"When did the Floo Network get divided? Did no one object to the German Ministry of Magic making such a decision?" Although Germany's situation was highly specific and a fracture wasn't entirely surprising, the execution certainly wouldn't have been as seamless as described. Alan suspected there was something deeply suspicious going on.
The split within the German Ministry of Magic almost certainly involved the radical faction of the Silver Spears. According to the intelligence revealed by Thunderbird, Germany functioned as the club's primary operations base. They had financed and supported multiple insurgent organizations across the region, likely exploiting this exact internal instability.
Hearing Alan's question, Fuchsie frowned and sighed softly. "Alas, the Floo Network was officially divided five years ago…"
Following Fuchsie's detailed explanation, Alan finally grasped the full picture. It turned out that over the past decade, the socio-political climate within the German Ministry of Magic had deteriorated as the reality of the Muggle borders persisted. There were constant, vocal calls to formally partition the German wizarding world along those identical lines.
In reality, such rhetoric had initially been a marginal sentiment rather than a mainstream consensus. While there were noisy demands for division, the friction had never boiled over into violent conflict. Those actively advocating for partition were a distinct minority who would occasionally air their grievances at wizarding gatherings or Ministry assemblies. They received neither overwhelming support nor unified opposition from the general public.
It was a dynamic mirror to Muggle society: the groups that clamored loudest to push a specific bill or agenda were often a small faction. They possessed loud voices, but that didn't mean they represented a true majority. More often than not, the bulk of the population remained neutral, adopting a philosophy of letting others do as they pleased so long as it didn't disrupt their daily routines. In a community like the wizarding world, where individual wizards and families valued their independence, this silent neutrality was even more pronounced.
According to Fuchsie's recollection, although the partitionist wizards were exceptionally active at the time and dominated the headlines, ordinary families didn't perceive a genuine collective desire for a split. At most, local wizards harbored a mild aversion to those living on the opposite side of the border, but it had never reached a point where establishing two independent nations felt necessary. It was a manageable level of emotional dissatisfaction.
But everything changed when a new Minister was appointed to the German Ministry of Magic: Dario Peter. After Peter took office, it remained unclear whether he took the separatist rhetoric at face value—believing it to be the authentic demand of the public—or if he was driven by a separate, hidden agenda. He began actively taking steps to bisect the German wizarding world. To achieve this, he aggressively lobbied the members of the German Wizengamot.
The structural framework of the German Ministry of Magic closely mirrored the British system, relying on a Wizengamot Council that functioned as a combined parliament and high court. Its seats were occupied by renowned local wizards, representatives of prominent ancient families, and senior Ministry administrators. Alan himself had been nominated as a reserve member of the British Wizengamot—a recognition of the immense economic returns he had brought to the Ministry through his recent trade agreements—making his future elevation to a full seat highly probable.
Generally, for a Ministry to implement a new regulatory framework, it required a simple majority from the Wizengamot. Major constitutional shifts, however, demanded a supermajority of over seventy percent. In Britain, when Minister Bagnold authorized the use of lethal spells against active Death Eaters, it fell under standard wartime policy, requiring only a simple majority. Conversely, following the Dark Lord's initial downfall, the systemic purging of Death Eaters and the warrantless searches of prominent wizarding estates were classified as major directives, requiring the seventy percent threshold. Clearing Sirius Black's name, due to the immense legal complexity and social impact of the case, was naturally treated with similar gravity.
The bill to formally partition Germany was undeniably a massive strategic shift, meaning Minister Peter required at least seventy percent of the German Wizengamot members to vote in favor for the legislation to pass. Logically, such a radical and disruptive bill should have failed completely. Yet, against all common sense, the absurd legislation was successfully signed into law through Minister Peter's relentless political maneuvering.
By now, two separate partition bills had cleared the Ministry. The first legally severed the Floo Network connections between East and West Germany. As a result, residents of East Germany could no longer travel directly to destinations in the West via fireplace; they were forced to route their travel through the central Ministry hub for monitoring.
The second piece of legislation mandated the physical division of the Duden Building, splitting the structure down the middle with a massive partition wall that mirrored the Berlin Wall. The Duden Building functioned as the commercial heart of the German wizarding world, comparable to Diagon Alley in London or the Karahei Bazaar in Egypt. Because the physical site of the Duden Building sat geographically within East Germany, West German wizards had previously been forced to navigate through Ministry transit security just to handle basic shopping. To resolve the logistical friction, the German Ministry passed the bill to slice the building in half, allocating one sector to West Germany and configuring the local network to allow Western wizards direct access to their half.
Through several years of persistent administrative pressure, Minister Peter had successfully fractured the nation's primary transportation and commercial grids. According to Fuchsie, Peter was currently drafting a proposal to secure funding for the construction of an entirely independent West Duden Building within West Germany. Once completed, this would provide each side with its own separate commercial hub, eliminating the need for a shared, divided structure. Furthermore, having successfully segregated transit and commerce, Minister Peter was now turning his attention toward splitting the German Ministry of Magic itself, intending to permanently finalize the creation of two separate wizarding nations.
Listening to Fuchsie's explanation, Alan couldn't find a single word to describe the situation other than *absurd*. A Minister of Magic who was actively, aggressively trying to tear his own country apart was something he had never encountered before. Peter's behavior felt entirely unnatural. Even more bewildering was the compliance of the German Wizengamot, who had allowed such a preposterous agenda to advance.
Once these radical measures were codified into law, the ordinary wizarding population naturally lost their complacency. Their previous lack of resistance to the separatist factions was simply because the rhetoric hadn't affected their daily lives. In fact, the vocal complaints of the radicals had occasionally served as a convenient outlet for their own frustrations, prompting them to offer casual verbal support to those organizations.
But they had never intended for a literal split to happen. Ordinary wizards were completely blindsided when the partition bills inexplicably passed, sparking widespread anger across the population.
"So, if I reside in East Germany but my employment is located in the West, I am forced to clear Ministry customs just to commute? Doesn't that cost me an extra two Sickles per trip?"
Every time a wizard utilized the Floo Network, it incurred a standard baseline fee of two Sickles, a quarter of which was collected directly by the government as a transit tax. This formed a massive pillar of the Ministry's domestic revenue. Consequently, many ordinary citizens viewed the partition bills as a cynical financial trap, a mechanism for the Ministry to artificially inflate its coffers by forcing travelers through additional metered transit points. This frustration boiled over daily, with angry citizens routinely converging on the Floo Network Management Office within the Department of Magical Transportation to cause disruptions and vent their anger.
At the same time, the general public began organizing a unified pushback through local newspapers and alternative media channels. It was entirely due to this rising tide of public opposition that the partition agenda had stalled over the past few years. Had the public remained silent, the administrative split would have advanced far beyond the segregation of the Floo Network.
The current baseline situation within Germany was highly volatile. A powerful faction of politicians within the Ministry, unified under Peter's leadership and aligned with well-funded civilian separatist cells, was pushing aggressively to finalize the partition. Opposing them was a smaller faction of high-ranking Ministry administrators backed by the overwhelming majority of ordinary citizens, who were fighting to halt the split before it completely dismantled their society. The two sides were currently locked in a fierce, bitter deadlock. If the political friction continued to intensify, it threatened to boil over into open violence, or worse, trigger a localized civil war.
What deeply puzzled Alan, however, was the underlying motivation of the politicians. Why did the vast majority of high-ranking Ministry officials and Wizengamot members choose to align themselves with the separatists, leaving only a small circle to defend the nation's unity? Did partitioning the country offer these administrators some immense personal advantage, or was there a deeper, coercive force at play?
Furthermore, within the civilian sphere, the separatist faction was remarkably sophisticated and organized. They executed coordinated petition drives, managed formal submissions, and maintained a constant, polished presence across the major magical newspapers and radio broadcasts. The anti-partition movement, by contrast, was decentralized and chaotic. The vast majority of ordinary wizards restricted their protests to private grumbling, possessing little to no access to influential media platforms. Their collective resistance relied almost entirely on the independent voices of a few highly respected, public-facing figures—a classic scenario where the sheer numbers were vast, but the organizational power was entirely diluted.
*If my assumptions are correct, the Silver Spears are acting as the shadow architects behind these separatist front groups,* Alan mused silently, trying to decode the strategy. *But what is their ultimate objective? If they still adhere to the baseline ideology of the Acolytes, their primary goal should be the subversion of the Statute of Secrecy. How does forcing a political division inside Germany advance that timeline?*
The political landscape of the German wizarding world was clearly far more intricate than he had anticipated. At the same time, this context shed perfect light on why Dumbledore, Minister Bagnold, and Newt Scamander were so deeply invested in the region, and why they were so eager to see the Silver Spears dismantled. The club's operational scope extended far beyond standard black-market smuggling; they were executing a slow, sophisticated coup to subvert a sovereign government from within. If their timeline concluded successfully, it would permanently fracture Germany.
Still, a core question remained unanswered: how exactly had the Silver Spears managed to secure the absolute compliance of so many high-ranking politicians?