What was the strongest German state within the germanic confederation?

Answer 1

Traditionally the Austrian Habsburg Empire was the leading political, military, and cultural force of the German Realm, or "Mittel Europa" as Germans called it, then in the 1850's and 1860's Austria fell back and Prussia, which was the only rival of Austrian power within the german lands, was experiencing abnormally fast industrialization, which had begun in Britain and by the 1850's had surpassed Britain in industrial growth, and in 1866, the Austro-Prussian war broke out between the Austrian Empire and Prussia, over the control of the danish provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, in which the 2 german provinces had united to terminate Danish control over the latters, and had started fighting over the administration of these 2 german territories, resulting in a decisive prussian victory, transfering the established order of german power towards Prussia and later Germany, at the expense of the Austrians, and you could still see it until sometime during world war one, the german power in Vienna were somewhat subbordonate to that of the german general staff, and tired of taking orders from berlin, the austrians did as they pleased during world war one and ended in the collapse of their empire, which was pretty much personal property of the House of Habsburg as Woodrow Wilson said it. Then during the second world war, Austria had been physically annexed by the Germans.