In 1815, Schaumburg-Lippe joined the German Confederation, and in 1871 the German Empire. In 1918, it became a republic. The tiny state of Schaumburg-Lippe existed until 1946, when it became an administrative area within Lower Saxony. The German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund) was the association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been abolished in 1806.