In factories, in taverns, on the streets, the flames of war were setting all of Germany alight.
In these chaotic times, taverns had long ceased to be places solely for drinking.
Several greasy wooden tables had been pushed together, and propaganda leaflets for the <German Confederation Workers, Peasants, and Service Laborers Labor Protection Act> were slapped onto the tabletop.
"Did you see this?! Maximum working hours, minimum wages, overtime pay, insurance.
Whether workers, farmers, or anyone else who worked for a living, they all deserved at least the most basic dignity and rights!
It's written here in black and white! But they refuse to acknowledge it! They're even planning to drag us along to our deaths!"
"That's right! Those people still want to keep conscripting soldiers! All to protect those bloodsuckers! They want to send every last one of us to the battlefield!"
The crowd, which had merely been simmering with indignation, suddenly erupted with rage.
"Four hundred thousand men are already finished! And they still want us to go! Isn't that just sending us to our deaths?!"
Another shrill voice rose at just the right moment.
"I don't want to be buried alongside Prussia!"
"To hell with Prussia! To hell with the Hohenzollerns! Those Polish mongrels never meant us any good!"
Prussia's first king had indeed possessed Polish blood, and legally, he had been a subject of the Kingdom of Poland.
Yet ordinary people found it difficult to understand such complicated ties. Combined with the spirit of that age, they preferred to divide people into their own kind, enemies, and mongrels. It gave them a sense of moral superiority.
"We can't let them destroy us!"
Seeing that the crowd was angry enough, someone spoke up.
"We Germans should establish a country of our own!"
The Pan-Germanists hidden among the