1880: The year of radical change
The new government of Chancellor Frederick Carile was, in some ways, not very different from that Konrad von Schwaben. They had the same Minister of War, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Education, and Minister of Finance. The fiery demagogue Franz Meningen was now Minister of the Interior, but apart from that, nothing had changed. Carile and von Schwaben had simply swapped the top office. To many Germans, there was nothing wrong with that, but left-wing elements in German society began to question the legitimacy of elections where the same party won year after year.
Although they did not always see eye-to-eye on politics, HUN members and colleagues Meningen and the Foreign Minister Fritz von Hohenzollern did agree on bringing the benefits of German civilization to Sicily and Malta, and worked closely together to ensure that the appropriate justifications were brought before international authorities.
The Minister of the Interior's controversial plan favoring the rights of minorities and increased development for the Italian segments of Germany's population was, in one sense, geared towards the population of Sicily and Malta, to show them the benefits of German civilization. He offered tax breaks to wealthy Italians seeking to establish businesses in the Italian-dominated parts of Germany and used his office to help those Italians transfer property from Germans to themselves.
However, he remained a patriotic German, and encouraged Italian citizens in Romagna who wished to apply for full German citizenship to do so.
Yet, at the same time, there were whispers that his love of minorities had gone too far. When a Prague mine collapsed, trapping a few miners, he leaned heavily on the workers to stay quiet. Although he planned to form a new party in 1883, he could not afford to lose the confidence of his conservative constituents before then and risk losing his seat.
The new Bundespartei planned to speak for the rights of minorities and supported a more federal system of government within Germany. It was a party that offered a balance between long-standing members of the Reichstag in Meningen and Samuel von Dywfor-Frauenkirche and youth such as Heinrich IV von Silesia-Glogau, Emmanuel Victor, and Otto Kant. It emphasized dynamism and vigor. Early indications were that the Bundespartei could expect a reasonably good initial showing.
Conservatives did their best to find a way to fight back against a further expansion of the liberals they hated. The affable Commander of the Gendarmerie Gerrit Aldo Servatius von Kloetinge, who was already over 70, had grown lax in policing his subordinates. A few of them, with the full authorization of their Commander (who, it was well known, would sign anything under the influence of schnapps), formed a cell within the Gendarmerie they simply called the "Shadows." The Shadows thought it their responsibility to purge Germany of undesirables by any means necessary, even if that meant using violence. Nobody could pin down precisely who the Shadows were, but they were real.
The "truest" liberal in the entire cabinet, the Minister of Education Walther Herwig, did not disappoint his constituency either. The unexpected disappearance of Ludwig Fredrik Anderson put him in a prime position to seize control. After giving the Ministry of War a sop in the form of new base schematics that would "launch the German Navy into the next century," the Ministry of Education consistently funded programs geared towards commerce and pure science, the programs most popular with the liberal elites of Germany.
Incredible archaeological discoveries the envy of the world were made by Germans as well, including discovery of one of the most astonishing collections of Egyptian artifacts in history.
German scientific prestige had never been higher. With the participation of every other ministry of government, the Foreign Minister hosted an international conference on the lessons Africa could teach the world, and the poor natives of Africa who yearned to be more like educated Europeans. The Great Powers all agreed that the uncivilized nations of Africa needed guidance, and only they could provide it. The Nürnberg Conference was a huge success, and almost every party in German enthusiastically supported the new civilizing mission.
The Conference was not all positive, however. The Minister of Finance, DSU leader Franz von Bavel-Timmermans, used the conference with his counterparts in Europe to negotiate still better commercial deals to import much needed goods into Germany; he let slip German plans against Venice, for which he received criticism, especially from Imperialists like Otto von Altmark, who insisted that von Bavel-Timmermans did it entirely on purpose to undermine the conference and its glorious mission.
Another Imperialist, Wilhelm von Vandenburg, insisted that Germany immediately move to colonize the uninhabited province of Upper Guinea. Unfortunately, bickering within the Reichstag over who had the legal right to authorize such a measure, and ultimately, the British moved in with no opposition.
The women of Germany angrily demanded a say in politics, and while the NLPD and UAI were sympathetic, they argued that constitutionally there was nothing they could do. Increasingly, the DSU began to speak out in favor of women's suffrage, the first German party to make that part of their platform, but not the last. A new Socialist newspaper was written by prominent women in German society and pledged that Germany would never be truly free until women could vote.
A splinter group within the DSU thought that they weren't doing enough, however. They demanded change, and they wanted it right away. They protested Morocco's desire to "enslave their neighbors," and called the Foreign Minister's denial of Morocco's request "simple bourgeois hypocrisy." When the Minister of the Interior appeared lenient for only imprisoning a Greek for stirring up a rebellion against the state, this splinter group argued that the Greek was right, that all peoples should be free, and that governments were little more than a crutch.
Then, on 27 October 1880, the splinter group vanished. The Shadows vowed to eliminate each and everyone of them as traitors to Germany; they turned up in Hedjaz, of all places, where the new Communist Worker's Party of Germany pledged solidarity with the other members of their international movement.
The KAP, although its political goals were still nebulous, wasted no time in denouncing socialism as "a half-measure that only served to enslave the working class with promises of trinkets." They demanded the immediate release of Ferdinand von Hohenzollern as "a true inspiration to all communists" and that those jury members who voted for either his incarceration or execution immediately be turned over to them for "true revolutionary justice." The KAP were a minority, but they were loud, and they might not be a minority forever.
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If anybody wishes to officially form a Communist Party, they are free to do so, and the requirement to have two members of each house does not apply (although ideally, you'd have one of each). You will need to set your party's new platform, elect a party leader, etc. For the present, we'll ignore them as an established political party.
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