" 

 == Geography == 

 The entire premise of the Geography section seems a bit goofy to me.  Hoffmann von Fallersleben wasn't a politician.  He wasn't advocating specific, literal borders.  He was a poet.  He was just giving an approximation of where ethnic Germans lived.  The use of bodies of water to encompass the German territory was a poetic technique.  Notice, for instance, that Maas and Memel both begin with M a nice alliteration. 

 The significance of the first stanza lies much more in the use of the term Deutschland, as it delineated a new concept for people to consider not Bavaria or Baden or Prussia, but Deutschland, a unified state encompassing all those with common ethnicity, that would be ""brüderlich zusammenhält"" (held together with brotherly bonds).  Hoffmann was advocating a common bond much more than he was advocating particular political borders. 

 So going into great detail about the history of the political borders and to what extent they've approximated what was mentioned in the song seems a bit specious to me."