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".