The North Pacific

НОВОЕ / NEW: Теперь можно добавлять комментарии к своим кантриболам, просто напишите мне в личные сообщения или через региональную доску The North Pacific. / You can now add comments to your countryballs—just send me a private message or post on The North Pacific regional message board.

Светлоградское изготовление кантриболов(СИК)/Svetlogradian Countryballs Making(SCM)

Союзники/Allies:
page=dispatch/id=2813779
Countries:
Federative Republic of Svetlograd

Tallinia

Ethnon

Reichtangle The Best

South Baba

ForFishing

Neo Franchia

Artsay

Kavren

Klaravia

Llan

The northern Christian battalion

The New Austin

North Norda Islands

The United German Reich

The New Austin
Afinnaus

Dacarbatia

Pand alp idk what name

Johun Elite

🟥 - Задержено/Detained.
🟧 - В очереди/In line.
🟨 - Нарисую сегодня/I'll draw it today.
🟩 - Рисую сейчас/Drawing right now.

Russian Version 🇷🇺 🇧🇾:

📋 Как это работает:
• Специально для этого конкурса созданы отдельные версии наций.
• Всего будет 5 раундов — по одной загадке на каждый раунд.
• Конкурсные кантриболы строго чёрно-белые, их флаги размыты на пиксели, а некоторые из них коварно перевернуты!
• Никаких предметов или эмоций в глазах — только геометрия искаженного флага.

🏆 Правила и очки:
1. Пиши свою догадку прямо здесь, в секции комментариев.
2. Тот, кто первым назовет правильную нацию, получает 1 очко победы.
3. Игрок с наибольшим количеством очков по итогам 5 раундов станет чемпионом!

English version 🇺🇸 🇬🇧:

📋 How it works:
• These are separate contest-only versions created specifically for this event.
• There will be 5 rounds in total — one mystery country per round.
• These contest Countryballs are strictly black & white, their flags are blurred into pixels, and some have been sneakily rotated!
• No items or unique eye expressions — just the raw geometry of the distorted flag.

🏆 Rules & Points:
1. Post your guess right here in the comments section.
2. The first person to guess correctly wins 1 victory point for the round.
3. The player with the most points after all 5 rounds will be crowned the ultimate champion!

BERLIN, Saturday, September 19, 2026 -

East Germany awoke this morning under new leadership after one of the most abrupt transfers of power in the history of the German Democratic Republic, with Dr. Matthias Reimann, a former senior officer of the Ministry for State Security and the chief East German negotiator on the reunification of Berlin, installed as the new Acting General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party.

Emmaline Dietrich, 40, who had dominated political life in the republic and combined the leadership of the party with the chairmanship of the State Council and the country’s defence machinery, was removed on Friday following an extraordinary meeting of the Politburo, and Central Committee. By the time most East Germans learnt that a change had taken place, Dietrich had already left the country with her long-term companion and arrived in Leningrad.

Her departure was announced not by the East German government but, extraordinarily, in a statement issued by Dietrich, herself, from within the safe boundaries of the Soviet Union. In it she declared that she had withdrawn permanently from active political life, thanked the East German people for their confidence, and wished the new leadership success. She conspicuously declined to discuss “the circumstances surrounding the recent change in the leadership of the German Democratic Republic”.

That sentence has done little to dispel the widespread assumption in Berlin that Dietrich was forced from office in a palace coup.

The new government insists on a different formulation. East German officials describe the events of Friday as an orderly transfer of responsibility, conducted through the constitutional organs of the so-called workers' and peasants' state. No troops were deployed in the capital, there were no reported arrests of senior figures, and Dietrich has not been publicly denounced. On the contrary, official statements have repeatedly thanked her for more than a decade of service.

Yet, the speed and secrecy of the operation suggest that the decision to remove her had been prepared in advance.

At the centre of the new order stands Reimann, 61, a balding, heavy-set party veteran, whose deliberate manner contrasts sharply with the more ideological and commanding style associated with Dietrich. He is a familiar face to East German television viewers and, more importantly, to the institutions which ultimately determine whether a leader in East Berlin survives: the party bureaucracy, the security services, the army, and of course, Moscow.

Reimann served for many years in the Ministry for State Security, and retired with the rank of Colonel-General. He was elected to the Volkskammer in 1998, joined the State Council in 2006, and entered the party's Politburo in 2015. In recent months, he has been the leading East German negotiator with the Federal Republic over the planned reunification of Berlin on November 9.

It is that last role which may prove most important.

Less than 24 hours after Dietrich’s departure, Reimann has already assured both Bonn and Moscow that the timetable for Berlin will not change. In a telephone call today with Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the Soviet leader, Reimann confirmed that East Germany considers the Berlin agreements binding, and intends to implement them as planned.

The Soviet Presidium subsequently announced the conversation in unusually warm terms, saying the two men had discussed continuity, defence, economic reform and the Berlin settlement. Reimann, who speaks fluent Russian and is said to possess a working command of Uzbek, appears to have established an immediate rapport with the Soviet leader.

That has inevitably led to the description now circulating among Western diplomats in Berlin: “Moscow’s man”.

The label is not entirely fair. Reimann is very much a product of the East German system, not a Soviet import. But there is little doubt that Moscow has moved with remarkable speed to legitimize his authority, and there is equally little doubt that Soviet approval was essential to the success of Friday’s transfer of power.

The most revealing part of the Soviet communiqué was not, however, its discussion of security or Berlin. It was the reference to economic reform.

According to the statement, Reimann told Mirziyoyev that he wished to examine whether the special economic concessions being prepared for reunified Berlin might eventually be extended, in modified form, across the entire German Democratic Republic.

That idea goes directly to the heart of the conflict which appears to have divided Dietrich from much of her own leadership.

Berlin is due to become a special economic zone after reunification, with substantially greater scope for Western investment, private enterprise, flexible wages, and commercial activity than exists elsewhere in East Germany. Inside the Politburo, there has been growing concern that the result will be an internal migration crisis, with skilled workers, professionals, and younger East Germans leaving provincial cities and industrial centres for the enlarged capital.

Dietrich’s answer was to contain the exception. Berlin, in her view, was a unique political settlement which should not be allowed to become a model for the republic.

Reimann appears to have reached the opposite conclusion.

His supporters are understood to have argued that the only durable way to prevent Berlin from drawing talent and capital from the rest of East Germany, is to narrow the economic gap between the capital and the provinces. Rather than restricting movement into Berlin, they favour introducing controlled versions of the same economic freedoms elsewhere.

For Dietrich, a committed Marxist-Leninist who had consistently and publicly rejected proposals for market reform, that was an unacceptable concession to capitalist practice.

For Reimann, it may become the basis of his government.

The Soviet Union has for years been pressing East Germany to consider a programme of industrial modernization which would preserve state ownership, while introducing greater enterprise autonomy, productivity targets, financial accountability and long-term Soviet support. Dietrich resisted such proposals. Reimann now appears prepared to reopen them.

The result could be one of the most significant changes in East German economic policy since the republic’s creation in 1949.

There are still limits to how quickly he can move, however. The G.D.R.'s command economy cannot be remade in seven weeks, and senior officials are wary of destabilizing industry before the Berlin settlement comes into effect. But the direction of travel is already clearer than it was on Thursday morning.

At the same time, the political structure of the republic is being reorganized.

Volkskammer president Ernst-Wilhelm Keller has been appointed Acting Chairman of the State Council, while Martin Schirdewan, the Minister of National Defence, has assumed the duties of Acting Chairman of the National Defence Council. The separation of offices is being presented as a restoration of collective leadership after the concentration of authority under Dietrich.

Few in East Berlin believe that arrangement will remain entirely provisional.

Reimann’s own position is expected to be formalized by the Central Committee within weeks, and there is already speculation that he will eventually take the chairmanship of the State Council as well.

For the moment, however, Reimann is being careful not to appear triumphant.

His public language has been restrained. There has been no attack on Ms. Dietrich, no purge of her supporters, and no attempt to rewrite the record of her government. Indeed, the new leadership’s insistence that she remains an honoured former leader appears designed in part to prevent her becoming a focus for opposition inside the system.

Dietrich herself has made that easier.

Her statement from Leningrad was dignified, ideological, and notably disciplined. She declared herself a continuing Marxist-Leninist, announced her retirement from politics, and signalled her intention to apply for membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

For many East Germans, however, the speed of her disappearance has been disorienting.

On Thursday, she was the undisputed leader of the country. On Friday evening she was already writing from Leningrad about “the new leadership”. By Saturday morning, her portrait had been replaced in the newspapers by that of Reimann.

No tanks appeared in the streets. No shots were fired. No emergency was declared.

The old leadership simply vanished.

Quietly, under the cover of the oh-so-familiar evening fog that blankets Berlin each night at this time of year.

Tonight, Reimann is expected to deliver his first major broadcast to the nation. He is expected to promise continuity, guarantee the Berlin timetable, reassure the armed forces and security services, and set out the first outline of economic change.

The question now facing East Germans is not whether Dietrich is still in power. That matter appears settled.

The question is how far Reimann intends to go.

In the space of 48 hours, East Germany has exchanged one of Europe’s most doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist leaders for a former Stasi general who is publicly discussing controlled market reform with Moscow.

For a state built on continuity, it is an extraordinary beginning.