124 North
Hanseatic cities at allied headquarters in Frankfurt, was able to block attempts
at a Prussian expansion in the north of Germany. The great powers recognized
the sovereignty of the three Hanseatic cities, who maintained this position as
independent and neutral commerce republics at the Vienna Congress and dur-
ing the negotiations concerning the constitution of the German Federation.
This was to stimulate the further political cooperation of the Hanseatic cities
as well as the formation of a regional Hanseatic “post-Napoleonic identity.”41
41 Katherine Aaslestad, “Paying for War: Experiences of Napoleonic Rule in the Hanseatic
Cities,” Central European History 39 (2006), 641–675, here 672.