig), Oldenburg-Bremen (Oldenburg), the Free City of Bremen, Emsfriesland (Emden), Engern (Bielefeld), Niederelbe-Hamburg (Lüneburg), the Free City of Hamburg, and Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel)
- Schwaben (Stuttgart), with the districts of Baden (Freiburg), Kurpfalz (Mannheim), Alt-Württemberg (Stuttgart), Oberschwaben (Ulm), and Bodenseeland (Konstanz)
Meanwhile the eastern states are (with presumed district capitals):
- Obersachsen (Leipzig) with district capitals in Erfurt, Magdeburg, Plauen, Leipzig, Dresden, and Görlitz
- Brandenburg (Berlin) with district capitals in Berlin, Wittenberge, Frankfurt a. d. Oder, Rostock, Stettin/Szczecin, Schneidemühl/Piła, and Köslin/Koszalin
- Schlesien (Breslau, now WrocławI) with district capitals in Breslau/Wrocław, Schweidnitz/Świdnica, Oppeln/Opole, and Gleiwitz/Gliwice
- Ostpreussen (Königsberg) with district capitals in Königsberg/Kaliningrad, Elbing/Elbląg, Insterburg/Chernyakhovsk, and Allenstein/Olsztyn
The borders drawn here are much more precise, which would allow for an easy reconstruction of at least the state borders. It also shows that Münchheimer, when drawing the state borders, didn't follow the occupation zone lines in several places. Münchheimer also chose to include the territories that were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union, based on earlier declarations about the occupation applying to all of Germany in the borders of January 1st 1937. Still he concedes that most likely this proposal would only be applied to the Trizone/the future Federal Republic of Germany, and the changes required to these state borders as a result would be minor.
Some noteworthy decisions, to me, include: the cession of Engern (including cities like Minden and Bielefeld) to Niedersachsen, the partition of the Bavarian Palatinate between Schwaben and Hessen, the partition of Bavarian Swabia between Bayern and Schwaben (similar to Christaller), and the district-less status being "restored" to Frankfurt.
I also find the Sauerland district to be weird. If it includes Wuppertal as its capital, that implies that the Bergisches Land is part of it, too, or at least for the most part. It would at least include the Bergisches Städtedreieck (which besides Wuppertal also includes Solingen and Remscheid). And then it'd cover Ennepetal and Hagen, before reaching the Sauerland with Iserlohn and Altena marking the first two districts that are actually part of that region. Also with Wuppertal and Essen removed from it, the district Berg seems very truncated and excludes several areas that are part of the historic Duchy of Berg.
Addendum: My scanner ain't great, so the quality of these two images is sadly bad. I hope that I can find someone with a better scanner, ideally one that also allows for DIN A3-sized paper, so that I can eventually produce better scans, especially of the Münchheimer map, since it is part of a large poster covering nine different proposals. However, without cutting it up, I can't easily scan it right now, so this will have to do. The Christaller proposal is printed on the interior of the booklet's paperback cover, hence why it looks so drastically different in terms of quality.
[...]
That's part of my point: if an actual, integral part of the United States of America can put up such a fight against remaining part of the United States, please consider that persuading Canadians to become US citizens might have been a process much more painful than that Annexation Bill suggests.
Except that, southern propaganda pushed the idea that the north was abandoning the principles of the country, not themselves.
Also, Dixie had the possibility by and large to feed itself. Did Canada in this era under war conditions?
The 10-fold population difference is also a consideration here. At least, regarding the ease with which an annexation could be forced. If it was amiable due to certain policies, well, that’s another matter.
I'm not suggesting that Canada could throw the United States out if the US really wanted in - I'm trying to point out that the Reconstruction Era in the South shows that even winning a war doesn't mean you're going to win the peace (Especially if you're planning to allow your old antagonists access to the levers of power at any point), much less that a population of significant size is just going to vanish, culturally-speaking, no matter how close to your own it might be.
Heck, the Union between England and Scotland predate the United States by seventy-odd years, was entirely peaceful, and is still controversial today. Just because you can get a majority to vote for the necessary acts - you'd need one in Canada as well! - doesn't mean that everyone will be happy about it.
For that matter, Quebec isn't particularly happy about being part of Canada today. I doubt they'd be any happier at being part of the United States.
I guess that most of these ideas went alread through this thread, not sure however if they were summarised somewhere yet? (maybe map by great Totentanz0?)
Anyway, while reading Alan Sked, I came across later quote by Napoleon, about his end goals:
"restore Poland as a bulwark against moscowite barbarians, split Austria, declare independence of Hungary, destroy Prussia, create independent republics in Ireland and England, gain control over Egypt, drive Turks out of Europe and free balkan nations"
As a scource is stated arcticle by Günther Rosenberg in Journal of interdisciplinary History (spring 1988)
PS: may add map later
Anyway, while reading Alan Sked, I came across later quote by Napoleon, about his end goals:
"restore Poland as a bulwark against moscowite barbarians, split Austria, declare independence of Hungary, destroy Prussia, create independent republics in Ireland and England, gain control over Egypt, drive Turks out of Europe and free balkan nations"
As a scource is stated arcticle by Günther Rosenberg in Journal of interdisciplinary History (spring 1988)
PS: may add map later
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As part of my research on German state reorganization proposals I occasionally stumble across other wonderful sources that contain interesting proposals that don't find the limits of my personal thread. This here is one of them:
I've found two articles, "Die hidden agenda einer »Hanseatischen Republik«. Hansestädtische Netzwerke und Politik zwischen 1795 und 1815" by Frank Hatje (published in the Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte - Band 92) and "Pläne für ein hanseatisches »Weser-Ems-Reich« vom Jahre 1810" by Hans-Dieter Loose (published in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte #55), the three Free Hanseatic Cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck were interested in establishing control over significant parts of northern Germany in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. By the way, both articles are available for free online because both the yearbook and the magazine are fully digitized (though with the yearbook with a 3-year-delay). I'm also gonna reference the book "Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Vom Alten Reich Bis Weimar (1495-1934) by Michael Kotulla for one small section.
Hatje describes the desire of the three cities to form a closer cooperation after the end of the Hanseatic League in 1669 by also forming a shared "Hanseatic identity" and that that the French Revolution greatly inspired political actors in these cities. As early as 1796 correspondences between citizens of these cities showed the desire to follow the ideals of the French Revolution and form a Hanseatic Republic merging these three cities. Similarly all three cities were afraid of their larger neighbors, Denmark and Prussia and Hanover, especially when it became clear that, with the passing of the treaties of Basel & Campo Formio, smaller states within the HRE could be merged into larger states as compensation for losing territories to France (s. German mediatisation). Significant figures advocating for the creation of a Hanseatic Republic were the Hamburg-based but Bremen-born attorney Ferdinand Beneke, the German-born French diplomat Karl Friedrich Reinhard, and the Bremen-based politicians Georg Gröning and Johann Smidt (both of whom would become mayors of Bremen after the war).
However this idea was not limited to a union of these three cities and their subject territories, but rather it included several ideas for expansion. I'm linking this map I found on Reddit of the HRE in 1789 as a reference for the territories I'll be discussing. [Click here]
First of, Loose says that, according to the Lübeck city archives, that Lübeck had no concrete desires for territorial expansion. There is a vague agreement that Lübeck likely was open to annexing nearby territory, but there are no records of any direct overtures towards that goal. Also, crossreferencing the linked map and an 1820 map of Holstein and the surrounding areas by the Geographisches Institut Weimar, it seems that Lübeck didn't gain any (noteworthy) territory both as part of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and after being restored in 1814.
What we do have evidence for is that Bremen and Hamburg had ambitions!
Loose describes that in 1803 Hamburg was interested in gaining several islands owned by Hanover on the Elbe river, including the island modern district of Hamburg Wilhelmsburg (which would only go to Hamburg as part of the 1937 Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz). Meanwhile Bremen wanted to take over the Duchy of Bremen (formerly the Bishopric of Bremen), likely also the tiny Land Hadeln (an unruly territory that had significant autonomy within the Electorate of Hanover and had only been ruled by it since 1731). It's also unclear if Bremen was interested in Verden, but given that the territory had been ruled in conjunction with the Duchy of Bremen by the Swedes until 1714 that seems likely. Bremen saw the Duchy of Bremen as a potentially useful territory to construct a more usable port (which it would only do in 1827 when it bought Bremerhaven, which is falsely shown on the linked map over on Reddit as already belonging to Bremen), as well as an increase in manpower for potential military concerns. Bremen also argued that controlling the Duchy of Bremen would benefit Hamburg by guaranteeing the control over the southern bank of the Elbe estuary.
Hamburg, for the record, didn't think much of the plan, mostly due to them seeing no economic benefit to both Bremen and especially itself, while also, jokingly, stating that in order to legitimately have secure access to the Elbe estuary, one would also need to control Holstein. For the record, several letters and essays written between 1795 and 1803 already suggested that a Hanseatic Republic should cover not just the three cities, but also the Duchies of Bremen(-Verden) and Holstein.
In July 1806, during the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Bremen's key diplomat Smidt proposed a "cosmopolitan confederation" to better safeguard their independence and neutrality. At the same time, and this is where "Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte" comes into play, Prussia was planning on replacing the HRE with a rival instutition to the French Confederation of the Rhine: the Norddeutscher Reichsbund (North German Imperial Federation), with the Kings of Prussia as hereditary emperors and with Saxony and Kurhessen as kingdoms within this federation. The Hanseatic Cities were offered membership, but following the outbreak of the War of the Fourth Coalition and the first major Prussian loss at Jena and Auerstedt on October 14th killed that plan. This little piece of Prussian ambition didn't even last four months. See [this map] over on Wikipedia for the lands that likely would have been part of that North German Imperial Federation. At year's end, the three Hanseatic cities would be under French occupation, and the Continental System was established.
In 1809, French diplomat Reinhardt made the offer to the Hanseatic Cities to join the Confederation of the Rhine as "villes unies" (United Cities). This would have entailed being treated as a single member state within the Confederation, accepting Napoleonic "protection", while being allowed to run their own individual, local affairs but with some shared institutions. However the negotiations to that offer broke down after it became clear that French meddling was deemed to significant for the city governments.
In spring 1810 Smidt would try again, suggesting to the French that Bremen and Hamburg should take part in the partition of the then still just occupied parts of the Electorate of Hannover. Specifically Smidt suggested that Bremen-Verden should become a condominion of Bremen and Hamburg, with both states and Bremen-Verden becoming parts of the Confederation of the Rhine. The remainder of the Electorate could then be partitioned between Westphalia and other Confederation member states. The future of Lauenburg was not covered, but in theory it could have served as a connecting piece between Hamburg and Lübeck. Ultimately the Hamburg senate voted against the proposal and Napoleon apparently wasn't keen either. On September 1st 1810 Westphalia would annex the former Electorate of Hanover, excluding Lauenburg, and already on December 18th the decree for the creation of the "Hanseatic Departments" was signed and came into effect on January 1st 1811, making all three Hanseatic cities a direct part of the French Empire.
Finally, during the War of the Sixth Coalition, inspired by the brief Swedish liberation of Hamburg and Lübeck in the spring of 1813, there were again talks of working towards a Hanseatic Republic within Germany. The "Interimisches Direktorium der Hanseatischen Angelegenheiten" (Interim Directory of Hanseatic Affairs) various a group of local merchants, public officials, and priests declared on August 15th three tasks:
1) To act as the political arm of the Hanseatic Legion of volunteers, 2) To act as the collective commanders-in-chief of the Hanseatic Legion instead of the British, and 3) to act as the government-in-exile of the three Hanseatic Cities and to establish joint institutions for the future. However as the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close any ambitions of politically uniting Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen ended up being scuttled.
I've found two articles, "Die hidden agenda einer »Hanseatischen Republik«. Hansestädtische Netzwerke und Politik zwischen 1795 und 1815" by Frank Hatje (published in the Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte - Band 92) and "Pläne für ein hanseatisches »Weser-Ems-Reich« vom Jahre 1810" by Hans-Dieter Loose (published in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte #55), the three Free Hanseatic Cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck were interested in establishing control over significant parts of northern Germany in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. By the way, both articles are available for free online because both the yearbook and the magazine are fully digitized (though with the yearbook with a 3-year-delay). I'm also gonna reference the book "Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Vom Alten Reich Bis Weimar (1495-1934) by Michael Kotulla for one small section.
Hatje describes the desire of the three cities to form a closer cooperation after the end of the Hanseatic League in 1669 by also forming a shared "Hanseatic identity" and that that the French Revolution greatly inspired political actors in these cities. As early as 1796 correspondences between citizens of these cities showed the desire to follow the ideals of the French Revolution and form a Hanseatic Republic merging these three cities. Similarly all three cities were afraid of their larger neighbors, Denmark and Prussia and Hanover, especially when it became clear that, with the passing of the treaties of Basel & Campo Formio, smaller states within the HRE could be merged into larger states as compensation for losing territories to France (s. German mediatisation). Significant figures advocating for the creation of a Hanseatic Republic were the Hamburg-based but Bremen-born attorney Ferdinand Beneke, the German-born French diplomat Karl Friedrich Reinhard, and the Bremen-based politicians Georg Gröning and Johann Smidt (both of whom would become mayors of Bremen after the war).
However this idea was not limited to a union of these three cities and their subject territories, but rather it included several ideas for expansion. I'm linking this map I found on Reddit of the HRE in 1789 as a reference for the territories I'll be discussing. [Click here]
First of, Loose says that, according to the Lübeck city archives, that Lübeck had no concrete desires for territorial expansion. There is a vague agreement that Lübeck likely was open to annexing nearby territory, but there are no records of any direct overtures towards that goal. Also, crossreferencing the linked map and an 1820 map of Holstein and the surrounding areas by the Geographisches Institut Weimar, it seems that Lübeck didn't gain any (noteworthy) territory both as part of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and after being restored in 1814.
What we do have evidence for is that Bremen and Hamburg had ambitions!
Loose describes that in 1803 Hamburg was interested in gaining several islands owned by Hanover on the Elbe river, including the island modern district of Hamburg Wilhelmsburg (which would only go to Hamburg as part of the 1937 Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz). Meanwhile Bremen wanted to take over the Duchy of Bremen (formerly the Bishopric of Bremen), likely also the tiny Land Hadeln (an unruly territory that had significant autonomy within the Electorate of Hanover and had only been ruled by it since 1731). It's also unclear if Bremen was interested in Verden, but given that the territory had been ruled in conjunction with the Duchy of Bremen by the Swedes until 1714 that seems likely. Bremen saw the Duchy of Bremen as a potentially useful territory to construct a more usable port (which it would only do in 1827 when it bought Bremerhaven, which is falsely shown on the linked map over on Reddit as already belonging to Bremen), as well as an increase in manpower for potential military concerns. Bremen also argued that controlling the Duchy of Bremen would benefit Hamburg by guaranteeing the control over the southern bank of the Elbe estuary.
Hamburg, for the record, didn't think much of the plan, mostly due to them seeing no economic benefit to both Bremen and especially itself, while also, jokingly, stating that in order to legitimately have secure access to the Elbe estuary, one would also need to control Holstein. For the record, several letters and essays written between 1795 and 1803 already suggested that a Hanseatic Republic should cover not just the three cities, but also the Duchies of Bremen(-Verden) and Holstein.
In July 1806, during the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Bremen's key diplomat Smidt proposed a "cosmopolitan confederation" to better safeguard their independence and neutrality. At the same time, and this is where "Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte" comes into play, Prussia was planning on replacing the HRE with a rival instutition to the French Confederation of the Rhine: the Norddeutscher Reichsbund (North German Imperial Federation), with the Kings of Prussia as hereditary emperors and with Saxony and Kurhessen as kingdoms within this federation. The Hanseatic Cities were offered membership, but following the outbreak of the War of the Fourth Coalition and the first major Prussian loss at Jena and Auerstedt on October 14th killed that plan. This little piece of Prussian ambition didn't even last four months. See [this map] over on Wikipedia for the lands that likely would have been part of that North German Imperial Federation. At year's end, the three Hanseatic cities would be under French occupation, and the Continental System was established.
In 1809, French diplomat Reinhardt made the offer to the Hanseatic Cities to join the Confederation of the Rhine as "villes unies" (United Cities). This would have entailed being treated as a single member state within the Confederation, accepting Napoleonic "protection", while being allowed to run their own individual, local affairs but with some shared institutions. However the negotiations to that offer broke down after it became clear that French meddling was deemed to significant for the city governments.
In spring 1810 Smidt would try again, suggesting to the French that Bremen and Hamburg should take part in the partition of the then still just occupied parts of the Electorate of Hannover. Specifically Smidt suggested that Bremen-Verden should become a condominion of Bremen and Hamburg, with both states and Bremen-Verden becoming parts of the Confederation of the Rhine. The remainder of the Electorate could then be partitioned between Westphalia and other Confederation member states. The future of Lauenburg was not covered, but in theory it could have served as a connecting piece between Hamburg and Lübeck. Ultimately the Hamburg senate voted against the proposal and Napoleon apparently wasn't keen either. On September 1st 1810 Westphalia would annex the former Electorate of Hanover, excluding Lauenburg, and already on December 18th the decree for the creation of the "Hanseatic Departments" was signed and came into effect on January 1st 1811, making all three Hanseatic cities a direct part of the French Empire.
Finally, during the War of the Sixth Coalition, inspired by the brief Swedish liberation of Hamburg and Lübeck in the spring of 1813, there were again talks of working towards a Hanseatic Republic within Germany. The "Interimisches Direktorium der Hanseatischen Angelegenheiten" (Interim Directory of Hanseatic Affairs) various a group of local merchants, public officials, and priests declared on August 15th three tasks:
1) To act as the political arm of the Hanseatic Legion of volunteers, 2) To act as the collective commanders-in-chief of the Hanseatic Legion instead of the British, and 3) to act as the government-in-exile of the three Hanseatic Cities and to establish joint institutions for the future. However as the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close any ambitions of politically uniting Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen ended up being scuttled.
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The dream did not die quickly though, as Hugo Preuss had Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck united into Hansestädte as one of his proposed 16 Gebiete in 1919.
Very true! And even today you again have a positive connotation to the label "Hanseatic" with lots of cultural and institutional partnerships going on, even including non-sovereign historic Hanseatic cities. And, for the record, the Hatje article specifically claims that this movement around the year 1800 was key in resurrecting the ideal of a Hanseatic identity. Like can you imagine what would have happened if all three cities or even just Bremen and Lübeck had lost sovereignty before 1806 and were merged into larger neighbors? I doubt that they would have been restored in 1815 if that had been the case.
Still, given that with Preuss' proposal we're dealing with an entity within a larger state rather than a sovereign state within a much looser federation like the HRE/the Confederation of the Rhine/the North German Imperial Federation/the German Confederation, it's quite different.
"On 21–26 April 1936 Demchugdongrub and Li Shouxin met with the Japanese Special Service Chief Captain Takayoshi Tanaka at West Wuchumuhsin. Representatives from places in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Mongolia also attended the meeting, which was called the 'State-Founding Conference'. A plan was drawn up to create a Mongolian State which would include all of Mongolia and Qinghai" - Wikipedia
Qinghai is general considered Tibetan but its also historical had a significant Mongol presence and even today exists within the province, I'd imagine Qinghai in this specific event was just some grad offer by the Japanese to try and win over the Mongols, I very much doubt there were every any serious intentions of Japan to respect this proposal
I'd recommend this video if you're curious about the topic