The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. Princes of the German states, excluding Austria, gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco - Prussian War. Unofficially, the de facto transition of most of the German - speaking populations into a federated organization of states had been developing for some time through alliances formal and informal between princely rulers, but in fits and starts. The self - interests of the various parties hampered the process over nearly a century of autocratic experimentation, beginning in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, which prompted the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806, and the subsequent rise of German nationalism.
when did the unification of germany take place
18 January 1871