German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th to 19th centuries. Germany was affected by a series of conflicts from the Protestant Reformation which caused Catholic influence to shift to the south to the Napoleonic Wars which was occupied and the Holy Roman Empire disunified into several German states. With the rising of pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation which resulted in the unification of most German states in 1871. Germany was one of Europe's second to last major nations to develop a colonial empire starting with colonization of South West Africa in 1884. Even though some German states set up overseas colonies prior to the 19th century. Germany was also the last nations colonize Antarctica. By 1901 New Swabia, one of Germany's most recogn