would settle former soldiers on fallow lands. The soldiers would have obtained civilian employment, and at the same time the strained food situation in Germany would have improved. Fierce resistance from large-scale agriculturalists, Hirsch's hesitant stance and the fact that Braun's plans ran counter to law caused them for the most part to fail. When the Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles became known on 7 May 1919, the outrage of the public and the political leadership was fierce. On 21 May 1919 Braun said in Lyck, East Prussia:Never in the history of the world has such a shameless fraud been perpetrated on a people as this. ... The Prussian State Government and the Reich Government, in agreement with the entirety of the people's representatives, have taken the stand that the treaty is calculated to lead the German people into permanent slavery, and that it is therefore completely unacceptable to us and must not be signed. Minister President Braun was Prussian Minister President from March 1920 to March 1921, November 1921 to January 1925, and April 1925 to May 1932. Ironically, he became Minister President only because he seemed more dangerous to his opponents in the SPD as Minister of Agriculture, and they lobbied the other coalition parties to make him Minister President. He thus became the most powerful man in what was by far the largest and most populous state in the Weimar Republic. Among the numerous problems Braun had to deal with were disputes with the large landowners and the nationalist-conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) that was allied with them; tensions over border and minority issues with Poland and the Polish minority in Prussia; and the 1923–1925 occupation of the Ruhr (which was part of Prussia) by troops from France and Belgium. His office was made more difficult by a conflict with Cologne Mayor Konrad Adenauer, chairman of the Prussian provincial council, over the status of the Rhine Province as part of the Prussian state. In addition there was the clash with the House of Hohenzollern over their family property which led to the failed referendum on the expropriation of the princes in 1926. Within the coalition, the Centre Party was the critical partner. During most of the period it could have broken with the SDP and formed a right-wing coalition with the DNVP and the German People's Party (DVP), as it did several times at