Panzerland's real history is rather short and simple. The original inspiration for the country came from id Software's™ own Return to Castle Wolfenstein game. The second inspiration came from those seemingly invulnerable German tanks - the Tiger Panzers of WWII. The two generally fit together, and thus was born Panzerland. Boring eh? Well, there's a fictional history too, which you can read below.

Origins

The Great War that preceded the founding of Panzerland tore the world in chaos, and reduced the Wolfenwald to a mere wilderness of scattered villages and ruined cities bombed to rubble and overgrown with weeds. Originally settled by pilgrims from the Wolfraven Clan of Cimmeria around 980 AD, the Wolfenwald remained a relative wilderness of isolated villages and dense forests. The growing Shirerithian domains cut off the Cimmerian isles from the Wolfenwald, and further hindered growth of those who had settled there and relied on trade with Wolfraven. Soon, the Cimmerians had been annexed entirely by Hyperboreans and Shirerithians, and the great Wolfraven Fleets became all but a distant memory. But that was the least of the concerns at hand, for the Italian state of Machiavellia had sprung up in the north and west, enveloping the Wolfenwald and quickly annexing the remote city-states. The Machiavellians turned the Wolfenwald into the states of Nicolo and Amber, disregarding much of the local Panzermannsch culture. And so the Machiavellians ruled over the Wolfenwald for nearly three centuries before their empire finally collapsed.

When Machiavellia collapsed, it was succeeded by the northern nation of Europia Concordiae. The Concordians only lasted a short while, however, being quickly overrun by the Nova Romans, who had appeared out of the ashes of Machiavellia as well. The Nova Romans expanded quickly to absorb the Concordians, but could'nt manage beyond that. And the Nova Romans could not control as vast an empire as the Machiavellians, so their domains only extended into the Wolfenwald partially. The Machiavellians had brought modernisation to the Wolfenwald, and although still unsettled and remote, they were strong enough and smart enough to fend off the Nova Roman raids. The enemy would only last another century before finally collapsing itself into smaller factional states. These states, too small and backwards to be recognised by the larger powers, were to ineffectual and shot-lived to make any lasting impact on the Wolfenwald city-states. Thus, the Wolfenwalders were finally truely free.

The Wolfenwald Era

The Kingdom of Wolfenwald, although never legally recognised, existed nonetheless as a cohesion of city-states not unlike the Holy Roman Empire that preceded the founding of the German Empire. Of these, Paderborn became the most prominent city-state and was chosen as a good, centralised location for the government. The first King of Wolfenwald, Lord Otto Dietrich Kessel, was crowned in 1612 AD at Paderborn.