Are people from the German states before the unification of the German Empire considered "Germans"?
Why would Confucius, born in China's Warring States Period, be regarded as a Chinese thinker, while Julius Caesar, who was born in ancient Rome, would not be regarded as an Italian? This question, further along, becomes another question, namely, whether a person from the German states before the unification of the German Empire is considered a "German".
Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Carl Friedrich Abel, are almost universally referred to as "German composers"; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller are also known as "German composers"; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller are also known as "German composers". German writers"; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Immanuel Kant are recognized as "German philosophers".
In fact, during the period of their birth, these celebrities did not exist in the country of "Germany".
Beethoven
Germany was unified in 1871 by Prussia, the largest German state, and King Wilhelm I of Prussia became Emperor of the German Empire. In the previous centuries, Germany was also made up of many small city-states.
1818 Prussia
After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the 39 German princely states formed a loose organization called the "German Confederation", which included the kingdoms of Austria, Bavaria, and Luxembourg, as well as the Grand Duchy. It was not until the dissolution of the Confederacy after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, when Prussia established the North German Confederation, and finally after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, the Unified Kingdom of Germany was established.
Thus, people from the German Confederations before 1871 were not technically "Germans", because there was no Germany at all. The English call them German, which should also mean "German" rather than "German".
A more accurate way to say this is to call them "German musicians", "German writers" and "German philosophers". Because they all come from the German-speaking cultural circle and mostly create in German.
As for some famous Germans, they are not actually German. Nietzsche, for example, moved to Switzerland at the age of 24 to become a professor, and also renounced prussian and German Confederation citizenship, and remained stateless for life thereafter. The musician George Frideric Handel, although born in Prussia, was invited to become a composer of King George I of England and later became a naturalized Englishman.
Nietzsche
Nietzsche and Handel never had "German citizenship" in their lives, but were citizens of the German Confederation. It is a bit inaccurate to describe Nietzsche, who has no citizenship, as a German, to say that those who have withdrawn from China and joined foreign countries are "first and foremost Chinese."
Germany never existed as a unified state until 1871, so different languages would call her by the names of different confederations, which is also extended to the names of today's Germany in different languages. These names include Allemagne in French, Saksa in Finnish, and Prusacy in Cilithia, with names from the three states of Almani, Saxony and Prussia, respectively.
Until now, Chinese mostly called the people of these Confederate countries Germans, which is also a conventional and inaccurate statement.