Turn 1: August-January 1920
Besser allein als in schlechter Gesellschaft
-German proverb
July, 1920
Silesia
I was born speaking wrong. That, at least, was what they told me when the teacher went away. I learned to speak at my grandmother's knee, speaking as my grandparents had before me and as my parents did until the day they died. I don't remember much of that – who does? - but I remember it was warm most of the time, and there were smiles. We had enough to eat at times and not enough at others, but we survived. We had our language and our people, as our fathers did before us.
The war came while I was there, living in Silesia, and the new Kaiser came before that. Wilhelm the Second, the young Kaiser ruling after an old one and a sick one. The teacher down the road retired a few years after the new Kaiser came, leaving with a pale face and a man at his side. They took him from the schoolhouse, where we watched and he told us to be brave. The man next to him was in a dark green coat, and told us that our teacher was a criminal.
The teacher spoke to us in Polish that we understood. The other man spoke German, a crisp Prussian accent, and I only know what he said from what we were told later.
I learned German, proper German, later. We all did.
The school changed. They had more teachers, more rooms. A heater. We were warm inside when they taught. History, the long, droning sessions about the way the Empire had brought progress after the long centuries of the kings and the invasions that came before the Germans took over and stabilized things. Geography, the lands of the Empire and the types of lands there were. Sandy silty Pomerania, the marshes of Brandenburg, the smokestacks of the Rhineland and the Ruhr, all in neat little ink-marked maps with the teacher's ruler slapping the desk when an excited murmur pointed out where we were. Mathematics, German, the basics of education. A great opportunity, on paper.
Of course, it was all in German. I did not speak German well. Most people I knew did not. Anna Palinska, the cooper's daughter, was failed repeatedly in German class and seconded to another school. She never talked much after that. Dominik Baros, the neighbor's son, beaten black and blue at my side when we were caught talking in class.
We were caught talking in Polish, I remember that much. That was why were were beaten, that was what we were told.
I failed out of school in my later teens. I had to help on the farm, and I was deemed a problem student. I spoke wrong, you see.
Lots of other problem people in our village. The alcoholic down the road was one of them, illiterate Tadeusz Basinski who did odd jobs for vodka. When the war came, he disappeared, some said he was conscripted for the front.
But there was progress. Bright electric lights, at least a few of them, in the village square. The assessors used them to weigh the grain and pay us for it, and I remember the lights reflecting off the little coins they handed me and my father. The coins that grew fewer every year, the war and the government and the whispers of German defeats tipping the scales away from a fair payment.
We stopped speaking Polish in public, those years, after someone was arrested for being a Polish partisan. I wish I had not.
I've forgotten too much. If I met my grandmother now, she wouldn't understand me.
The war ended and a Polish nation came, later. They came with guns, with an eagle on their flag and stars in their eyes, and sweet words for those of us in Silesia who were neither Pole nor German. The young men of the village with off trembling hands and old rifles, and we turned out to watch them leave. Few cheered. Few smiled. We waited.
News came. A great column of men with the Polish eagle and their uniforms ragged and worn, a Catholic priest coming with them to bless their arms. They called themselves the Polish Military Organization, and they came to free Silesia for Poland.
They gave us guns, those of us who were of fighting age. We fought. We spoke in what Polish we remembered, we got promises that nobody would disappear when we won. That things would be peaceful. That we would not starve on our land. That the Germans who beat us for speaking our language in school would never return. That the German soldiers that paraded down the streets and shot our menfolk for being partisans would not come back.
I shot some of them myself. I was angry. The anger was always there, the bubbling lake of resentment and memory. It kept me alive, I think. It kept me fighting.
Then the Germans came back under the Prussian eagle and following a general rather than their new republic. They came back, and they took me prisoner. My pistol misfired.
They're forming a firing line now. There's a shout and a great rippling crack of rifle fire in the prison courtyard.
The last things I hear are words in German. I ignore them. I'm too tired to be angry now.
You have 100-15 (Rationing Expenses)=85 Budget.
You have a Reparations payment of 80 Budget to meet.
Your Stability is at 15/100
Critical Areas of Instability are: Silesia, East Prussia, Western Germany
Your Coalition Stability is at 55. See the Grand Coalition Informational for more.
Your Economic Indicators are:
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Currency: Unstable: Your currency suffers from a specie shortage, massive debts being held by German banks that you cannot easily pay, and specie hoarding taking place due to the civil war.
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Debt: Excessive: You have war debts that you cannot pay and reparations payments that you have to meet. You have to stabilize the debt load or the economy will face collapse. Bear in mind that part of this is due to the devastation of the civil war tanking business credit and forcing banks to rely on bond repayment to stay solvent.
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Commodities: The main shortage is of food, and wartime rationing is still in force. There is enough to maintain the 2,500 calories per man per day, but no more than that. And a lot of that is filler.
Opinions:
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The Army: The Army is alarmed by the actions that have been taken by the government, but some of the army backs those actions and some does not. The army's major fault line at present is between republican/south-German officers and Prussian monarchists, and the army has recently come out of a civil war that the republic won faster than expected – the army is wary of taking rash action, but murmurs have begun…
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Judiciary: The older judges are staunchly antirepublican and the younger ones are more tepid in their opposition. There is a significant risk of the judiciary remaining opposed to the government, and allowing the nationalist right to use trials as a platform for publicity.
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Civil Service: A substantial chunk of the civil service owe you their lives, for smuggling them out of the collapsing other sides of the civil war. The civil service has also seen Ebert as a steady hand on the tiller of the state, and is willing to cooperate for now. As long as the government doesn't do something stupid. Like collapse the nation to pay reparations.
You have three dice per category. You may double down. You may not triple down.
Treasury Section:
[]Tax Reform (0/100): A core plank of the Zentrum's desired policies and one that is grudgingly accepted by the DDP is the shifting of the tax burden from the lower and lower-middle classes to the upper classes, and they justify this in terms of Catholic charity and social responsibility. This reform is to be paired with a raise in taxes, and while it'll be unpopular it will probably allow us to pay down reparations and reduce the burden on the common man. There are cautions that tax hikes will be unpopular and harm the economy, but we have little choice in the wake of the war.
I will also roll for resistance and lobbying from the wealthy for this action. This will cause more of the wealthy and upper middle class to vote opposition.
[]Reorganizing the Reichsbank: The Finance Ministry handled the Reichsbank during the war, but that has to be avoided now that the peace has come. We need a proper governing board and regulations for the Reichsbank, and we can use the Reichsbank as an autonomous regulator of monetary stability rather than doing it from the Finance Ministry. The issue is recruitment and organization – the civil service is thin on the ground and overstretched.
Roll determines quality, sets up the Reichsbank upper echelons. It is highly advised this be done within the first few turns.
[]Partial Nationalization: Many industries are debt-ridden and thanks to the occupation of their Ruhr or Westphalian or Hanoverian facilities cannot pay their debts – the KPD may have pulled back but spinning those back up is difficult. The companies cannot pay and we will have to take a stake in them to take on the bad debt – a bad beginning for an independent Reichsbank, but a necessary one. Some of the greatest industrial names in Germany are on the line – such as Bayer, for instance, had dyeworks and factories in what was KPD territory that are now damaged and needing rebuilding.
DC30. Forestalls a corporate debt collapse by taking on bad debt and a stake in the affected companes. Costs 20 Budget. Further action required for recovery. Economic stabilization grants Stability.
[]Bailouts: The banks are collapsing thanks to a combination of reparations payments causing a loss of faith in German bonds, bad war debt, and the debts incurred by companies that were badly hit by the civil war. The banks need their bad debt taken on and they need a cash infusion – an emergency redemption of government war debt will do the trick and moreover increase the stability of the currency.
DC30. Raises currency stability, prevents bank collapse. Costs 25 Budget.
Justice Section:
[]The Trials (0/100): The Ministry of Justice has to bring the case against the putschists and the KPD, both of the parties that rose up against the republic and sparked a five-month civil war. This will be critical, and the longer the trials drag on the worse things will get in terms of allowing the far-right a platform and risking martyring the KPD leadership – we cannot afford either case. That means speed and skill, and in the face of an uncooperative judiciary no less. All we can hope for is that the civil war has angered the judges more than the existence of the republic. And for some of the old traditionalists in the judiciary, that is indeed possible.
Rolls below 20 on any die assigned to this cause a backlash/event. High rolls give bonuses to stability and deradicalization.
[]The Silesian Sore: Silesia is seeing a full blown insurgency and the troops of Freikorps Oberland that have been used for internal security there are acting in a manner that would exacerbate things. We need to get the province in line and use the courts to do so legally while sending in the federal police and – perhaps or, perhaps and – the army.
DC35. Stabilizes Silesia a little, enforcing guidelines for law enforcement and purging the local police forces as needed to maintain stability.
[]The East Prussian Sore: As with Silesia, the East Prussian border provinces are seeing an insurgency with Polish underground units and the radicalization of the Polish speaking population – we need to get that ended, fast. Part of that is enforcing local law enforcement guidelines and prosecuting those who are acting against the laws of the republic – show that we are fair and different from the Triumvirate putschists who ran the area since March, and we have a carrot. The federal police and army are a stick.
DC30. Stabilizes East Prussia a little, as above.
[]Labor Rights Enforcement (0/100): Now that the SPD have passed their labor rights bills, a framework has to be set up to allow dispute resolution and the enforcement of those guidelines through the courts and the government. That falls to the Ministry of Justice, and it means a massive expansion of the old labor division due to the scope of the legislation. It will be expensive.
5 Budget per assigned die. Sets up a labor rights board and agency under the MoJ. Mollifies left-SPD a little, stabilizes the western parts of Germany a little. Industrial unrest eases somewhat.
Interior Section
[]Reforming the Grenzschutz (0/50): The old border guards units were capable light infantry and were conscripted into the putschist units during the civil war – the Interior Ministry requires a force that can hold the border against the Polish underground, and that means rifle-armed police who can use their weapons well enough to stand up to soldiers. The Grenzschutz did not have the most savory reputation earlier and probably will be a somewhat rough and ready unit, but better that than nothing. And it aids border defense, so there is that.
Pleases the army a little, irritates the French, 5 Budget per die. Gives the Interior Ministry border guards troops that will be deployed to ease unrest. They may commit shootings.
[]Plebiscite on Prussia: We have to run the plebiscite for the breakup of Prussia, and that means we have to make sure the vote is free and fair in spite of paramilitaries, right-wing parties and the army. It'll be a chancy thing, but a victory here will be a vindication of the republic and beneficial for federalism in the long term – the Prussian tail cannot be allowed to wag the German dog.
DC60.
[]Reparations: We can pay back the reparations in kind as well as cash, although that means risking the destabilization of the economy as we take commodities out of circulation to hand them to the French. While the Allies have agreed to an incentive payment of five marks per ton of delivered coal and are willing to heavily credit us for deliveries of machinery, they also want hard currency. Badly. And the French Army has made noises about marching out of its bridgehead to the Ruhr if those demands are not met.
Reparations are to be paid as follows: Up to twenty Budget, it is one-for-one and paid in hard currency/specie. After that it is paid in coal and in kind, at one-for-five rate of exchange. Allocate budget as a write in. Example: Paying twenty-five Budget gives 20+(5x5)=45 paid reparations. Paying over the total reduces the reparations to pay later on. The more reparations are paid, the more resentment builds up over their payment.
[]Federal Police Reform (0/100): The French have demanded that the federal police lose their armored cars and their heavy weapons, and want the green uniforms changed out for blue as green is too close to camouflage. We also have to expand the federal police and deploy them in force in East Prussia and Silesia.
5 Budget per assigned die, mollifies France a little, stabilizes East Prussia and Silesia a little. I will roll for police atrocities, as the federal police (or Sipo) tended to be heavy handed.
[]Land Reform Stage One (0/50): We have to set up an initial commission for redistribution of estates and lands confiscated during the civil war, and this commission can also deal with the properties and assets the republic confiscated in the west from the KPD-occupied territories. While it will be slow, it will be fair and sure. Better that than the alternative.
On completion, allows land redistribution and actions for dealing with assets acquired in wartime.
Foreign Section
[]Reparations Renegotiation: The reparations payment schedule is being negotiated in London and it might be a good idea to send Rathenau across and make sure that the post-civil-war republic has a voice. It isn't one that will be listened to or listened to with any sympathy at least, but at least we shall be there. And perhaps we can make our case – we cannot argue with force anymore, and we therefore have to make do with words.
DC70/90/140, present for two turns, results each turn determine reparations payment schedule.
[]Across the Alps: While we haven't had much contact with the Swiss and the Austrians, we can at least spare them some attention while reaching out to Italy – Italy wants arms and is willing to trade in kind and in a small amount of hard currency, while we have artillery to dispose of. Heavy artillery. I think that we can make a deal, says Gustav Krupp, and the Minister is inclined to believe him.
Sells the heavy guns to Italy. Roll determines payment. Payment floored at 5 Budget one time, and the rest of it in food or in Italian assets.
[]Capitalizing on Poland: The Poles are relying on German arms to win out against the Soviets at present, and we can use that to pressure them to cease aiding underground groups in Silesia and East Prussia – and then use the army on the undergrounds. Not the most savory of tactics, but it might work as long as the Poles cooperate. As long as the Poles are rational about it all.
DC30. Attempts to get Poland to stop backing insurgencies.
Defense Section
[]Sending in the Army: We can use the army to suppress Polish insurgents and secure the border in Silesia, at the cost of potentially leading to shootings and excessive force. The army is a big stick to deploy but still smaller than the hundred thousand ill-armed Poles on our border – we just have to make sure we look threatening enough that the Poles don't want another war. And the army can still deal with insurgents, at least.
Deploys Black Reichswehr and the army to the east. DC40 to stabilize somewhat.
[]The Deutsche Bahn Study (0/50): The army is an odd way to accomplish nationalization of the railways, but it's certainly something that the army would not mind. Having a direct line to the railway authorities and potential control over national railways in exchange for backing nationalization is fine by them, and the army's railway experts are the same men that managed the wartime logistics – there are few better.
Allows nationalization of railways and establishment of a national Reichsbahn/Deutsche Bahn on completion. Mollifies the army a little.
[]Widerstand: The army is not all Prussian, and while the Defense Minister is sympathetic to the Prussians that does not mean we all need to be. Use the Zentrum's Catholic ties and Bavarian base to cultivate a network of loyal or at least non-Prussian officers, informally and outside the context of the army. This is dangerous, but potentially can allow the army to be brought to heel someday. We can do this through the Zentrum and allow the Chancellor to disavow the move.
DC70. Cultivates a 'non-Prussian' network in the army. Expect a backlash if discovered, a severe backlash and the resignation of at least one major Zentrum member, damaging the coalition.
[]Crackdowns: The army can act as a backup for Special Branch investigations of KPD insurgent cells, and that would be something they are very willing and able to do. While it's a bit heavy handed, it at least gets them out out of our hair in Westphalia, at least somewhat. With them somewhat occupied, that's less voter intimidation.
DC40 to find something, below 10 is a shooting.
AN: 12 hour motatorium. You are not IC inclined to call snap election just yet. Feedback welcome.
