The German Referendum for Independence

The German Referendum for independence

### The Movement

The German split can trace it origins to just after the Great War, The Entente forces had successfully stopped the Central Powers by defeating both Germany and Austria-Hungary, The Soviets would occupy the east and the French and British would occupy the west until the Treaty of Strasbourg in 1921. Russian leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky both saw this moment as a political staging point for their spread of the revolution, the French Government were also in the same boat, they wished for a pro-french government in Germany as essentially a puppet state, both states pumped development funds and political activism in Germany. The south was unaffected by both sides of the argument always electing conservative pro-monarchy representatives. The partisan representatives would lead to a non functioning system with barely any legislation being passed at all in the Reichstag. Soon the Soviet and French commissars would come into effect and begin influencing the areas of significant importance, the Soviets in Berlin and the French in Hanover. Neither would ever break the political strength of Southern Germany and their conservative views. In 1926 a poster simply titled “partition” which envisioned a line down the middle of Germany, separating both east and west, the poster spoke to the divided Reichstag and began the “Partition” movement to split Germany in half. In 1929 a bill was introduced to institute a referendum that would allow constituents to vote on whether or not they would like to either 1) stay in the German state or leave to join a new state from a list of 20 different nations proposed and used a preferential voting system to achieve a 50% votes for a country total.

### The Referendum

The Referendum itself took place on the 11th of November 1930 and in which over 60 million Germans voted for the independence of their region. At the end of the preferential voting four new German States were voted into creation, Originally simply donned West, East, South and Central Germany they would soon gain their official titles throughout the next year.

### The Split

The official split was put on hold so Germany could rebuild their economic presence after the Three Market Fall. With this they also gained funding from the ANW Economic council which helped rejuvenate the German economy, the small effect was enough to allow the referendum’s mandate to be carried out. And so The “Democratic Republic of Western Germany”, “The Socialist People's Republic of Prussia”, the “Southern German Empire” and “Central European Republic”. All countries had a similar democratic, preferred party, vote to determine provisional governments in all states, The South’s provisional immediately gave power to the now Kaiser Wilhelm III allowing him to institute a semi-constitutional Democracy, the West set up their own bicameral democratic government, the Central Republic set up a Presidential Republic and the east based their governance on the Soviet style “Sovnarkom” Government. The Central European republic was eventually absorbed into Western Germany after a failing economy.

### “But what of the treaties?!”

“But what of the treaties?!” was a famous anti-German partitioning slogan that is supposed to have originated from King George V when he was told of the German Referendum, although not popular in Germany it was quite popular in Austria and the UK. The supreme war council was called to discuss the matter, respecting the German decision, all voted to change the conditions of the “Treaty of Strasbourg” to be merged with a new treaty. “The German Treaty” was signed in all three capital cities, Hanover, Munich and Berlin, and merged the treaty to allow the three German territories to pay their reparations and to keep their air forces managed by the Entente.