The article is focused on Prussian attempts to separate the North German territories from the rest of the Holy Roman Empire during the summer months of 1806 with the aim of creating a North German Imperial Confederation under the Prussian protection. The reasons behind the possible foundation of the North German Imperial Confederation as well as the journalistic activities around this Prussian project are also in the centre of attention. The structure of the supposed North German Confederation are analyzed on the basis of plans and projects elaborated by the Prussian politicians and diplomats in July and August 1806. The deliberations over the joining to the Confederation were conducted by the Prussian government with the Electors of Hesse and Saxony as well as with the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen which were supposed to become the major members of the Prussian-dominated North German state. The analysis has shown that the Prussian government considered the possible North German Imperial Confederation as thelegal successor of the Holy Roman Empire, with Habsburgs being replaced by the Hohenzollern dynasty. The Prussian claims on the inheritance of the Holy Roman Empire and on the hegemony in the Northern Germany were met with discontent on the part of Hesse and especially Saxony, which impelled the Prussian politicians to repeatedly modify their projects, adding more elements of federalism to them. Despite all the concessions, Prussia eventually failed to unite the Northern Germany under its protection. The reasons for this lie both in the separatism of the North German principalities and cities, and in inner inconsistency and crudity of the Prussian projects. France and Great Britain also impeded the Prussian plans since neither of them was interested in a separate North German state under Prussian control. Napoleon's refusal to support Prussia's attempts to unify the Northern Germany was used by the Prussian government as a pretext to declare war on France in October 1806 which ended with dramatic Prussian defeat. Despite the fact that the Prussian plans to create a North German Imperial Confederation in the summer of 1806 were never realized, this was one of the many possible ways of the evolution of the German statehood in the early 19th century. It was finally put into practice half a century later, in the form of the North German Confederation in 1866.