Fourth Reich

The Fourth Reich is also sometimes called New Germany, New German Empire, New German Confederation or just plain old Germany; even though it occupies more than just Germany. It is a constitutional democracy, with Klaus Schulze as the king, Victor Bruckner as president, and Yvette Habsburg as the chancellor. It has a population of around 150 million and shares borders with Russia, France, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria. With it's capital in Berlin, it is one of the world's richest countries.

Creation
At the turn of the century, just a few years after the re-unification of Germany, the economy crashed. Many historians concluded that merging a communist nation with a succesful capitalist republic was not a very good idea. The currency inflated one year at about 700% then deflated at -65% the next. The country fell into a deep depression, suicide rates sky-rocketed, riots and rebellions broke out. As all this was happening, a grandfather in Kallingrad (Exclave of Russia Bordering Poland and the baltic countries) told his son of a time when Germany was an empire, a wealthy and powerful empire. Klaus Schulze felt nostalgic of those times, even though he wasn't alive then (he was 22 at the time of the story telling) and vowed to somehow return Germany to that state, out of the economic and social mess it was now. A year later, in 2001, Klaus traveled to what was left of Berlin and started giving a speech in the ruined train station, after about half an hour, he had a large crowd and swayed them with messages of hope and change. In the 2002 election, Klaus ran as an underdog independant, but won over 60% of the vote, enough to make him president. After his election, he quickly put the military into action and directly commanded his armies day and night to repress the people who were still rioting and rebelling. After a country-wide war that lasted 7 months, in December 2002, Schulze declared a new, better, and truly unified Germany.

Government Reform
Germany became much more stable, with Klaus' appointment of himself as king, and of his 2 closest friends as President and Chancellor, they implemented sweeping economic reforms and abolished the Euro, and implemented a new currency, the Frank. People started going back to work, the government started repairing roads and bridges and inflation returned to a normal rate. After 5 months, in May, Klaus overhauled the entire German government. He relinquished almost all the power he gave himself in troubled times, but kept the powers in reserve. Laws would be made and voted on in the Senate, headed by the President, and the Parliament would take on more mundane jobs, like budjets and also be like a debate room, where the numerous parties could question each other and keep each other in check. The title of king/queen would pass from the last monarch down to the first-born child, wether it was a boy or a girl, but their power would be limited. The only big use of the monarch was to promote national unity.

Riots and expansion
In the summer of 2002, everything was going well, until many of Germany's neighbours were turned into wastelands by rioters protesting against their governments. Asking questions like "why can't we be like Germany?" Germany's neighbours were already very unstable, this was just the last straw. 4 governments collasped in 1 single month, and Germany sent in it's small but well trained, fed and equiped army in to prevent the riots from spilling into Germany.

Poland
Poland was the first to go. Warsaw fell into madness, and when a rebel group seized control of the government buildings, they declared union with Germany. The Nationalists refused, and fought against the Germans who were just starting to cross the border.