Germany (German Heritage)

German Federation
*Deutsche Föderation* (German)
Timeline: German Heritage
German Federation Deutsche Föderation (German)Timeline: German Heritage
Flag of Germany	Coat of arms
	Anthem: ; Deutschlandlied ; Heil dir im Siegerkranz (Imperial);
	Location of Germany
Capital	Berlin
Largest city	Berlin
Official languages	German and Polish
Regional languages	Luxembourger, Danish, Lithuanian and Italian
Religion	Protestant; Catholic
Demonym	German
Government	Federal parliamentary Constitutional monarchy
Legislature	Reichsrat and Reichstag
Establishment
Population
Currency	Mark (DM)
Time zone	CET
Date formats	dd.mm.yyyy
Drives on the	right
Internet TLD	.de

This is a featured article of the German Heritage Timeline!

Germany (German Heritage) is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best pages in the entire timeline. Featured articles should be comprehensive and contain varying subjects pertaining to the subject. FAs are decided by DukeDevon “Until we talk again!”, but if you would like to nominate an article, discuss it on the main talk page! Thank you, and enjoy your reading!

For the German State that existed from 1870 to 1991, see German Empire.

Germany, officially the German Federation (German: Deutsche Föderation) is a nation located in Central Europe. Germany borders Denmark to the north, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Poland to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.

Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. The German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation-state when most of the German states (most notably excluding Switzerland and Austria) unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After being victorious in World War I, Germany went on to establish itself as a superpower, with influence over Europe and Africa. After the Second World War, Germany was part of the Cold War between Germany, America and China.

The German Empire was a founding member of the European Economic Union and its predecessors. It is part of the Schengen Area and a member of the League of United Nations, the G7, the G20, and the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, philosophers, writers, musicians, film people, sportspeople, entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, and inventors. Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.

History[]

Louis Erwin Baum (1868-1950), *Baum led the protectionist faction of the DNVP who split to form the DLB in 1926. After 1928, he became the Minister for Food and Agriculture.*

The Mitteleuropean system brought with it a massive quantity of cheap grain and other foodstuffs from primarily Ukraine. This reduced food prices to lower levels than ever before, which was supported by the lower classes, as well as the urban middle-class. However, the Junker Elite were incredibly hostile to the free trade policies, and put pressure on Ludendorff to implement a subsidy program known as the Osthilfe. To maintain anything close to a majority in the Reichstag, the DNVP was forced to make a coalition with the National Liberal Party (NLP), under Gustav Stresemann, who kept the free trade policies in place. In 1926, members of the DNVP opposed to the agricultural free trade policies of Ludendorff’s Government split and formed the Deutschenationale Landsbund (DLB) party. Under Erwin Baum, the DLB prompted a vote of no confidence in the Reichstag and forced new elections to be held. In the 1927 German Federal Election, the DLB received 7.5% of the vote, stealing most of their vote from the DNVP. Determined to reconcile the splinter party, Ludendorff raised tariffs on foreign grain to the same level as homegrown German produce. In 1928, the DLB was officially absorbed back into the DNVP, and Baum was made Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture in the Third Ludendorff Cabinet.

Even though the DNVP was reunited, the political situation in Germany at the time made it impossible to form any workable coalition. After Ludendorff imposed tariffs, the NLP refused to work with the DNVP, and with it the last chance to rule democratically. On the 7th of November, 1928, Ludendorff suspended the Reichstag after it refused to support a DNVP bill and gave himself emergency powers under the Constitution. After the Wall Street Crash (and resulting Berlin Crash in January 1930), many became disillusioned with the famed “Savior of Germany” - strikes broke out in the cities protesting the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of the government. In Early May 1930, a protest led by members of the underground Roter Frontkämpferbund were violently met by local divisions of the Berlin Police - 30 were killed in what became known as Blutmai (Bloody May). In the 1932 German Federal Election, the “pro-government” parties - the DNVP, and to an extent the NLP, saw a decline in votes while the opposition parties - the SPD, the Radical Democratic Party and Zentrum saw an increase.

In 1932, the United States of Greater Austria was dismantled. The various states gained independence or joined already existing nations. In the case of the State of Bohemia, the situation was more complicated. The State of Bohemia was in fact a federation made up of provinces split between the German and Czech speaking lands. According to the Czech politicians, these German lands were rightly and legally a part of the Czech Republic. As a result, the German community in the Sudetenland rallied around the politicians of the SDVP, who advocated annexation to Germany, or “Anschluss”. In 1933, the militia of the SDVP, the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, took control of the key areas of German-speaking Bohemia and declared the union of Sudetenland with mainland Germany. Though Prussia eyed the new provinces with interest, the Sudetenland was eventually created as a new state of the German Empire under a Bavarian Prince.

As chancellor, Adam Stegerwald led a radically different foreign policy. Whereas Ludendorff was more inclined to use the Army to put down any sort of agitation in Mittleeuropa, Stegerwald hesitated, especially in the case of Poland. Poland had been ruled by the King and a council of appointed collaborators. This council had done little for the Polish People, and was incredibly unpopular with ordinary workers, farmers and business owners. Sensing weakness in the German Government, Józef Piłsudski and his Polish Socialist Party marched on Warsaw and overthrew the government. Stegerwald also decreased Germany’s support for Fascist Italy due to Mussolini’s anti-clericalism, and opposed its invasion of Libya in 1932. Stegerwald’s appointment as leader was controversial in his party - he was a part of Zentrum’s left-wing and was opposed by the right and moderate wings, which were led by Franz von Papen and Heinrich Brüning, respectively. Though on paper, the “Grand Coalition” held a strong majority in the Reichstag, some factions of Zentrum refused to support some of Stegerweld’s more radical policies. To appease the increasingly radical working-class, Stegerweld reinstated part of the Welfare State that has been abolished under the last years of the Ludendorff Government.

Heinrich Schnee (1871-1949)
*Schnee was the personal choice of the kaiser after the Grand Coalition split. A member of the DVP, Schnee became the chancellor from 1934 until the election in 1936.*

In the midst of the Great Depression, Stegerweld’s government split over the issue of unemployment. With Zentrum divided over leadership and Wilhelm II unwilling to appoint a Social Democratic chancellor, the options seemed to only lie with the small parties. Heinrich Schnee, a member of the Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP), was nominated as chancellor by the Kaiser, and formed a Cabinet, which would be the most diverse coalition Germany would see. Made up of the DVP, Zentrum, DDP, BVP and SDVP, his cabinet’s economic measures to combat the fallout of the Great Depression were successful in stabilising the Deutschmark from years of uncertainty. However, the issue of unemployment remained largely unsolved, and the DVP-dominated government refused to invest any money or effort into Welfare Spending - worker strikes were common, and more and more people were pushed to the extremes of the political spectrum, such as the underground Communists (organised into the so-called Spartacus League) and the far-right German Fatherland Front.

DVF Compilation (GH) — **From Top Left**:
Franz Seldte (1882-1958), *the leader of the Greyshirts.*
Alfred Hugenburg (1865-1951), the leader of the Radical faction of the DNVP and first leader of the DVF.
**Greyshirts** c.1935 marching in Berlin.

After the moderate-conservative wing of the party took control, Alfred Hugenburg and the more radical of the DNVP split and formed the German Fatherland Front (DVF), which claimed to be the spiritual successor of the war-time Fatherland Party. The DVF were drastically antisemitic, nationalist and followed Proto-Fascist ideology and policies. Under Franz Seldte, the paramilitary wing of the party known as the Greyshirts was rapidly organised into strict military divisions. The Greyshirts had three purposes - to protect meetings and rallies held by the DVF, to impress potential supporters, and to intimidate and persecute Jews and the Communist Roter Frontkämpferbund. In the 1936 German Federal Election, the DVF viciously attacked all the parties across the political spectrum - most on the left were labelled as “Judeo-Bolsheviks”, while those on the right were defamed as “supporters of the Jewish conspiracy”. The DVF campaigned on replacing the democratically-elected Reichstag with “an assembly of professionals”, similar to Mussolini’s Corporatist State, the legal restriction on Jews entering government or key societal roles, and an interventionist and expansionist foreign policy, especially when dealing with the Communists. In the election, the DVF received 6.3 percent of the vote, and saw success in the Left-dominated Saxony, the northern provinces, and in urban areas.

World War II[]

“

..This morning the German Ambassador in Moscow handed the Soviet Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from the Eastern European Nations, a state of war would exist between us.

I have to tell you...that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with the Soviet Union...

”

- Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck ^[1]

On the 6th of August 1941, the Soviet Union invaded the Eastern European nations of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic Nations in an attempt to enforce Russia’s Western borders. It was perceived that Wilhelm III would be less willing to enter a war after the death of his father two months prior. However, the German Government, allied with these nations, delivered an ultimatum to Moscow, which demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Soviet Union denied the ultimatum, and as such, Germany declared war on the USSR. Units of the Army were quickly mobilised and moved towards the border.

The first Soviet advance was primarily successful along the Baltic States and Belarus, but got bogged down in the Ukraine and Finland. The Polish Army, which had one of the strongest armies in the German Bloc lost an estimated 150,000 men from August 1941 to August 1942. Early German attacks were purely defensive and tried the repel the immediate forces. As the war progressed, the Germans aimed to advance towards the Caucasus region and extract the vast oil reserves there, under the codename Süleyman.

In March 1942, {{GH|Socialist France|France} entered the war on the side of the Commintern, honouring its commitments to the secret Treaty of Petrozavodsk, which had been signed two months prior.

After Operation Süleyman‘s success in Early 1943, the joint allied forces advanced towards the interior of the Soviet Union, using the tactics of Blitzkrieg. Conventional warfare slowed to a stalemate in Mid-1944, when Soviet forces retreated to the Ural Mountain Range.

Post-War Period[]

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1983-098-20a, Heuss — **Theodor Heuss** (1884-1963), the shortest-serving chancellor and the last democratic chancellor for over three decades. A RPD liberal, Heuss was known for his amicable and non-partisan manner. After the coup, Heuss moved to Austria.

After the Suez Conflict, discontent against the moderate government of Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck began to rise among the German people. Though the invasion of Egypt had been intended as a show of force, it had humiliated German prestige and raised questions about the sustainability and stability of the German Colonial Empire. The crisis critically undermined the conservative establishment among the new generation that had been raised in the post-WWI German hegemony, who were fiercely nationalistic and yet also radical and reformist in nature. In the 1958 election the ruling conservative parties, the DNVP and Zentrum, suffered a dramatic loss against more radical parties, such as the SPD, DVF, and RPD. The DVF rose from third to first place in terms of votes and seats, securing 36.7% of the vote. Though the DVF was now the largest party, it still had far too few seats to make a majority government and was politically isolated - effectively every party opposed coalition, including a large part of the DNVP. A “Democratic Coalition” was formed by the SPD, Zentrum, and RPD surrounding Theodor Heuss, a liberal elder statesman who was known for his amicable and non-partisan nature. Heuss was inaugurated on the 25th of June, 1958, and would become the final democratic chancellor for over three decades. Hermann Göring, the leader of the DVF, was an outspoken opponent of the new government and began to organise for a paramilitary coup to gain power through force rather than legal means.

March on Berlin & Early Fascist Period[]

Heinrich Himmler became the second DVF chancellor, and presided over a period of “National Revitalisation”. Investments were made into massive construction projects in the main cities of the empire (especially Berlin), and included a constructed Volkshalle and various high rises to accommodate Berlin’s increasing population. Under Himmler, the funding for the German Space Agency (DRA; Deutsche RaumfahrtAgentur) was increased, with a special emphasis on progress towards Moon Exploration.

Since the SPD and Zentrum left the Reichstag, they had acted as a sort of de facto opposition to the nationalist rule in the state parliaments (Landtags). Various attempts had been made to gain control of the landtags through the state elections, which were still democratic. Though the DVF had gained control of Prussia and the other northern states, the south remained uncontrolled. Himmler used his power to pass the States Act of 1963. The States Act reduced the power of both the Landtag and minister-presidents, and crucially, introduced the Reichsgaue system. The Reichgaue were constructed around state borders, and were each led by a Gauleiter, who were directly appointed by the Chancellor and Cabinet.

Another of Himmler’s reforms was the state implementation of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police)). One of the Gestapo’s main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents (Zersetzung, literally meaning decomposition). Its Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) was responsible for both espionage and for conducting covert operations in foreign countries.

In foreign affairs, Himmler started to dismantle the Middleeuropean system put in place after World War I. The client states put in place in Eastern Europe relied on the nobility and, to an extent, the jews. The DVF government replaced these classes with nationalists.

Politics[]

Historical Left-Wing Parties[]

	Party	Ideology	Period

	Radical Democratic Party (Radikal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands; RDP)	Radical Democracy Liberalism Republicanism	1931-1947

Historical Right-Wing Parties[]

Party	Ideology	Period

National Liberal Party (Nationalliberale Partei)	National Liberalism Civic nationalism Constitutional Monarchism	1867-1937
German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei)	German Nationalism Volksgemeinschaft Right-Wing Populism National Conservatism	1919-1960
German National Agricultural League (Deutschnationale Landsbund, DLB)	Agrarianism Junker Intrests Protectionism National Conservatism	1926-1928
German Fatherland Front (Deutsch Vaterlandfront)	German Nationalism Fascism Anti-Semitism	1933-1990
German Conservative Party (Deutschkonservative Partei, DkP)	National Conservatism Anti-semitism	1960-1991

Constitute States of Germany[]

See here for more information.

States of Germany including Austria (German Heritage) — Constitute States of the German Empire. (Click to Enlarge)

Since 1991, Germany has been divided into four subdivisions.

Kingdoms (6)
States (7)
Autonomous States (6)
Grand Duchies (3)
Free Hanseatic Cities (3)

Kingdoms are the most common subdivision, with six Kingdoms existing. Kingdoms enjoy the same position as in the German Empire. The Head of State is a King. Austria is a exception, and is a Kingdom in all but name. It is a Archduchy.

States are a subdivision which consists of seven states. States take on a Republican constitution and are headed by a Minister-President.

Autonomous states are a subdivision which consists of six states. Autonomous states also take on a Republican constitution (Barring Alsace-Lorriane and Luxembourg) and are headed by a Minister-President. AS's are made for areas with a large number of non-Germans. The four minorities compensated for are Danes, Alsatians, Italians, Slovenes, Luxembourgers and Poles.

Grand Duchies are subdivisions which consist of three states.

Free Hanseatic Cities are the least common subdivisions, made up of three states. FHCs have a republican constitution.