This needs correcting. Germany and Switzerland are both federal states, they occupy the same spot on the notional spectrum. <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/The_path...> The comment would have a point if either state was unitary, but this is not the case.

Switzerland was a confederation prior to 1848, the now inaccurate name stuck for I assume sentimental reasons. The issue of republics is orthogonal to the topic under discussion.