Note: I took Evan's advice and figured it was probably a better idea to have a good app done now rather than a perfect app done next month...or in 2021. So anyway, here it is:
To appease the home front and the increasingly influential and discontented Social Democratic Party, von Baden and promised extensive reforms to the tired people of Germany. With assurances to extend representation, ease conscription, and provide wartime pensions, von Baden had managed to prevent the immediate rebellion of Germany's most discontent, if he had only just as soon issued commitments that would prove tough to keep. After years of debate and consultation, the Treaty of Rotterdam officially signified the end of the Great War. Agreeing to no territorial exchanges, Germany would agree to pay reparations to Belgium and little else, even going as far as to denounce any territorial claims in their East Asian holdings unto the neutral Chinese, done out of the belief that Japan had done nothing to be rewarded throughout the course of the war.
With millions dead or grievously wounded, scores of political prisoners taken, and few significant gains as a result, the most generous clause of the Great War was one of a bitter status quo. The damage was one, sealed and irreversible as they were etched into the annals of history. There was little left for Germany to do but continue, few ways to proceed other than forward. And so, Germany marched onward.
At the conclusion of the Great War, Germany had found herself in much the same condition as she did in its beginning: With few allies, many enemies, an over-stretched Empire, and the clamor of its internal factions now more emboldened than ever before to seize what was so rightfully promised to them. In the following year, Germany withdrew its forces from the rapidly decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire as per demobilization of the country and transition into the civilian economy, yet the action would soon seal the fate of its sole accomplice in the region. Soon after, in spite of Kaiser Otto von Hapsburg's proclamation of a Confederation of Austrian States, the discontented peoples of the Hapsburg lands found themselves unwilling to merely accept any status quo. Sparked by the Siege of Brno and the returning Czechoslovak Legionnaires, one by one, states seceded from the crown, until the monarchist government was left with a paltry sum of what once remained of the mighty Austrian Empire.
Troubles for the recently-peacefound Empire failed to stop with the Austro-Hungarian Implosion. Just after the absence of the scorned Wilhelm II, his son and heir to the throne - Wilhelm III - soonafter announced his own abdication to the throne of Emperor and King of Prussia. Unlike that of his father, the exile of Wilhelm III was self-imposed, later admitting that he was, "...far too ashamed to stand before the people of Germany as a 'Heir of Ruination'". This left the incredibly young Wilhelm IV to lead the German Empire in what was possibly her most dire time. At only the age of 22, he was, unlike the majority of the Hohenzollern family, left near completely tutorless, to say little of his practical political experience; Although he technically had held the rank of Captain in the 1st Guards Regiment, he neither saw any active combat nor had any experience in any maneuvers aside from basic scholarship. Yet, with the tenured hand of Maximillain Von Baden at his side, Wilhelm IV was coronated in Brandenburg, headstrong in his assertion to the throne.
The coronation of the young prince into emperor did little to alleviate the unrest boiling below among the German people. In spite of the newfound Emperor's assured temperament, living conditions in Germany continued to deteriorate. The demobilization of Germany saw its wartime economy nosedive, and with both weak foreign and domestic markets Germany saw rampant unemployment, inflation, and with it economic and social instability. Lack of stability on a global scale as well as inflation due to excessive debt and financial mismanagement lead to the Goldmark’s value plummeting, wiping out vast swathes of industry almost overnight. In mere weeks, the value of the Goldmark hyperinflated almost exponentially. Barter economies became widespread throughout the country. So useless was the Goldsmark at one point that war veterans used the paper money the government payed them with to heat their homes. Hyperinflation threatened a near-breakdown of the German economy by the end of 1928.
Immense pressure from the completely bust economy saw very limited avenues of recovery. As a gesture of goodwill, the United States proposed the Wilson Plan, in which they offered financial assistance to the nations of Europe as a means to ensure a long-lasting peace. Von Baden was swift in his acceptance of the gesture, serving to inject the offerings of the plan directly into the German treasury. With this newfound money coming at virtually no price, the Reichstag just as soon began a lengthy debate on how quite this funding should be used to alleviate the current financial crisis. Although the monetary issues of the Goldmark were, in the short term, somewhat quelled, the Reichstag feared that the current procession of the economy would soon lead to an utter collapse in the private sector, if not acted upon soon. This, combined with the emboldened status of the Communist and Social Democratic parties provoked a distinct concern among the predominantly aristocratic Reichstag that, if not soon alleviated, would soon lead to a complete loss of control in the already-foundering German state. Under the influence of his court and Reichstag, Wilhelm IV quickly passed a series of emergency decrees on January 13th, 1929, aptly referred to as the Emergency Economic Powers Act. In effect, this gave the German government large amounts of control over the direction of the direction of industry, disallowed collective bargaining, and directly injected upwards of 70% of the previous Wilson Plan budget into the hands of private enterprises, such as the notable Junkers, Herr, und Krupp. Unincluded in any of these decrees were any of the aforementioned promises made by the earlier Maximilian Von Baden in the closing days of the Great War.
In effect, the decision to influence the German industry from a top-down, state capitalistic approach did very little to alleviate the needs of the average German citizen, where the decree was largely seen as an extension of the austerity of the wartime economy. In an era which promised lasting peace and prosperity, the average German was left jobless and often penniless. Despite an initial revitalization of some industry, the effects of the Act still left scores of Germans out of work and with promises unfulfilled. With such resentment built up over time and in time, the essential banishment of labor unions from Germany, a broad coalition of varied republicans, socialists, and communists banded their strength together, knowing now the only way for the dictatorship of the German Empire to end was a truly united front; Here, Die Einheitsfront was born.
On March 9th, 1929, the city of Cologne - set in the industrial heartland of Germany - experienced a wide series of strikes planned by the Einheitsfront in response to massive unemployment, mismanagement of funds by factory owners, and most importantly, the hyper-inflated pricing of food. Although an initial response from Berlin set to the rioters was somewhat muted, in time, clashes erupted between the Einheitsfront and the local Westfalen Freikorps, which eventually sprawled out into a gigantic, near city-wide battle between the two. Over the course of several days, the fighting escalated in scale and ferocity, calling upon a deployment of soldiers from all over the Empire to quell the unrest. Fighting soonafter spread into Bavaria, Hesse, and Alsace, with a series of states soon reported takeovers at municipal levels. Soldiers in many regions, unconvinced of the crown's wishes to fulfill any of their previous promises, took up arms in conjunction with the United Front. The combat even spilled over into the neighboring German Austria, a revolutionary surge from the neighboring Czechoslovakia and Hungary unable to be quelled by the decaying Hapsburg rule. The lines in the sand were now clearly drawn: The German Civil War had begun.
After months of vicious and brutal fighting, assisted by the recently revolutionized government of neighboring Poland, the German Civil War had come to a close. The Einheitsfront emerged victorious, the vanquished monarchists and proto-fascists were killed, imprisoned, or exiled, and in the place of the old Hohenzollern monarchy a new constitutional system was to be implemented. However, given the multipartisan composition of the United Front, there was initially much heated debate over what form the new government was to take. Supporters of the old Social Democratic Party were in favor of a mixed socialist welfare state, whereas the communists wished to completely revolutionize the old system, dismantle its last pieces, and instate a collective egalitarian society. After months of infighting and power struggles which resulted in rather comical events like the 1930 Reichstag Brawl, the KPD emerged victorious, thanks in no small part to the influence of Poland. In 1931, the constitution of the country was created, solidifying Germany's position as a communist state, and Ernst Toller was voted in as the first President of the German Council Republic, with Johannes Hoffman elected as the first Chancellor.
Toller's performance as the first president was one filled with a rather heavy duty before him, and one which he achieved with a very mixed legacy. Although responsible for a wide variety of initial projects to assist Germany's recovery, Toller was known for his general ineptitude towards appointing effective personnel as well as his general lack of urgency towards any situation. For example, Toller's choice of Foreign Minister, a certain Dr. Franz Lipp, had insisted that every single key to the restrooms in the German parliament had been stolen by the monarchists when fleeing, had issued a declaration of war towards Switzerland when they had refused to lend Germany 53 trucks (The result of which lasted approximately six hours and the only skirmish entailed within had the only casualty listed as a German patrol dog), and, had he not suffered from a heart attack and died on the typewriter from which he was stationed, would have issued a declaration of war upon the Empire of Japan for "the failure to purchase sufficient quantities of German tractors". The only instance in which he had broken this trend was due to his belief that the army would attempt to coup him, and thus, in a bid to curb their political influence, kept the Red Army preoccupied with construction projects, such as bridges, roads, and opera houses, that - while nice to have - Germany did not particularly need. As such, on the commencation of war in China, Toller was very quick to persuade the KPD to lend aid to China, eventually serving to funnel over as many postwar surplus materiel as could be provided.
With the new election cycle in 1936, Toller had proven to be nowhere near as popular enough to necessitate a repeated term, and was soon ousted by the new electee, Eugen Leviné. While certainly proving to be more apt than the previous Toller, Leviné only enjoyed lukewarm reception throughout the wider German population. Although he, unlike his predecessor, had made more conceited efforts to reaffirm the reconstruction program of Germany in the wake of both the Great War and the Civil War, his outspokenly audacious nature committed him to a more aggressively ideological crowd, and for the vast majority of Germans, simply any sign of improvement was a much-needed bolster to the more weary German people. However, come the next election, the UCDP had proposed just the candidate...
Albert Einstein had previously made his living as a world-renowned physicist, and showed only limited interest in political office. Only at the repeated insistence of his accomplices did he, after much debate, make the decision to run for office for President in the 1940 Election. With only a narrow margin of success - boiled down to the most minuscule of percentage difference - Einstein rose as the Third President of Germany. He soon proved to be Germany's most popular president to date. As a result of his series of collective, mutualist economic reforms - in addition to hiss expressive personality, keen inquisitive sense, wit, intelligence, and highly developed sense of empathy - made him enormously popular within and outside of Germany. During Einstein's presidency, the German economy began booming, proving to have completely recovered from the devastation of two wars, and soon after blossoming further as the industry began its steady growth under the UCPD's policy. To this day, Einstein is regarded as the most popular president of Germany to date.
Serving the maximum of two terms, the successor to his position, Wilhelm Stoph currently resides as a modest presider over the DRR. Largely considered to be a more homely president as opposed to many potential candidates, his popularity and legacy remains middling, though how much of this is due to the previous popularity of Einstein remains to be seen. Nevertheless, 1955 marks an election year for the German Council Republic, and the horrors of the Great War are fast becoming a distant memory in the eyes of the people.
The Home of the World Revolution peers out into the world, for it knows of the inevitable struggle between proletariat and bourgeois. For Germany, question of world revolution remains not as "if"...only "when" and "how"...
Nation:
German Council Republic / German Soviet Republic (German: Deutsches Räterepublik)Map:
History:
To appease the home front and the increasingly influential and discontented Social Democratic Party, von Baden and promised extensive reforms to the tired people of Germany. With assurances to extend representation, ease conscription, and provide wartime pensions, von Baden had managed to prevent the immediate rebellion of Germany's most discontent, if he had only just as soon issued commitments that would prove tough to keep. After years of debate and consultation, the Treaty of Rotterdam officially signified the end of the Great War. Agreeing to no territorial exchanges, Germany would agree to pay reparations to Belgium and little else, even going as far as to denounce any territorial claims in their East Asian holdings unto the neutral Chinese, done out of the belief that Japan had done nothing to be rewarded throughout the course of the war.
With millions dead or grievously wounded, scores of political prisoners taken, and few significant gains as a result, the most generous clause of the Great War was one of a bitter status quo. The damage was one, sealed and irreversible as they were etched into the annals of history. There was little left for Germany to do but continue, few ways to proceed other than forward. And so, Germany marched onward.
At the conclusion of the Great War, Germany had found herself in much the same condition as she did in its beginning: With few allies, many enemies, an over-stretched Empire, and the clamor of its internal factions now more emboldened than ever before to seize what was so rightfully promised to them. In the following year, Germany withdrew its forces from the rapidly decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire as per demobilization of the country and transition into the civilian economy, yet the action would soon seal the fate of its sole accomplice in the region. Soon after, in spite of Kaiser Otto von Hapsburg's proclamation of a Confederation of Austrian States, the discontented peoples of the Hapsburg lands found themselves unwilling to merely accept any status quo. Sparked by the Siege of Brno and the returning Czechoslovak Legionnaires, one by one, states seceded from the crown, until the monarchist government was left with a paltry sum of what once remained of the mighty Austrian Empire.
Troubles for the recently-peacefound Empire failed to stop with the Austro-Hungarian Implosion. Just after the absence of the scorned Wilhelm II, his son and heir to the throne - Wilhelm III - soonafter announced his own abdication to the throne of Emperor and King of Prussia. Unlike that of his father, the exile of Wilhelm III was self-imposed, later admitting that he was, "...far too ashamed to stand before the people of Germany as a 'Heir of Ruination'". This left the incredibly young Wilhelm IV to lead the German Empire in what was possibly her most dire time. At only the age of 22, he was, unlike the majority of the Hohenzollern family, left near completely tutorless, to say little of his practical political experience; Although he technically had held the rank of Captain in the 1st Guards Regiment, he neither saw any active combat nor had any experience in any maneuvers aside from basic scholarship. Yet, with the tenured hand of Maximillain Von Baden at his side, Wilhelm IV was coronated in Brandenburg, headstrong in his assertion to the throne.
The coronation of the young prince into emperor did little to alleviate the unrest boiling below among the German people. In spite of the newfound Emperor's assured temperament, living conditions in Germany continued to deteriorate. The demobilization of Germany saw its wartime economy nosedive, and with both weak foreign and domestic markets Germany saw rampant unemployment, inflation, and with it economic and social instability. Lack of stability on a global scale as well as inflation due to excessive debt and financial mismanagement lead to the Goldmark’s value plummeting, wiping out vast swathes of industry almost overnight. In mere weeks, the value of the Goldmark hyperinflated almost exponentially. Barter economies became widespread throughout the country. So useless was the Goldsmark at one point that war veterans used the paper money the government payed them with to heat their homes. Hyperinflation threatened a near-breakdown of the German economy by the end of 1928.
Immense pressure from the completely bust economy saw very limited avenues of recovery. As a gesture of goodwill, the United States proposed the Wilson Plan, in which they offered financial assistance to the nations of Europe as a means to ensure a long-lasting peace. Von Baden was swift in his acceptance of the gesture, serving to inject the offerings of the plan directly into the German treasury. With this newfound money coming at virtually no price, the Reichstag just as soon began a lengthy debate on how quite this funding should be used to alleviate the current financial crisis. Although the monetary issues of the Goldmark were, in the short term, somewhat quelled, the Reichstag feared that the current procession of the economy would soon lead to an utter collapse in the private sector, if not acted upon soon. This, combined with the emboldened status of the Communist and Social Democratic parties provoked a distinct concern among the predominantly aristocratic Reichstag that, if not soon alleviated, would soon lead to a complete loss of control in the already-foundering German state. Under the influence of his court and Reichstag, Wilhelm IV quickly passed a series of emergency decrees on January 13th, 1929, aptly referred to as the Emergency Economic Powers Act. In effect, this gave the German government large amounts of control over the direction of the direction of industry, disallowed collective bargaining, and directly injected upwards of 70% of the previous Wilson Plan budget into the hands of private enterprises, such as the notable Junkers, Herr, und Krupp. Unincluded in any of these decrees were any of the aforementioned promises made by the earlier Maximilian Von Baden in the closing days of the Great War.
In effect, the decision to influence the German industry from a top-down, state capitalistic approach did very little to alleviate the needs of the average German citizen, where the decree was largely seen as an extension of the austerity of the wartime economy. In an era which promised lasting peace and prosperity, the average German was left jobless and often penniless. Despite an initial revitalization of some industry, the effects of the Act still left scores of Germans out of work and with promises unfulfilled. With such resentment built up over time and in time, the essential banishment of labor unions from Germany, a broad coalition of varied republicans, socialists, and communists banded their strength together, knowing now the only way for the dictatorship of the German Empire to end was a truly united front; Here, Die Einheitsfront was born.
On March 9th, 1929, the city of Cologne - set in the industrial heartland of Germany - experienced a wide series of strikes planned by the Einheitsfront in response to massive unemployment, mismanagement of funds by factory owners, and most importantly, the hyper-inflated pricing of food. Although an initial response from Berlin set to the rioters was somewhat muted, in time, clashes erupted between the Einheitsfront and the local Westfalen Freikorps, which eventually sprawled out into a gigantic, near city-wide battle between the two. Over the course of several days, the fighting escalated in scale and ferocity, calling upon a deployment of soldiers from all over the Empire to quell the unrest. Fighting soonafter spread into Bavaria, Hesse, and Alsace, with a series of states soon reported takeovers at municipal levels. Soldiers in many regions, unconvinced of the crown's wishes to fulfill any of their previous promises, took up arms in conjunction with the United Front. The combat even spilled over into the neighboring German Austria, a revolutionary surge from the neighboring Czechoslovakia and Hungary unable to be quelled by the decaying Hapsburg rule. The lines in the sand were now clearly drawn: The German Civil War had begun.
After months of vicious and brutal fighting, assisted by the recently revolutionized government of neighboring Poland, the German Civil War had come to a close. The Einheitsfront emerged victorious, the vanquished monarchists and proto-fascists were killed, imprisoned, or exiled, and in the place of the old Hohenzollern monarchy a new constitutional system was to be implemented. However, given the multipartisan composition of the United Front, there was initially much heated debate over what form the new government was to take. Supporters of the old Social Democratic Party were in favor of a mixed socialist welfare state, whereas the communists wished to completely revolutionize the old system, dismantle its last pieces, and instate a collective egalitarian society. After months of infighting and power struggles which resulted in rather comical events like the 1930 Reichstag Brawl, the KPD emerged victorious, thanks in no small part to the influence of Poland. In 1931, the constitution of the country was created, solidifying Germany's position as a communist state, and Ernst Toller was voted in as the first President of the German Council Republic, with Johannes Hoffman elected as the first Chancellor.
Toller's performance as the first president was one filled with a rather heavy duty before him, and one which he achieved with a very mixed legacy. Although responsible for a wide variety of initial projects to assist Germany's recovery, Toller was known for his general ineptitude towards appointing effective personnel as well as his general lack of urgency towards any situation. For example, Toller's choice of Foreign Minister, a certain Dr. Franz Lipp, had insisted that every single key to the restrooms in the German parliament had been stolen by the monarchists when fleeing, had issued a declaration of war towards Switzerland when they had refused to lend Germany 53 trucks (The result of which lasted approximately six hours and the only skirmish entailed within had the only casualty listed as a German patrol dog), and, had he not suffered from a heart attack and died on the typewriter from which he was stationed, would have issued a declaration of war upon the Empire of Japan for "the failure to purchase sufficient quantities of German tractors". The only instance in which he had broken this trend was due to his belief that the army would attempt to coup him, and thus, in a bid to curb their political influence, kept the Red Army preoccupied with construction projects, such as bridges, roads, and opera houses, that - while nice to have - Germany did not particularly need. As such, on the commencation of war in China, Toller was very quick to persuade the KPD to lend aid to China, eventually serving to funnel over as many postwar surplus materiel as could be provided.
With the new election cycle in 1936, Toller had proven to be nowhere near as popular enough to necessitate a repeated term, and was soon ousted by the new electee, Eugen Leviné. While certainly proving to be more apt than the previous Toller, Leviné only enjoyed lukewarm reception throughout the wider German population. Although he, unlike his predecessor, had made more conceited efforts to reaffirm the reconstruction program of Germany in the wake of both the Great War and the Civil War, his outspokenly audacious nature committed him to a more aggressively ideological crowd, and for the vast majority of Germans, simply any sign of improvement was a much-needed bolster to the more weary German people. However, come the next election, the UCDP had proposed just the candidate...
Albert Einstein had previously made his living as a world-renowned physicist, and showed only limited interest in political office. Only at the repeated insistence of his accomplices did he, after much debate, make the decision to run for office for President in the 1940 Election. With only a narrow margin of success - boiled down to the most minuscule of percentage difference - Einstein rose as the Third President of Germany. He soon proved to be Germany's most popular president to date. As a result of his series of collective, mutualist economic reforms - in addition to hiss expressive personality, keen inquisitive sense, wit, intelligence, and highly developed sense of empathy - made him enormously popular within and outside of Germany. During Einstein's presidency, the German economy began booming, proving to have completely recovered from the devastation of two wars, and soon after blossoming further as the industry began its steady growth under the UCPD's policy. To this day, Einstein is regarded as the most popular president of Germany to date.
Serving the maximum of two terms, the successor to his position, Wilhelm Stoph currently resides as a modest presider over the DRR. Largely considered to be a more homely president as opposed to many potential candidates, his popularity and legacy remains middling, though how much of this is due to the previous popularity of Einstein remains to be seen. Nevertheless, 1955 marks an election year for the German Council Republic, and the horrors of the Great War are fast becoming a distant memory in the eyes of the people.
The Home of the World Revolution peers out into the world, for it knows of the inevitable struggle between proletariat and bourgeois. For Germany, question of world revolution remains not as "if"...only "when" and "how"...
