Located in Okertal, a narrow valley surrounded by high mountains within the region of Oberharz, in Germany's Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) state. Romkerhall was built in the 19th century by King George V, and the property belonged to his Kingdom of Hanover. He refused to support Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), and consequently lost his kingship. This monarchy was annexed in 1871 by Prussia as a province, until the German Empire came to an end in 1918. The current owner is Baron Walter Lechner who purchased this former princely estate after a fire. He claims that the surrounding territory was forgotten about and never formally attached to a particular parish; the mistake was repeated in 1970, whence it again went unassigned after a general reformation/regional reorganization of the parishes. He took advantage of this opportunity by attracting Princess Erina von Sachsen, Duchess to Saxonia, to his miniscule piece of municipality-free, independent land. She, married to Prince Thimo (grandchild of the last king of Saxony, Friedrich-August III, who was deposed in the aftermath of World War I), was enthroned as acting Queen in 1988; on that same day, his establishment was proclaimed the “world's smallest Kingdom”. Since then, Romkerhall has been the cause of continuous quarrels between the Baron and the German government and its aristocracy.