Germans are a distinct ethnolinguistic group that existed prior to the unified German nation state.
Many (most?) countries exist because pre-existing ethnolinguistic groups got their own country. For example, Bengalis have existed for long enough that you can easily identify them as a tightly clustered, distinct group in genetic profiles,[1] but never had their own country until 1971.
This has often meant displacing huge numbers of people in order to create contiguous nation states. Some 15 million in the partition of India and a similar number in Eastern and Central Europe.
The German Empire of 1871 is just one of many. Germans have lived in those lands for quite some time. Already Julius Caesar was conducting campaigns in Magna Germania.
The place existed, and people existed in the place, and the communication about that place is taking place today, and the way for one person to communicate a reference to that place to another person today, is to use the label Germany.
