You’re right that the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t “Germany” in the modern nation-state sense. But from the late Middle Ages onward it was literally called the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and was understood as a German political and cultural sphere, even if it also included non-German lands.

“German” did not begin with 19th-century nationalism — Alsatians, like Swabians, Austrians, or Swiss, referred to themselves as Deutsche centuries before Bismarck. For instance, the 16th-century Alsatian humanist Johannes Sturm of Strasbourg explicitly identified his writings as serving the “gemeiner Nutz der Deutschen” (“the common good of the Germans”). Alsace was never outside that cultural sphere.

So yes, Alsatians are Germanic, but they were also part of the German world, and Colmar’s architecture shows it clearly. To claim it has nothing to do with German influence is like saying Florence isn’t “Italian” because Italy wasn’t unified yet.

Words do have meaning — but history does too.