How I shall explain it:
The Lance Empire begins its initial wars to build its empire. These start with the Germanic Wars where it seeks to put all the German peoples under its flag, which is where the Germanics living in Numberg went on a exodus and established where they are. Skip a few decades later and the Lance Empire has spread out and conquered a lot. The Numburg revolution has happened and while they had prior bad relations the new Numberg government seeks to estiblish relations with there Northern Brethren.

Also while not knowing much about Germany or German culture and being born in the USA I have German ancestry.