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Rhenish Republic
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Rhenish Republic
The Rhenish Republic (German: Rheinische Republik) was proclaimed at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in October 1923 during the occupation of the Ruhr by troops from France and Belgium (January 1923 – 1925) and subjected itself to French protectorate. It comprised three territories, named North, South and Ruhr. Their regional capitals were, respectively, Aachen, Koblenz and Essen.
The Rhenish Republic is best understood as the aspiration of a poorly focused liberation struggle.[according to whom?] The name was one applied by the short-lived separatist movement that erupted in the German Rhineland during the politically turbulent years following Germany's defeat in the First World War. The objectives of the many different separatist groups ranged widely, from the foundation of an autonomous republic to some sort of change in the status of the Rhineland within the Weimar Republic. Others advocated full integration of the Rhineland into France. Similar political currents were stirring in the south: June 1919 had seen the proclamation by Eberhard Haaß of the "Pfälzische Republik", centred on Speyer in the occupied territory of the Bavarian Palatinate.
Rhenish separatism in the 1920s should be seen in the context of resentments fostered by economic hardship and the military occupation to which the previously prosperous region was subjected. After 1919, blame for defeat in the First World War was apportioned to (amongst others) the military or simply the French. France, like Germany, had been profoundly traumatised by the First World War and the conduct of its occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was perceived as unsympathetic, even among its Western wartime allies. Increasingly, however, blame was directed against the German government itself, in far-off Berlin. By 1923, as the German currency collapsed, the French occupation forces headquartered at Mainz (under the command of Generals Mangin and Fayolle) were having some success in their encouragement of anti-Berlin separatism in the occupied zones.
After 1924, economic hardship slowly began to ease and a measure of brittle stability returned to Germany under the Weimar State. The appeal of Rhenish separatism, never a mass movement, was damaged by the violence employed by many of its more desperate supporters. The political temperature cooled after the French occupation of the Ruhr attracted increasingly strident criticism from Britain and the United States. Following the Dawes Plan in September 1924, an agreement to lower Germany's war reparations payments, the French vacated the Ruhr in the summer of 1925. The end of the Rhenish Republic can be dated at December 1924, when its leading instigator, Hans Adam Dorten (1880–1963), was obliged to flee to Nice. By 1930, when French troops also vacated the left bank of the Rhine, the concept of a Rhenish Republic, independent of Berlin, no longer attracted popular support.
The Cisrhenian Republic (1797–1802) and subsequent incorporation of the region into the French Empire lasted for less than a generation, but introduced to the occupied Rhineland many of the features of the modern state. These were revolutionary and widely welcomed. One objective of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was to undo Napoléon's territorial changes, so the German Lower Rhine and Westphalia reverted to the Kingdom of Prussia (joined by the Middle Rhine and Cologne), the Palatinate region to Bavaria. Nonetheless, Prussia's western territories continued to adhere to the Napoleonic legal system and, in many other respects, the relationship between the citizen and the state had been permanently transformed. In addition, mutual intolerance of religious differences, stretching back centuries, endured between Protestant Prussia and the predominantly Roman Catholic populations of the Rhineland. The incorporation/reincorporation of most of the Rhineland into Prussia did not run smoothly and remained incomplete more than a century later. Many Rhinelanders continued to regard rule by Prussia as a form of foreign occupation. At the same time, these events occurred during the occupation of the Rhineland by American, Belgian, British and French troops.
On 1 February 1919, more than sixty of the Rhineland's civic leaders together with locally based Prussian National Assembly Members convened in Cologne at the invitation of the city's mayor, Konrad Adenauer of the Catholic Center Party. There was only one item on the agenda: "The Creation of the Rhenish Republic" (German: Die Gründung der Rheinischen Republik).
In addressing delegates, Adenauer identified the wreckage of Prussian hegemonistic power as the "inevitable consequence" ("notwendige Folge") of the Prussian system. Prussia was viewed by opponents as "Europe's evil spirit" and was "ruled over by an unscrupulous caste of war-fixated militaristic aristocrats" ("von einer kriegslüsternen, gewissenlosen militärischen Kaste und dem Junkertum beherrscht"). He said that the other German states should, therefore, no longer put up with Prussian supremacy, that Prussia should be divided up, and the western provinces separated out to form a "West German Republic". This would make future domination of Germany by Prussia's eastern militaristic ethos impossible. Adenauer was, however, keen that this West German Republic should remain inside the German political union.
In the end, the Cologne meeting produced a two-point resolution. The meeting asserted the right of the Rhineland peoples to political self-determination. The proclamation of a West German Republic was to be deferred, however, so that the Prussian state might be divided up. In this way a practical solution could first be agreed with the French occupiers and France's allies regarding the issue of reparations.
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Rhenish Republic
The Rhenish Republic (German: Rheinische Republik) was proclaimed at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in October 1923 during the occupation of the Ruhr by troops from France and Belgium (January 1923 – 1925) and subjected itself to French protectorate. It comprised three territories, named North, South and Ruhr. Their regional capitals were, respectively, Aachen, Koblenz and Essen.
The Rhenish Republic is best understood as the aspiration of a poorly focused liberation struggle.[according to whom?] The name was one applied by the short-lived separatist movement that erupted in the German Rhineland during the politically turbulent years following Germany's defeat in the First World War. The objectives of the many different separatist groups ranged widely, from the foundation of an autonomous republic to some sort of change in the status of the Rhineland within the Weimar Republic. Others advocated full integration of the Rhineland into France. Similar political currents were stirring in the south: June 1919 had seen the proclamation by Eberhard Haaß of the "Pfälzische Republik", centred on Speyer in the occupied territory of the Bavarian Palatinate.
Rhenish separatism in the 1920s should be seen in the context of resentments fostered by economic hardship and the military occupation to which the previously prosperous region was subjected. After 1919, blame for defeat in the First World War was apportioned to (amongst others) the military or simply the French. France, like Germany, had been profoundly traumatised by the First World War and the conduct of its occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was perceived as unsympathetic, even among its Western wartime allies. Increasingly, however, blame was directed against the German government itself, in far-off Berlin. By 1923, as the German currency collapsed, the French occupation forces headquartered at Mainz (under the command of Generals Mangin and Fayolle) were having some success in their encouragement of anti-Berlin separatism in the occupied zones.
After 1924, economic hardship slowly began to ease and a measure of brittle stability returned to Germany under the Weimar State. The appeal of Rhenish separatism, never a mass movement, was damaged by the violence employed by many of its more desperate supporters. The political temperature cooled after the French occupation of the Ruhr attracted increasingly strident criticism from Britain and the United States. Following the Dawes Plan in September 1924, an agreement to lower Germany's war reparations payments, the French vacated the Ruhr in the summer of 1925. The end of the Rhenish Republic can be dated at December 1924, when its leading instigator, Hans Adam Dorten (1880–1963), was obliged to flee to Nice. By 1930, when French troops also vacated the left bank of the Rhine, the concept of a Rhenish Republic, independent of Berlin, no longer attracted popular support.
The Cisrhenian Republic (1797–1802) and subsequent incorporation of the region into the French Empire lasted for less than a generation, but introduced to the occupied Rhineland many of the features of the modern state. These were revolutionary and widely welcomed. One objective of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was to undo Napoléon's territorial changes, so the German Lower Rhine and Westphalia reverted to the Kingdom of Prussia (joined by the Middle Rhine and Cologne), the Palatinate region to Bavaria. Nonetheless, Prussia's western territories continued to adhere to the Napoleonic legal system and, in many other respects, the relationship between the citizen and the state had been permanently transformed. In addition, mutual intolerance of religious differences, stretching back centuries, endured between Protestant Prussia and the predominantly Roman Catholic populations of the Rhineland. The incorporation/reincorporation of most of the Rhineland into Prussia did not run smoothly and remained incomplete more than a century later. Many Rhinelanders continued to regard rule by Prussia as a form of foreign occupation. At the same time, these events occurred during the occupation of the Rhineland by American, Belgian, British and French troops.
On 1 February 1919, more than sixty of the Rhineland's civic leaders together with locally based Prussian National Assembly Members convened in Cologne at the invitation of the city's mayor, Konrad Adenauer of the Catholic Center Party. There was only one item on the agenda: "The Creation of the Rhenish Republic" (German: Die Gründung der Rheinischen Republik).
In addressing delegates, Adenauer identified the wreckage of Prussian hegemonistic power as the "inevitable consequence" ("notwendige Folge") of the Prussian system. Prussia was viewed by opponents as "Europe's evil spirit" and was "ruled over by an unscrupulous caste of war-fixated militaristic aristocrats" ("von einer kriegslüsternen, gewissenlosen militärischen Kaste und dem Junkertum beherrscht"). He said that the other German states should, therefore, no longer put up with Prussian supremacy, that Prussia should be divided up, and the western provinces separated out to form a "West German Republic". This would make future domination of Germany by Prussia's eastern militaristic ethos impossible. Adenauer was, however, keen that this West German Republic should remain inside the German political union.
In the end, the Cologne meeting produced a two-point resolution. The meeting asserted the right of the Rhineland peoples to political self-determination. The proclamation of a West German Republic was to be deferred, however, so that the Prussian state might be divided up. In this way a practical solution could first be agreed with the French occupiers and France's allies regarding the issue of reparations.
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