First, apologies for formatting and lack of italics throughout this post. I typed all of this on my phone as I am currently unable to access a computer. Otherwise, let’s begin!

Part 1: This question has deep ties back to the early modern period of the Holy Roman Empire, and so I will do my best to dive into it. The Netherlands were not considered part of the plan for a Großdeutschland as they had not been formally considered part of the Holy Roman Empire since the peace of Osnabrück was signed on the 30th of January 1648, recognizing the United Provinces as independent. You are correct in identifying a significant difference in dialect between what would become the standardized high German, and the Bavarian and Austrian dialects. And indeed to your point — when the Netherlands were de jure part of the Reich, the Dutch language was (and still is) very close to Low German which was the closest “standardized” German language used across the Reich for commerce. The simplest answer for ‘why was the Netherlands excluded from Großdeutschland when Austria was seriously considered’ is that the Netherlands after 1490 were never really included in the Reich, and were formally independent after 1648. However Austria played a pivotal role up until the end — the Austrian Habsburgs were emperors of the Reich from Friedrich III until the Reich’s dissolution in 1806 (with few exceptions).

Crucial to understanding the Reich is to understand the Imperial estates, or the Reichsstände. A closer look at these estates will illuminate how even before independence the Netherlands were not seriously considered to be involved in the affairs of the Holy Roman Empire by leading humanists, lawyers, and thinkers.

What were the Reichsstände? The Reichsstände were the estates of the Holy Roman Empire, whose representatives were given a seat and vote in the Reichstag. As a result, Reichsstände denoted special status and privilege in the Reich compared to the other princes, counts, dukes, cities, knights, and ecclesiastical lands forming the Holy Roman Empire. The Reichsstände were direct vassals of the emperor, and so had special status tied directly to the inner workings of the Empire, especially through the Reichstage (in English often called “Diets,” which were meetings to debate reform as well as the political, judicial, and religious functions of the Reich). There were generally speaking three estates, although this is perhaps too simplified: the Electors (Kurfürsten); Ecclesiastical bishops, secular princes, counts, and lower nobility; and the Free and Imperial Cities.

First and foremost of the estates were the Electors - the three religious arch-bishoprics of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne; and the four secular electors: the Kingdom of Bohemia, Mark of Brandenburg, County of the Palatine, and the Duchy of Saxony. These Electors were formally established in the Golden Bull of 1356, and given substantial privileges (for the secular princes, their lands changed to Primogeniture succession and all lands of the Electors became indivisible). The role of the electors was to elect the future Emperor (Kaiser). But they were also originally intended to serve as advisers to the Kaiser and regents in periods when there was no Kaiser, although this was never strictly followed and often discarded by the Luxembourgers and Habsburgs.

Next were the bishops and princes. Joachim Whaley states: “there were some twenty-five major secular principalities, together with roughly ninety archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbeys” in addition to roughly one hundred counts (41). These bishops and princes had votes in the Reichstag for every territory offering a vote.

Then there were the Imperial and Free Cities (Reichs- Freistädte). The Imperial cities were originally promoted by the Kaiser in the 13th century to increase revenues but increasingly gained independence and authority over their boundaries. Over time, Reichsstadt and Freistadt came to mean the same: a nexus of economic activity and exchange with special privileges of administration and the judiciary independent of territory or diocese. The Free Cities were formally recognized as a Reichsstand in 1489 when they were given a consultative role in the Reichstag, and strengthened again after constitutional reform of 1648 (Westphalia) when they went from a consultative role to active voting at the Reichstag.

One thing should be noted: the territories of the future Netherlands were not an important part of the Reichsstände as Electors, Bishops, Abbotts, princes, or counts. As stated by Joachim Whaley, who has a wonderful monograph on the development of the Holy Roman Empire from the 1400s to 1648 (that I pull quotes from for this post):

“Thus the emerging Dutch Republic technically remained part of the empire until 1648. While developments there—political, intellectual, and cultural—came to exert significant influence over the German lands, they cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as Reichsstände, or Estates of the Holy Roman Empire. These territories played a far greater role than the Italian ones, but this above all reflected their greater significance in the power-political interests of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty” (22).

What does Whaley refer to with the power-political interests of the Habsburgs? After Maximilian I von Habsburg (r. 1493 - 1519) married Mary of Burgundy, and secured the Burgundian lands for his son, Philip the Fair, the Netherlands became a dynastic possession of the Habsburgs. For Maximilian, these were territories that could provide greater hegemony for the Austrians and therefore did not need representation in any meetings of the Reichstag. As such, Maximilian and the Austrian Habsburgs considered the Netherlands part of the Reich in that they were ruled by Habsburgs (who were the emperors), not necessarily because they were territories of the Reich.