Following the unification of Germany in 1871, it would take a long time for what we might call a country nowadays to form. Germany was certainly legally unified but in practice she was still deeply divided. The German Empire was created from four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies (six before 1876), seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory, a total of 26 individual provinces, or Länder. At the formation of Germany in 1871, the ruling families or governments of each of these states acknowledged Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, as Emperor of Germany. Constitutionally, the Emperor of Germany would also be the King of Prussia, it would be impossible to abdicate from either of these offices individually.

Germany up until 1914 was relatively stable in that there were no significant uprisings on the scale of 1848, for example. As such, until the revolution of 1919 there was neither the opportunity or the will to abolish the monarchies of the Länder, although they were not without their troubles. In Bavaria for example, King Ludwig faced significant opposition to his castle building schemes (Neuschwanstein among them) and was declared insane. There remain many conspiracy theories around his death in 1886.

In terms of power, the Kaiser was viewed as first among equals, but practically as King of Prussia he held more political power than the rest of the monarchs. In their own territories the monarchs were generally limited by their pre-1871 constitutions, which generally established various elected bodies to govern, limiting the actual power of the monarchs.