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I'm glad you like it! I've already made the next one and I must say that it includes important information about some of the things that have happened inbetween the 1960s and the 1990s.
I like the approach... but don´t think that an Anschluss would be possible... first Prussia then Austria?
I am fairly sure I wouldn't trust any of those politicans. Glad to see you had, what sounds like at least, an okay turnout.
Well Prussia has the whole going bankrupt thing going for it and wasn't that like one of the main reasons why East-Germany got reintegrated so fast into Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in OTL? But I think the German Chancellor here has made it quite clear that a stable economy will be a prerequisite for any form of union between Prussia and Germany. It's more likely Austria to be the first one to go.
Haha politicians need to earn your trust. With only one year of gameplay shown here, it's too early to make up your mind. And I'm indeed very happy with all the people who voted. I hope they stay on for the next elections.
Aww young Donald Tusk! Happy to see him in this timeline. I don’t know much about his time as Prime Minister of Poland, but I’ve found him to be a steadfast EU Council President who has a sense of humour, is patient, but not afraid to speak out when he sees wrongdoing.
Did the UK ever join the EU in TTL? Or did it follow our history and decide to leave?!
Did the UK ever join the EU in TTL? Or did it follow our history and decide to leave?!
I hope we get the chance to see him in that role in this timeline as well. As for the UK/Britain, they have their own thing going on with the Commonwealth and Britain is even united with Canada in a political union. They probably have a good relationship with the EU, but nothing like a common market or anything of the like with Continental Europe.
The use of IRL persons like Walesa and Tusk is an interesting approach for this timeline, makes it more engaging in a way.
One of the things that is fun to do in alternate history is think where certain people of OTL would end up, if they ever existed at all in this TL.
1993
1993
In January of 1993, the Walenstadt Cabinet initiated its plan to completely overhaul the political system in order to democratize it. A finalized draft of the new Prussian Constitution was put forward in the Landtag. The document had been carefully thought out by members of the SDP, the VP, the CD.P and the EP, with only the Junkers refusing to work on it. The result was a highly liberal Constitution that protected the rights of individuals above anything else. The document was easily accepted by a two-thirds majority. Here are some of its more important changes:
· The Landtag has the power to remove the Chancellor from office in a vote of no-confidence, needing a normal majority to do so.
· Likewise, the Chancellor and his Cabinet need a normal majority to be sworn in.
· The country’s official name was changed from ‘the State of Prussia’ to ‘the Republic of Prussia’.
· The powers of the President were slightly increased to include the privilege of assigning formateurs (someone who forms a government) after elections.
· A limit of two terms was set on the Chancellorship.
· The right to form trade unions is guaranteed by the government, public meetings are also allowed to protect the right to protest.
· The right of free speech, religion, education etc. was all cemented in the Constitution.
In the aftermath of the Constitutional change, a new debate arose in the media regarding the flag of Prussia. The current flag was a variant of the Volkspartei-era flag and was not without its controversies. One of the country’s more popular newspapers, Preussen Heute, wrote out a competition for a new flag design. The idea was quickly picked up by the government and Chancellor Walenstadt decided to open up the debate in Parliament. Three designs made it to the final choices and were put forward in the Landtag. But Parliament could not decide either. Personal preferences for aesthetic elements proved to be a hard matter to debate on. Before the media would paint the Landtag as a group of disconnected politicians who debated on stupid things like flags and anthems, Chancellor Walenstadt decided that holding a referendum on the matter would be the best option here. (In the 1997 elections, you will get the option to vote on a new flag)
Option 1:
The traditional Prussian flag but with the German eagle instead of the national populist variant in the current flag.
Option 2:
A horizontal tricolour with the German eagle holding a smaller shield version of the flag.
Option 3:
A more simpler version of the previous tricolour without a German eagle.
On the 17th of January, the food can factory in West-Pomerania was done, instantly solving the unemployment issues if the region. In Posen however, unemployment rose again, so Walenstadt decided to subsidize the existing industry and allow it to expand. Even though Prussia was sitting on an ever increasing debt to the US, Walenstadt believed that solving unemployment was more important than balancing the budget. The Chancellor’s decision was quickly followed by an expansion of one of Posen’s largest industrial bakeries.
The new food can factory in West-Pomerania provided employment for a considerable amount of people, while at the same time creating a demand for locally produced agricultural products.
In March, Chancellor Walenstadt invited Premier Copé of French Algiers, the French satellite on the North African coast known for its dubious ethnic policies. Walenstadt and Copé discussed the upcoming peace talks between the Algérois government and the Berber minorities. It was a controversial conversation to say the least. Since the Second Tuareg Rebellion of the 1960s, French Algiers had become a satellite state of the Kingdom of France. Increasing Jewish and French migration to the region, combined with the expulsion of Sunni Arabs and the considerable presence of Berber tribes, had transformed the country into an ethnically unstable region. As a result, Sunni Arabs and Berbers have become a minority in what they call their homeland. Increasing violence and terrorism, often supported by the Tuareg Republic, is once again threatening to destabilize the region. That is why the French and Algérois governments have agreed to hold ‘peace talks’ later this year. Chancellor Walenstadt was widely criticized for his meeting with Copé. The Junkerpartei openly questioned the integrity of Walenstadt. What kind of Chancellor invites the Premier of a nation which is known for its dubious ethnic policies of resettlement and expulsion of minorities? Of course the SDP quickly countered by referring to the Junkers’ own past of cultural superiority policies and reassuring that the Chancellor’s meeting was not an endorsement of Algérois policies. Josef Tusk regretted Walenstadt decision to meet with Premier Copé but was certain that the Chancellor had no bad intentions.
Algérois settlement policy is one of the most contested policies anywhere in the world.
In the following months, more and more refugees from Yugoslavia arrived at Prussia’s borders, seeking asylum. An escalation of the violence was the most probable cause. Last year, the Walenstadt Cabinet had accepted most of the requests. But now their numbers had increased so much that the administration wouldn’t be able to handle them all. It was clear that something needed to be done to end the conflict in Yugoslavia. So far, the conflict had taken on a complex form. The ethnic diversity of Yugoslavia translated itself into the many sides of the conflict. Only the Republic of Macedonia had so far managed to stay out of the conflict, probably due to its friendly relationship with Byzantium. But in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia several minor wars were happening between the ethnic groups. As it looked now, there were two major wars; the Croation War of Independence and the Bosnian War of Independence. While Croatia was waging war against Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavian backed Croatian Serbs, Bosnia-Herzegovina was waging a war against the Croatian backed Herzeg-Bosnia and the Yugoslavian backed Republika Srpska. In July, something finally changed that would end some of the conflict. The Defence Committee of the European Union came to the agreement that the Yugoslavian Wars were a threat to the peace of Europe and could trigger another World War. With silent approval from Russia, which had its own internal troubles, a UN Resolution was approved, allowing the EU to intervene in the Bosnian War of Independence on the side of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A German led task force was quickly deployed to the Balkans and diplomacy channels were opened to broker a ceasefire. Reactions in Prussia were divided. The SDP, VP and CD.P all applauded the EU’s effort to end the conflict. The JP and the EP on the other hand criticized Germany’s leading role and wrote it off as another example of resurgent German colonialism and imperialism. The Greens were more two-sided on the issue, applauding the diplomatic efforts to establish a ceasefire, but regretting the fact that more violence was needed to bring an end to the conflict. Chancellor Walenstadt send an official message to Germany, expressing his support for their effort and increasing the relations between Prussia and Germany.
Germany joins Bosnia-Herzegovina in their war of Independence against Herzeg-Bosnia.
Also in July, the long awaited municipal elections came around. As expected, the Junkerpartei lost their hold over most of the towns that were under their control. The CD.P was clearly the biggest victor, gaining both in the countryside and in urban areas. Königsberg, as predicted by several newspapers and political analysers, remained under control of the Erneuerungspartei. Danzig was won by the Social Democrats, as were Breslau and Posen. Stettin became the first city to have a CD.P mayor. The Greens did not do as well as they hoped, only gaining marginal votes in cities like Danzig and Breslau. The Volgapartei allied itself to several local Polish parties, winning much of Silesia as a result. Political commentators were already using the local elections to predict the next general elections in 1997, but there were still a couple of years to go for the Walenstadt Cabinet and much could change.
Chancellor Walenstadt casting his vote in the municipal elections in Danzig.
By the beginning of September, the EU’s military and diplomatic efforts in the Balkan had paid off. A ceasefire was signed between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Herzeg-Bosnia. The latter recognized the government in Sarajevo and was annexed into the Republic. This meant that the conflict in Bosnia was now limited to the Republika Srpska and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Balkans in September of 1993, the red arrows indicating which nations were at war with each other.
By the end of September, it was time for the next round of legislation to improve the rights of minorities within Prussia. With the ever increasing amount of refugees from the Balkans and the large amount of Volga Germans and ethnically Polish Silesians who lived in Prussia, such legislation was needed in order to right the wrongs of the Volkspartei-era. With this new legislation, the government would take affirmative action to ensure that minorities weren’t discriminated against. A new government agency called the Zentrum für Gleichheit (ZG) was founded to function as a hotline for reporting racist crimes or cases of discrimination. Walenstadt and Rossel hoped that this would somewhat improve the standing of Silesians. Within its first weeks of existence, the ZG was already overwhelmed with complaints and Minister Rossel had to make more resources free for the agency. It quickly became clear that the hotline itself was not enough, so Rossel started working on legislation to ban hateful and racist speech.
In October, troubling news arrived on Walenstadt’s desk. Rising unemployment and low wages in Posen and Königsberg had escalated to the point that some of the workers became disillusioned with the Social Democrats. As a result, they had organized themselves into a new political movement called Syndikale Aktion für Preussen (Syndicalist Action for Prussia) under the leadership of Albrecht Schwartzmann. For now their actions remained limited to peaceful protests and strikes, but there were signs that they were organizing themselves on a political level. Walenstadt had read the reports of Schwartzmann’s activities and was not amused to say the least. The syndicalist leader was known for his outspoken anti-Western and anti-Russian views, even calling for a Worker’s Union of Central and Eastern Europe as an alternative for the capitalist EU and the national populist Moscow Pact. Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Herbert Hupka advised the Chancellor that the best way to deal with this new movement was to further improve the rights of workers, while increasing their wages and lowering unemployment. It would be a difficult task, but the expansion of the industrial bakeries in both Posen and Königsberg would most likely help to relieve some of the unrest.
Flag of the Syndicalist Action for Prussia movement.
1993 had proven to be another difficult year for the Walenstadt Cabinet. Not only were they confronted by growing problems at home, like unemployment and a growing syndicalist movement, but also by international conflicts like the Yugoslavian Wars and the ethnic policies of French Algiers. The bright side of this year was the fact that the government had taken important steps towards further democratizing Prussia. A new more liberal Constitution and municipal elections had made sure of that. In addition, with the founding of a new agency to combat racism and discrimination and educational reforms still underway, the stage was set for pacifying the cultural differences of the Volkspartei-era.
International news of 1993:
Seeing those flags reminds me of an article I read the other week about the competition held during Eisenhower's presidency to design the current US flag. I'd had no idea the current stars and stripes wasn't just the result of what happens when you follow the legal guidelines...
As for this new Syndicalist Action movement: needless to say, I'm excited to see how they fare in Prussian politics.
As for this new Syndicalist Action movement: needless to say, I'm excited to see how they fare in Prussian politics.
O wow you would think that they have the US flag for the next 5000 new states ready, but apparently not. Holding competitions for a new flag, I think, is one of those things that politicians do to improve their domestic approval ratings.Seeing those flags reminds me of an article I read the other week about the competition held during Eisenhower's presidency to design the current US flag. I'd had no idea the current stars and stripes wasn't just the result of what happens when you follow the legal guidelines...
As for this new Syndicalist Action movement: needless to say, I'm excited to see how they fare in Prussian politics.
As for the Syndicalist Action, how well they do will eventually come down to how many of you can be convinced to vote for them
The next chapter will probably introduce the biggest challenge to Prussia's democracy as of yet...
Other more syndicalist symbols would probably be too controversial in this timeline, similar to our timeline's nazi symbols.
1994
1994
On the 15th of January, Minister of Education and Science, Wolfgang Thierse, was done with his complete overhaul of the education system. His attention could now be turned towards assisting Minister of Agriculture Victor Kress in his effort to turn Prussia’s agriculture into a more modern, competitive system. Minister Thierse looked in particular towards the possibilities and benefits that came with selective breeding of livestock, while Minister Kress was working on an integrated pest management policy. The program should be done by December of 1995. In the meantime, the two ministers coordinated and cooperated to efficiently spread out funding.
The unemployment that was plaguing the cities of Posen and Königsberg got somewhat resolved with the expansion of industrial bakeries in both cities in early March. However, soon after, Danzig’s biggest ship factory went bankrupt and was forced to close, causing even more unemployment issues. The Syndikale Aktion took it onto the streets and called for Chancellor Walenstadt to step down. Of course Walenstadt did nothing of the sort and instead looked into the possibilities of how to solve these unemployment issues.
Keplers Kuche was Prussia’s biggest bakery company and recently expanded two of its factories with government subsidies.
In April, an incident with a Yugoslavian refugee centre dominated the headlines. Someone had defaced the walls of the institution with racist and hateful messages. The messages openly called for violence and hate crimes against people of Slavic descent. Less than a week later, a refugee from Croatia was found dead in an alleyway. He had been kicked to death by three to four men. The police started an investigation into the murder and discovered that the men had been inspired by the graffiti on the walls of the refugee centre. As a result of the news, riots broke out in some Silesian city, where ethnically Slavic Silesians sympathised with the Croatian victim. In the aftermath of the whole event, Minister of Internal Affairs and leader of the Volgapartei Eduard Rossel proposed a ban on hate speech to the Landtag. Heavy debates ensued, with the Junkerpartei, in a weird move, came out in defence of the freedom of speech and making the case that such a law would set dangerous precedents. Donald Trump of the Erneuerungspartei joined them in their case and opposed the bill. Nonetheless, the bill passed with wide support from the SDP, VP and CD.P.
On the 25th of September, news arrived from Switzerland that Louis Ferdinand von Hohenzollern had passed away. His death was mourned in Prussia, mostly within conservative circles like the Junkerpartei. Louis Ferdinand was succeeded by his grandson Georg Friedrich as head of the house. The Hohenzollerns had lived in exile in Switzerland since the end of the Indochinese Conflict in 1973. While Moscow had always vetoed the return of the royal family to Prussia and Louis Ferdinand himself wasn’t keen on the idea, there was now nothing which prevented their return anymore. As a result, Georg Friedrich, as head of the house, wrote a letter to the Prussian Chancellor, asking for citizenship and offering to buy the Königliches Residenzschloss in Posen. The letter quickly leaked to the press and a public debate ensued. The Junkerpartei pledged their support for the return of Kaiser-pretender Georg Friedrich and his family, with some members even raising the question of turning Prussia into a constitutional monarchy. They were of course opposed by the Sozialdemokraten who laughed the idea away. Instead of answering the question of whether or not the Hohenzollerns should return, the SDP released a statement condemning the crimes of the late Louis Ferdinand committed during the Indochinese Conflict. Eventually, Chancellor Walenstadt decided it would be best to allow the Hohenzollerns to return, as those who had been directly involved in the Indochinese Conflict had all passed away by now. Regarding the matter of the Imperial Palace in Posen, the Chancellor decided to leave that up to the local authorities in the city, who had legal ownership over the property. The city of Posen, in dire need of money, accepted Georg Friedrich’s bid and sold the Imperial Palace to the Hohenzollerns. The city’s decision was followed by a whole range of reactions. The SDP regretted that its local division in Posen had been forced to sell the palace due to financial troubles. The Syndicalists quickly blamed the Social Democrats of having been corrupted by bourgeois and aristocratic elements within the government. The Junkerpartei, for once, came out in support of a decision made by SDP-politicians. They also released the so called ‘Prussian Scheme’, referring to the reported attempt to turn the US into a monarchy ruled by Henry of Prussia during the US War of Independence. The Junkers’ Prussian Scheme included several possibilities of reinstating the House of Hohenzollern as Prussia’s rightful monarchs. Donald Trump and the Erneuerungspartei called the Junkers out for their outdated views, but supported the right of Georg Friedrich to return to the country where his forefathers had lived and ruled. The Greens were too busy observing a climate conference to release an official statement on the matter, if they even wanted to at all.
The Imperial Palace in Posen was built in 1910 for Kaiser Wilhelm II.
On Christmas Day, news was released which once again shook the nation. In what was called the Christmas Declaration, Prussian Chancellor Walenstadt and German Chancellor Kissinger officially announced a military alliance between the two nations. The Junkerpartei was shocked and demanded an explanation, why was Parliament not informed? Does this mean that Prussia is going to be a NATO member? Minister of Defence Hinrich Lehmann-Grube was called to the Landtag to explain the actions of the Chancellor. Minister Lehmann-Grube explained the details of the ‘alliance’. Germany promised to stand guarantee for the independence of Prussia and Prussia would agree to holding military exercises with the German army on Prussian soil. The Minister and the Chancellor were blasted by the Junkers and the Erneuerungspartei. Things like this should be put forward in Parliament first before anything is made official. Media loyal to the Junkers soon released images which portrayed German soldiers as a foreign invading force. Obviously, Prussia had much to worry about while heading straight towards 1995.
A German soldier standing on guard in a military exercise with the Prussian army.
International news:
Enjoying seeing the Syndicalists bringing a bit of direct action to Prussian politics!