German idealism began with Kant and ended with Hegel. German romanticism was a reaction against Kant that influenced Hegel.

What I like about them from a political standpoint is that they gave us the politics of European modernity. Kant gave us the idea of perpetual peace, which the EU is based upon. Hegel is the philosopher of the welfare state: his Philosophy of Right provides a justification for it, as well as providing a critique of free-market capitalism. The Philosophy of Right is based on the idea that the ultimate human ideal is freedom.

Since you say you hope I don't find this appealing, I take it that your perceptions have been influenced by attacks on Hegel by people like Popper and Hayek. Since the 1980s, such attacks are viewed by specialists in the English-speaking world as nothing but junk scholarship. (Germans never took them seriously, of course.)

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns