German Control of Europe in History

Conspiracy theorists love to talk about how the Eurozone  is just a shadow mechanism for Germany to assert its imperialistic goals to control Europe.  I'm not personally a buyer of the theory, but watching Eurozone negotiations unfold, it's clear that most are looking to Germany for leadership.

For some off-beat analysis, a comparison of different periods of European consolidation.  Just eyeballing the maps, it looks like the 3rd Reich was able to consolidate a bit more than the 4th.  Still, considering Hitler was using tanks and Merkel is only armed with the power of persuasion, it's pretty impressive how much of Europe modern Germany "controls."

Eurozone member states

German Occupation in WW2

For reference, here's what Napoleon accomplished:

Of course, the most impressive empire has to be the Roman, if for no other reason than that no one came close to consolidating Europe to the extent they did for another 1500 years.