Editing Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (section)

===Germany===
Sigismund's rule in Germany and in the empire in general was hampered by his complete lack of ''Hausmacht'' (domestic power) within the [[Kingdom of Germany]].<ref name=Frenken>{{cite book |last1=Frenken |first1=Ansgar |title=M. Pauly u.a. (Hrsg.): Sigismund von Luxemburg / Buchrezensionen |url=https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-9374 |publisher=Philipp von Zabern Verlag |access-date=2 July 2022 |date=2006|isbn=978-3805336253 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Irgang |first1=Winfried |title=Sehepunkte – Rezension von: Kaiser Sigismund (1368–1437) – Ausgabe 14 (2014), Nr. 11 |url=https://sehepunkte.de/2014/11/26191.html |website=sehepunkte.de}}</ref>

His rule relied on key allies and the culture of associative political mechanisms in Germany. Duncan Hardy remarks that "both the local and the trans-regional dimensions of the political activity displayed by the sources from throughout Sigismund's reign demonstrate that power at every level in the empire was exercised and mediated through the customary institutions and mechanisms of associative political culture. If Sigismund enjoyed considerable successes at certain junctures, it was not in spite of or independently from these institutions and mechanisms, but precisely because he devoted considerable energy to harnessing associative interactions and building strategic relationships with leading actors within elite networks. Even during his prolonged absences from the empire's core lands, Sigismund was able to make use of these partnerships, and could reasonably expect that the associative activity of princes, nobles, and towns would yield results—as indeed they did, in the form of large-scale collective activity against Duke [[Frederick IV, Duke of Austria|Frederick IV]] of Austria—Tyrol in the 1410 and the Hussites in the 1420. Not all of Sigismund's projects came to fruition, and he could not always control the longer-term outcomes of his policies, but the notion that there were phases of an 'empire without a king' during his reign clearly does not stand up to the abundant evidence of his interactions with regional clients and associations. At the same time, the somewhat adulatory view that has developed in recent years of Sigismund as a masterly politician can be tempered by the evidence that it was often felicitous alliances as much as personal skill which made his successes possible."{{Sfn|Hardy|2018|p=213}}

The alliance between Sigismund and his two key allies in Germany, namely [[Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg]] and [[Albert II of Germany|Albert of Austria]] (who became his son-in-law and heir through the marriage with Sigismund's only daughter [[Elizabeth of Luxembourg]]), started the rise of the Hohenzollerns and reboosted the [[Habsburgs]] (who returned to the German throne and also inherited the connection with Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from Sigismund).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Middleton |first1=John |title=World Monarchies and Dynasties |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-45158-7 |page=404 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R63ACQAAQBAJ&pg=PA404 |access-date=11 September 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Detwiler |first1=Donald S. |title=Germany: A Short History |date=1999 |publisher=SIU Press |isbn=978-0-8093-2231-2 |page=56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-M4dwX_X0PoC&pg=PA56 |access-date=11 September 2022 |language=en}}</ref>