The Saving of German Democracy

The manoeuvres of the DNVP had led to total disaster from their perspective, and many resented what Tirpitz had contrived. The fraction leader in the Reichstag, Kuno Graf von Westarp, demanded Tirpitz be expelled, but this did not come to pass. But the crucial point was that the DVP had been alienated and annoyed, and would be loath to co-operate for some time.

The DVP's Stresemann was particularly infuriated. With a divided DNVP, it was hehe and his party which took the initiative and banged the drum of opposition. He scored quite a coup when the DNVP deputy Franz Biener defected to the DVP on 22nd May 1925, citing 'indiscipline and a lack of coherent economic policy' for switching.

Otto Braun geared up now for his first major battle. With the DDP's Wilhelm Kuelz as effective proxy, he began quietly to put together a plan for educational refor, but it would not rear itself until later. In the meantime, his major priority was getting the French out of the Ruhr as soon as possible.
 
Linsingen had expected to be coming into office dealing with an irritable KPD and a fractious democratic executive, but he hadn't been expecting to have to deal with people even further to the right of him.

On 29th May, he was informed that the NSDAP leader Hitler had penned some turgid memoir and was having it published via a group named Eher-Verlag. He had of course already put a ban on Hitler speaking in public, and was not amused.

Acting on the President's orders, the Interior Minister Gustav Noske (an SPD man but not shy of a right-wing measure or two) had the publisher, Max Amann, arrested and all copies pulped.
 
Splitting Up

On 2nd June 1925, the new government put forward a proposal to deal with the size of Prussia. With 60% of the landmass of Germany, the Free State was regarded by many as too dominant. However, the plans by the coalition to split Prussia were not based on pure altruism or good governance.

Democratic though the parties were, this was to be be, and was aimed to be, a stitch-up. The following were to be done:

-The joining together of the two provinces of Hessen by ceding Frankfurt. As Hessen leaned towards the SPD, this would consolidate their power.

-The creation of a new Rhineland state. This would unsurprisingly end up dominated by Zentrum and the SPD.

-The creation of a new Hanover state, corresponding to the old kingdom. There was a great deal of agitation in Hanover for a separate state, and a more cynical member of the SPD had pointed out that this might help to keep the Hanoverian Linsingen happy.

The bill was to be put to the Reichstag as soon as possible before the recess began. With the backing of the coalition and of a chunk of some of opposition, the bill became law and was signed by Linsingen. On 1st August 1926, the new states would come into effect.
 
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In those first days of June 1925, French troops began to leave the Ruhr. It would ultimately take just three weeks for the whole area to be free of them again. The celebrations seen on the streets were impressive, and Otto Braun's ministry had gained a huge degree of goodwill, even in an already SPD-leaning area such as the Ruhr.

Now, with that policy challenge complete, Braun turned his attention to normalising Germany's diplomatic relations. On his instructions, Foreign Minister Wilhelm Marx began discussions with the Western powers about formalising Germany's western borders in return for diplomatic restoration. As the representative of a Catholic party, Marx had the sympathetic ear of Pope Pius XI. Although the Pope's sympathy was essentially useless in discussions with France and Britain, it did help in discussions with the incoming Belgian Prime Minister, Prosper Poullet, who also led a Catholic Party.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
-The creation of a new Hanover city state. There was a great deal of agitation in Hanover for a separate state, and a more cynical member of the SPD had pointed out that this might help to keep the Hanoverian Linsingen happy.
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Just one detail Hanover wouldn't be a city state, it would be made up of the entire Prussian province of Hanover. Beside that I like this timeline.
 
The British Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain, was impressed by Marx's clear desire to normalise relations and quickly agreed to set up the relevant meetings. The Belgians and Italians agreed rather rapidly (not least the Belgians, as despite their wartime animosity, the two countries Socialist-Catholic coalitions mirrored each other). The French were a little more reluctant, but soon came on board thanks to Briand's efforts.

The talks would take place at Locarno in Switzerland later in the year.

However, as a gesture of good faith, the British government pushed forward the date for UK troops to evacuate Cologne to 1st August.

Meanwhile, in the opposition ranks, talks over a future coalition were going on. The DVP's Gustav Stresemann held a number of talks in June 1925 with Hermann Drewitz, chair of the Wirtschaftspartei (WP), and agreed that the WP would receive a place in government were the DVP to form part of a new administration.
 
Party Merger

There was about to be an early, and difficult, challenge for the new coalition when the SPD decided to go ahead with its plan to reform education.

With the DDP's Wilhelm Kuelz in charge of the reforms, the plans included the following:

- A basic national curriculum applicable to all states, and the creation of a new Federal Board of Education.

- The right of parents to opt their children out of religious education.

-The prevention of any new religious schools.

These proposals caused outrage in the BVP and Zentrum. With their Catholic roots, they simply could not countenance such moves. Marx made it clear to Braun that any attempt to push this through could lead to Zentrum considering leaving the coalition after only a few months. Braun, under advice from Gustav Noske, backed down. But the lasting legacy of the move was a sense of betrayal by the liberal DDP, and a sense of bitterness between them and the Catholic parties.

However, now the coalition had a boost. With its entire raison d'etre destroyed by the ratified creation of a Hanoverian Land, the Deutsch-Hanoversche Partei (DHP) knew its future as a viable party was over. With its Christian-based ideology needing a new home, the leadership and the four DHP deputies decided to subsume their party into Zentrum. The majority now looked more secure.

The Braun ministry looked even more secure by 1st August 1925, when British troops left Cologne. Almost all the French troops were now gone as well. Braun felt confident enough to make a speech to SPD activists claiming that the SPD had re-established German sovereignty. Marx too basked in the moment, describing the withdrawals as a "triumph for a moderate approach rather than the bellicose approach some would have us adopt".
 
The Hitler story rumbled on in August, when all the copies of his book were pulped. His publisher was brought to its knees and only survived by being bought out by the industrialist Alfred Hugenberg. Hitler was incensed, but was unable to speak in public, although his proxies did so.

Hitler's enforced silence was causing serious ructions in the NSDAP now. As President von Linsingen had made it clear that the ban would not be lifted any time soon, the Northern, more Socialist wing of the party began to make noises about policy changes. Their leaders, Gregor Strasser and Joseph Goebbels, began to hold private meetings to discuss these issues on which they differed from the Munich-based groupings. The party was headed for confrontation-this time against itself.
 
On 21st August 1925, the coalition collapsed after 3 months. It had looked unwieldy from the start, and the ructions over education policy had caused serious internal wrangling. Despite Braun's foreign policy successes, the education issue had driven a progressively larger wedge between the DDP and the more liberal members of the SPD on one side, and Zentrum and the BVP on the other hand. It was eventually the DDP who walked out, after a bad-tempered meeting in which Braun and Marx refused a series of policy proposals which Erich Koch-Weser and Wilhelm Kuelz put forward.

There was no viable alternative government at all. The DVP's Stresemann sat on his hands, the DNVP were hated by the other parties after the shenanigans some months earlier, and the rag-tag bunch of minor parties were utterly useless at compromise. President von Linsingen therefore called for a snap election, to be held on Sunday 20th September.

The polling was confused, but clear trends were there to see. The big loser would probably be the DNVP, whose more moderate voters had been repelled by the party's actions earlier in the year. Zentrum and the SPD would stand remarkably still, and the DVP would probably increase.

Meanwhile, in Britain, Stanley Baldwin was planning to capitalise on the success of his Central Electricity Board by the proposed consolidation of the various town corporation's water operations into regional water boards. The Water Bill (1925) was to be the first bill put before the House after the recess.
 
The Election

Sunday 20th September came and provided a serious change in the political landscape.

Total: 493 seats

SPD-133 (+2)
Zentrum/DHP-70 (+1)
DNVP- 72 (-29)
NSDAP-7 (-11)
BVP-19 (-)
DVP 78 (+27)
DDP- 33 (+1)
KPD- 52 (+7)
WP- 17 (+5)
Landbund- 7 (-1)
Bayerischer Bauerbund- 5 (-)

The story of the election was the collapse of the DNVP. Their arrogance and general poor behaviour cost them dearly, most of these seats going to the DVP.

The NSDAP were almost wiped out, with the ban on their leader speaking clearly a factor.

Braun now had a conundrum. Who should he ally to? After all, Linsingen offered him first chance at forming a new government. His task was made easier though by the fact that Stresemann's DVP and the WP offered to join him. Zentrum followed suit, and it looked like a new 4-party coalition, with 306 of the 493 seats, would take power.
 
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