u/Hefty-Drummer-925

I am a member of the DNVP, previously known as the Christian Social Party (we no longer follow Adolf Stoecker after 1920). When I first played Germany to Save I was excited about a mod focusing on leading our party throughout the modern age, but I soon became disgusted. The mod says that Walther Lambach was a racist, that he opposed all kinds of socialism, that he praised Alfred Hugenburg and that the DNVP needed the revisionist Authoritarian Conservatives. This has made me extremely angry. Honestly if Germany to Save is removed and revised this DEFINITELY deserves to be removed and revised. These attacks on DNVP doctrine are disgusting and speak badly of the mod makers. The mod also claims that Walther Lambach was some kind of “revisionist” and also makes false claims that he would ally with the bourgeoisie. Honestly I would be happy to write for the revised mod, as I know a lot about Walther Lambach and have extensively studied the DVNP's history. If you would like to educate yourselves on the history of Walther Lambach and the DNVP I recommend “Monarchismus”, by Walther Lambach.

(Satire)

I am a member of the DNVP, previously known as the Christian Social Party (we no longer follow Adolf Stoecker after 1920). When I first played Germany to Save I was excited about a mod focusing on leading our party throughout the modern age, but I soon became disgusted. The mod says that Walther Lambach was a racist, that he opposed all kinds of socialism, that he praised Alfred Hugenburg and that the DNVP needed the revisionist Authoritarian Conservatives. This has made me extremely angry. Honestly if Germany to Save is removed and revised this DEFINITELY deserves to be removed and revised. These attacks on DNVP doctrine are disgusting and speak badly of the mod makers. The mod also claims that Walther Lambach was some kind of “revisionist” and also makes false claims that he would ally with the bourgeoisie. Honestly I would be happy to write for the revised mod, as I know a lot about Walther Lambach and have extensively studied the DVNP's history. If you would like to educate yourselves on the history of Walther Lambach and the DNVP I recommend “Monarchismus”, by Walther Lambach.

(Satire)

Unfortunately, I have to write this message as an announcement of the fact that GTS will be receiving no more updates after this one. I've decided to abandon the project after a few months of working on it. The reasons for this are below.

To begin, I would easily say that the past few months, from the time the mod was released in mid-May, have been the worst period of my life in terms of mental health. Shortly after the release of the mod and what I perceived at the time to be the overwhelming backlash that it suffered I had a mental breakdown. For a week or two afterwards I had severe panic attacks and I lived in a state of extreme anxiety, and I just wanted to cry all the time. I could be eating or walking and randomly start gasping for air because all my thoughts would just make their way to the controversy online. Because it was the first time something like that had happened I thought I was gonna die and for some days afterwards I really thought I would have to be committed to a mental hospital. In the meantime some members were pushing for the mod to be banned, and the reaction from the moderators wasn't exactly encouraging either. Since that point there has always been this negative association everytime I work on the mod that just wasn’t there before the release.

Why did I react the way I did? Well, my best guess is that I didn’t want to make something that people hated. And I got the impression that some people genuinely hated what I had done, because I was being called a reactionary and the mod was being called fascist propaganda. I hope I don’t have to entertain those accusations here. Now I recognize that this is probably tame as far as political discourse on the Internet goes, but felt like everything I did was being scrutinized and it wasn’t the reception I had hoped for or even expected when I first started making the game.

I was almost certainly too sensitive, however, and I’m happy to see that in retrospect most of the criticisms were constructive. After talking with people on some improvements to the wording and historical purpose of the mod I reworded the introduction and did my best to develop the mod further in a conscientious way.

But you must realize that as a creative project, the mod was the product of many thousands of hours of work not only of my own time but also the numerous volunteers on the team. I gave up a lot of my hobbies and opportunities I could’ve taken in my first year of college to work on this project (my motivations are detailed in my initial response; everything is still true). And I more or less ended up taking a lot of the criticisms as personal attacks and invalidation of my work which I ascribed deep sentimental value to (otherwise I could not have possibly made the mod in the first place!). That was the reason for my mental health deteriorating so badly in the early weeks of release but it improved as discussion about the game tapered off.

Unfortunately there persists in the community a minority of people who cannot accept what I made to be in good faith, and beyond those a larger group who oppose discussion of the mod in general on grounds that it would “dilute the progressive nature of the community” or “invite reactionaries in”. You’ve gotten your wish; I anticipate in a few weeks when the content from the new update will have again subsided and there is no more to talk about, then the subreddit will return to normal and the community can keep discussion limited to the SPD and its mods only. But was I not clear enough in my denunciation of fascism in both the game itself and my response after the game released? I have relatives that died fighting against Japanese imperialism, victims of ultranationalism and ethnic chauvinism! Why should I purposefully want to bring these same black marks of ideology, which killed so many, as insidious forces into the community?

Presently, I’m in a much better place now and I think the work me and the GTS team have recently released is a testament to that. No amount of words can encapsulate my gratitude for the sacrifices they made for the mod’s development.

There are also some truly positive aspects of the Red Autumn community and I would also like to acknowledge their impact on me. I have become more cognizant of the importance of serious historical reflection as well as active political participation in American democracy. These are invaluable lessons, and even if I wish that I had never started this project, I am still gratified by these experiences. But I determined to do this some time ago, so I am going to be permanently leaving both development and the group as a whole for the sake of my mental health and happiness, onwards to pursue something different and hopefully much more rewarding with my life.

In any case due to my unwillingness to spend more time than necessary with the mod and its community I regret to inform everyone that the progress on translations as well as the total changes needed for multiplayer may only be too slow to be tolerated. However most of what was promised will be delivered and probably within a month.

Thank you all,

placedstone