Chương 152: Get out of my head - a Stresemann SI by Hohensaufen
Link: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/get-out-of-my-head-a-stresemann-si.518660/
1918 - mind and party merging
Encounter of the third kind
Gustav Stresemann woke up with a jerk. He looked around himself but although everything seemed to be as usual he could not shake the feeling something had changed. After going to the loo and having a drink of water, he decided he must have been dreaming and went back to sleep. Two hours later he woke up again, this time with a booming head-ache that no amount of aspirin was going to cure. However, it was a Tuesday and he would be meeting representatives of the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP; German Democratic Party) to finalise talks of merging their two parties; something he could not miss, due to donations to his party being contingent on this union.
As he was getting ready, the head-ache lessened, though, and he was able to clear his thoughts a little bit, which is when he had a thought that did not really belong to him. "Hello?", Gustav heard but even if he somehow instinctively knew that this voice came from inside his head, he still looked around. "Something wrong?", asked Käte, his wife. "No, just thought I heard something", he replied. "You did!", the same voice in his voice said again. This time he refrained from looking around, lest he worry his wife. This did not mean he was not worried himself, indeed, he was thinking, I am going crazy, this head-ache may have been my undoing. "No, sorry about that, the head-ache was but a side-effect of my entering your mind", said the voice. Again, Stresemann tried not to acknowledge it but that was getting more difficult considering the voice seemed to privy to his thoughts and immediately went on, "You are not going crazy, what I am going to tell you will sound crazy, though". Stresemann steeled himself and answered mentally, "well, what am I if not crazy hearing such voices in my head?". The voice replied and somehow, he knew that what the voice (he decided to call it alter in that moment) was telling the truth. Alter was telling him of fantastical events, of arriving from the future to help him guide Weimar to greener pastures, of technologies even HG Wells had not conceived of, of great miseries that would befall not just Germany but the world at large and ultimately of horrors Germany would inflict on the world.
It was difficult for him to appear passive while having breakfast; luckily he was known to brood and be silent at breakfast, so him being even more lost in his thoughts at breakfast did not seem to worry his family, especially since they knew what kind of stress he was under since the proclamation of the republic. After alter was done with its explanation, he asked if he could have a few moments of peace, the voice explained "Well, I will be here, but I am also living my own life in the future. Think of our connection as a permanent telephone-line. I will know what you do and as I am interested in having an amicable relationship with you, I will not intrude. However, I would recommend catching up regularly. Let's talk later in the taxi." Stresemann apparently having little choice in this matter grunted his ascent and went about the rest of his morning routine.
---
Later, in the taxi, they were talking again and to his delight the voice seemed rather impressed by Stresemann's aptitude as a politician. They were discussing the upcoming merger to form the DVP (Deutsche Volkspartei; German people's party) and how that was indeed a very good idea. However, the voice lamented that one of the primary failures of the Weimar Republic was its myriad of parties not representing the people but instead representing individual interest-groups. Stresemann had not previously thought about broadening his party's appeal, having always considered appealing to the masses to be a job for the SPD. Grudgingly, he accepted, though, that the parties, such as CDU, in future Germany were able to provide a much more balanced political climate, than what the voice predicted the Weimar political consensus would look like. He wrote down some names that he would have to talk to. Together they could possibly create such a broad permanent party coalition.
Party Conference
When Stresemann arrived at the address, he first took a minute to collect his thoughts and process what alter just told him. Apparently in the original time, the merger was to fail because of a problem the DDP had with his person. They said they could not support his prior annexationist tendencies. What a load of hogwash, Stresemann thought. However, this insight gave him an advantage, too. Knowing what the main problem was, meant he could do something about it.
He entered the hall and registered the people already there. When he saw Rudolf Heinze, he approached him to talk about his plan for the day. Surprisingly Heinze agreed that a conciliatory approach was in the best interest of everyone, which meant that Stresemann was affirmed in his resolve to go ahead with his revised speech as planned.
A few minutes later, all invited guests had arrived and Stresemann started his speech. He began by talking about the mistakes of the Kaiserreich, how flawed it was, he talked about the failures of the Great War, how unnecessarily terrible it had been and he talked about the future of Germany, how uncertain it was going to be. So far this had been his original plan for rallying the liberal politicians into joining a united party; next came the addendum. Stresemann began to talk about how misled he had been. How he had been complicit in the mistakes of the previous Reich. How he had been party to driving Germany into the ground. How horribly it had shaken him. Knowing that just admitting his failures would just make him appear miserable and powerless, he also talked about how it had changed his views. How Germany had previously been sated and that further annexations had been ill-advised, even counter productive to the political landscape of Europe. How he failed to see that the time of changing the borders of Europe fundamentally had passed. Still, Stresemann was aware that his speech would not be successful if he did not also talk of his plans. He began talking about a dream he had of a German Republic borne out of he 1848-revolutions. He said that Germany back then had been robbed of its potential to truly become a government of the people, by the people and for the people; that reactionary powers had like they did so often stood victorious over the aspirations of the citizen. "This will change now", he spoke emphatically. "As the tribes in ancient times chose their own leaders from their midst, Germany shall again become a republic, a public matter to translate the Latin. We shall not allow alleged birth right to choose a ruler, instead we shall elect the able, fit and competent, not the decrepit and old. Nothing separates the Kaiser from the worker in the factory or indeed the pauper on the street, except perhaps for some birth defects caused by generations of inbreeding. How silly a notion to insist on marrying only royal blood, when even the village idiot knows not to marry his kin. No! Germany shall be a republic, Black-Red-Gold shall be its colours and every German shall find their home in this German nation we are to found." He then talked about the plans he had for such a Germany, stressing that Germany shall only expand their borders peacefully if ever. Lastly, he explained why he believed it to be a necessity to combine forces and merge into one larger party representing the centre of the political spectrum. He ended his speech saying, "Too much has been said, let's act!"
It appeared that his speech hit the right notes and combining personal rue for past mistakes with political ambition outlining his view of future opportunities for Germany was the right choice. Several members of the DDP approached him afterwards saying they had their doubts about him before but after he bared it all in his speech they knew he was the right person. Still, there were several details that needed to be ironed out. Stresemann, thus, adjourned the meeting and arranged for another meeting in a month's time to put the union to a vote. In the meantime he would meet several key people to clear up any last outstanding points.
---
Two months had passed, the merger had been successful, although a few DDP-members left the party as they still did not trust Stresemann. They went to found the DPD, seemingly devoid of any creativity. Stresemann did not mind this rather small exodus of members, as he knew that he had convinced the core of the party. The last month had been stressful, having to organise the structure and positions of the party, as well as, hash-out a policy programme. The latter point mostly referring to goals for the upcoming national convention tasked with writing a German constitution.
PoD 0: a future person has their mind inserted into Stresemann's. The nature of the SI is different to those that I have seen before. Instead of overtaking the hosts mind or co-existing, it is as the SI says in this chapter more of a hot-line. The self-insert continues to live in the "future" and will supply Stresemann with advice and even technical knowledge.
PoD 1: the merging of the liberal parties works due to an impassioned speech of Stresemann's and a number of concessions designed to unite the fronts.
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