Rhenish Republic

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Rhenish Republic
{{{ITEM FLAG}}}
Official language none, de facto German
Capital de facto Koblenz
Form of government republic
Head of state , also head of government Josef Friedrich Matthes
founding 1923
resolution 1924 ("Palatinate Republic")

The term Rhenish Republic stands for the brief attempt to found a state by separatist movements in the Rhineland in 1923. The members of the group were called separatists , special or free bundlers .

The events concerned the Belgian and French occupied areas of the western German Empire . As of October 21, supporters of various separatist associations brought some Rhenish city and community administrations under their control, some with the military help of the occupying forces. The French High Commissioner and President of the Rhineland Commission , Paul Tirard (1879–1945), recognized the separatist rule, interpreted as the result of a political revolution, on October 26 as a legitimate government. "Prime Minister" was the editor Josef Friedrich Matthes (1886–1943), the "seat of government" was Koblenz .

After numerous protests by the German and English governments, support from France-Belgium quickly waned. The separatists tried to maintain their rule with the help of the protection forces they had recruited. The maintenance of the troops was financed by “ requisitions ” from the population, which escalated the situation in many places to armed conflicts. The direct rule of the separatists ended around November 20th.

At about the same time and also in the occupied territories, the events known as the Ruhr Occupation and the Autonomous Palatinate occurred .

prehistory

The French monarchy had already shown a noticeable interest in the economic areas on the left bank of the Rhine with Louis XIV's reunification policy in the 17th century . The revolutionary France had during the first coalition war occupied from 1792 various Rhenish areas and moved their merger under the name Cisrhenian Republic considered. However, this plan was abandoned in favor of annexing the Left Bank of the Rhine . In line with Georges Danton's thesis that France's borders are formed by nature, French foreign policy was directed towards seeing the Rhine as the border of France. On the right side of the Rhine, after the Treaty of Lunéville (1801) and within the framework of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806), satellite states of the First French Republic and the First Empire were formed , such as the Principality of Salm , the Duchy of Arenberg-Meppen , and the Grand Duchy Berg and the Kingdom of Westphalia .

By resolution of the Congress of Vienna on February 8, 1815, most of the Left Bank of the Rhine came to Prussia , where it became part of the Rhine Province , and as the Rhine Palatinate to Bavaria . The integration always remained problematic, as Napoleonic civil and commercial law , the chambers of commerce and the municipal constitution continued to apply in the Rhineland . Above all, there were serious differences with regard to the culture and mentality of the Catholic population. Virulent remained as a "latent Antiborussismus and especially the feeling of imparity and the inferiority of the (Rhine) Catholicism against the Prussian-Protestant social elites" who are in the idea of a "Rhenish West State " and the appropriate "Rhein state efforts" in the 19th century were expressed. Many Rhinelander therefore felt that they were “ Must Prussians ”. On the other hand, Prussia's military strength was able to dispel the repeated fears of many Rhinelanders about French expansion, around 1840 during the Rhine Crisis , when France under Adolphe Thiers had claimed the Rhine as its eastern border. During the suppression of the German Revolution , the idea of ​​founding a Rhenish Republic found new supporters among the revolutionaries.

With the Allied occupation of the Rhineland after the First World War , various French politicians and military officials in the vicinity of Raymond Poincaré again raised ideas about the connection. The future of the Rhineland was also controversially discussed in Berlin , whose middle class and bourgeois politicians increasingly expressed their approval of the separation from the Free State of Prussia . As a result of the Kulturkampf (1871–1878), parts of the predominantly Catholic population perceived their situation in Prussia as “Protestant foreign rule ” even after more than a hundred years .

As early as December 4, 1918, there was an attempt to proclaim a Rhenish Republic from those around the Kölnische Volkszeitung , which, however, hardly met with any response. Konrad Adenauer also expressed the mood in the Rhineland when, on February 1, 1919, he invited more than sixty mayors and members of the National Assembly and the Prussian State Assembly to a meeting in Cologne . Adenauer was Lord Mayor of Cologne at that time and belonged to the Center Party . The first and only item on the agenda of the meeting was “the foundation of the Rhenish Republic”.

In his address, Adenauer described the failure of Prussian hegemony as a “necessary consequence” of the Prussian system itself. In the opinion of his opponents, Prussia is “the evil spirit of Europe” and is “ruled by a bellicose, unscrupulous military caste and Junkers”. Consequently, the supremacy of Prussia is no longer sustainable for the other German federal states. Prussia should be divided and its western parts of the country merge into a "West German Republic". This would "make the rule of Germany impossible by a Prussia ruled by the spirit of the East, by militarism". Nevertheless, Adenauer strove for the “West German Republic” to remain in the union of states of the German Reich.

Formation of separatist groups

Ultimately, a two-point resolution established that the Rhineland and the Rhinelanders also had the right to political self-determination . The proclamation of the Rhenish or West German republic was reserved as a temporary solution in the event that the state of Prussia was divided up. In this way a practicable solution to the reparations should be found with the victorious powers.

In the period that followed, separatist movements with different goals emerged in many cities and towns. Reich Minister Johannes Bell ordered that the secessionist efforts be countered with propaganda and material. Reich Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann issued a unanimously adopted government declaration on March 13th, according to which "the Rhenish question could only be resolved in solid imperial unity [...] a final solution [...] could only take place after the conclusion of peace and constitutionally" .

Proclamation of the Republic in Wiesbaden

The lawyer and former front-line officer Hans Adam Dorten proclaimed an "independent Rhenish Republic" in Wiesbaden on June 1, 1919, which should also include areas of Hesse and the Rhine Palatinate. He was supported by the French General Charles Mangin and other French military. As early as the night of June 1st, posters with an appeal “to the people of the Rhineland” were posted in parts of the region. In the afternoon of the day the Wiesbaden district president Karl Wilhelm von Meister was asked by two French officers to submit to the orders of Hans Adam Dorten, which Meister refused and shortly afterwards left his area of ​​responsibility for Bad Homburg vor der Höhe . In the days that followed, there were repeated negotiations between German politicians and administrative officials from both the separatist and loyal camps and the French chief administrator Pineau. On June 2, workers protested against the separatist movement with a general strike . When members of the Dorten government wanted to take possession of the building of the regional council in Wiesbaden on June 4th, Master's deputy Springorum tried to prevent this by force until French soldiers asserted that Dorten and his employees were assigned offices. When officials loyal to the rich got into the back of the house via a ladder, fights broke out, whereupon Colonel Pineau, who had appeared in the meantime, declared the French occupation administration to be neutral. The German police then drove the Dorten government out of the building. These disputes were accompanied by a journalistic exchange of blows in which the Wiesbadener Zeitung represented the loyal side and the Kölnische Volkszeitung the separatist side.

Shortly thereafter, coup attempts took place in Mainz, Speyer and other cities ; But they failed within a few days due to their amateurish organization and the rejection in the population and administration. The Reichsgericht in Leipzig subsequently issued an arrest warrant against Dorten for high treason and treason , but his stay in the French-occupied territories protected him from being carried out.

Dorten remained active in his cause and founded the "Rhenish People's Association" in Boppard on January 22, 1922 , the chairman of which was Pastor Bertram Kastert (1868–1935) from Cologne. Because of the treason charges, parties and politicians shied away from contact with Dorten and his political circles. The people's association led a largely unnoticed shadowy existence. His weekly magazine Deutsche Warte and other activities there were dependent on French funding.

In the course of the following years the general economic situation deteriorated in Germany, which was shaken by numerous crises and attempts at political upheaval. In addition, there were repeated disputes between the French occupation administration and the German administration. The deputy district president of Wiesbaden, Springorum, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in July 1919 because he had tried to smuggle a letter to the French past the Reich government in Berlin. Willy Momm was then appointed the new district president. In November 1919, the French occupiers removed the mayor of Wiesbaden, Karl Glässing, and expelled him. On July 24, 1920, Hans Adam Dorten was arrested by Prussian police officers who had penetrated the occupation zone. Thereupon the French removed Momm and the deputy police chief of Wiesbaden from their offices. The German authorities released Dorten on July 26th. Momm got his office back in early November. In April 1921, France set up a customs border on the Rhine, which further weakened the economy in the occupied area. As a reaction to the murder of Walther Rathenau , workers' demonstrations and street battles broke out on July 4, 1922, in which two people were killed in Wiesbaden. The French occupying power then finally relieved President Momm of his office.

Occupation of the Ruhr area

Germany fell behind in paying reparations . On March 8, 1921, French and Belgian troops occupied the Rhineland cities of Duisburg and Düsseldorf . The Reparations Commission found on March 9th that Germany had deliberately withheld deliveries, whereupon the troops occupied the rest of the Ruhr area on January 11th, 1923 , which now had to bear one of the main economic burdens of reparations. As a result, more than one hundred German civilians were killed in the Ruhr area. The occupiers expelled at least 70,000 people and replaced them with French and Belgian workers. The predominantly young men made their living from the " Ruhrhilfe " paid out by the Reich government . Many of them lived without a permanent residence, and some joined various separatist groups agitating in the Rhineland. In their neglect, they presented a chilling image for the population and fell into disrepute as “drifters” and “work-shy rabble of thieves”.

In his essay Für Josef Matthes , published on August 13, 1929 in the weekly newspaper Die Weltbühne , Kurt Tucholsky described the situation in the Rhineland: “Meanwhile the separatist movement grew like an avalanche, proportional to inflation . Back then, the Rhineland was as closed as a man to those who paid better. The officials, the big banks, the clergy were waiting for their moment. Nobody wanted to go to France, few stayed with Prussia. What they wanted, and what they had a right to at the time, was liberation from the hell of inflation and the creation of their own currency, their own autonomous republic. "

Events in various cities and towns in the Rhineland

Administration and occupation of the West German territories (1924)
Separatists in front of the Electoral Palace in Koblenz , in the middle Josef Friedrich Matthes
Devastation in Aachen city hall after the storming by the separatists on October 21, 1923

In the Rhineland, the battle against the Ruhr caused the conflict to come to a head. In the course of 1923, France expelled numerous senior officials from the regional council, local authorities, customs and forest administrations, including two deputy regional presidents. Occasionally there were occupations and confiscations also in commercial enterprises, comparable to those in the Ruhr area. Offices of separatist organizations were opened. On the other hand, the German police took action against separatist leaders. Most of the arrested had to be released under pressure from the French authorities. On September 23, there was a separatist meeting in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus with around 2500 participants, at the edge of which there was scuffle with the participation of French and German police officers.

In Koblenz , the capital of the then Prussian Rhine Province , various separatist movements came together on August 15, 1923 and founded the "United Rhenish Movement". Leading personalities were Hans Adam Dorten from the “Rhenish People's Association”, Josef Friedrich Matthes (1886–1943) from the “Rhenish Independence League”, who was headed by the former SPD representative Josef Smeets (* 1893 in Cologne, † March 25, 1925 in Metz) and the Aachen manufacturer Leo Deckers. A benevolent approval by the French administration can be assumed. The aim of this movement was now the express separation of the Rhineland from Prussia and the establishment of a Rhenish republic under a French protectorate. The cause of the republic was to be advanced through public rallies and assemblies in all cities on the Rhine.

On October 16, 1923, the separatists hoisted the green-white-red flag of the Rhenish Republic on Haus Neustraße 43 in Eschweiler in the southern city center . They opened an advertising agency in the same building. On October 22nd and 23rd they tried to put on a coup in Eschweiler's town hall. The alderman Elsen refused to hand over the town hall, however, and a self-protection was formed. A day later the government called on the population to resist, and on November 2, the separatists were finally expelled from Eschweiler at the behest of the Belgian occupation forces.

In Aachen , the town hall was opened on October 21, 1923 under the leadership of Leo Deckers and Dr. Guthardt occupied and proclaimed the "Free and Independent Republic of Rhineland" in the Kaisersaal there. On October 22nd, separatists shot at counter-demonstrators in the vicinity of the theater, who then penetrated the secretariat of the separatist party on Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz and devastated it. Since the morning of October 23, separatists have been driving through the city shooting in cars. The Aachen fire brigade has meanwhile occupied the town hall, which forced the separatists to entrench themselves in the government building. On the same day, the Belgian occupation forces declared a "state of siege ".

The German local police in Aachen attempted to storm the government building on October 25, but were prevented from doing so by soldiers of the Belgian occupation and henceforth placed under Belgian orders. The technical university was also shut down and foreign students were expelled from Aachen.

On November 2nd, the Aachen town hall was again occupied by the separatists; in the meantime they had received reinforcements from around 1,000 men from the ranks of the “Rhineland Protection Troops”. The Belgian High Commissioner Baron Edouard Rolin-Jaequemyns ordered the immediate end of the separate government and called on the troops to leave the city immediately. The Aachen city council met in the evening and made a “declaration of loyalty to the German Reich”.

During the same period, attempts to overthrow many cities in the Rhineland followed a similar pattern: the local administration buildings were occupied, the existing administration was suspended and driven out. The flag of the Rhenish Republic was hoisted and the new administration informed the population of the new situation by means of public notices and leaflets. The new governments could not prevail everywhere. In the cities of Jülich , Mönchengladbach , Bonn and Erkelenz , the efforts were stopped immediately, sometimes violently, while other areas were completely uninvolved in the events.

In Duisburg , the separatists took control on October 22nd. The local group of the "Rhenish Independence League" emphasized the distance between the new republic and the occupation forces on posters. The French occupying power prevented the attempts by the forces loyal to the state to forcibly change the situation in the interests of the imperial government.

In Koblenz, the separatists tried to take power from October 21st. In the following days there were numerous fights with the local police and the citizens. On the night of October 23, the separatists, with the support of the French military, occupied Koblenz Castle , first had to vacate it under pressure from Lord Mayor Karl Russell and the local police, and occupied it again the following night.

In Wiesbaden , the German administration was informed on October 21 from Cologne about the proclamation of the republic and warned that corresponding proclamations were also planned in Mainz and Wiesbaden. The police stations and the Wiesbaden town hall were then manned with stronger police units. The other public buildings were not guarded, so that they were occupied by representatives of the Rhenish Republic on the night of October 23rd. At the same time, the police, the Reich German and Rhenish Republican administrations, trade unions and representatives of the French occupying power held negotiations on how to proceed, but without any results. On the morning of October 23, armed separatists also occupied Wiesbaden's town hall, warning shots were fired and violent clashes broke out. In the days that followed, however, the administration, which had been discontinued in German, continued to work in the building in parallel. On October 23, the trade unions rallied against the Rhenish Republic. In addition, the French gendarmes and soldiers disarmed the Wiesbaden police and appointed Police Sergeant Keul as their new boss. Most of the Wiesbaden police said they were ready to do their duty under the new circumstances. The patrol service in the city was initially taken over by the French, but from the end of October again by German police officers.

In the following days there were multiple "recaptures" by both sides in the Wiesbaden town hall, in the district building and in other public buildings and civilians from both sides were involved. On the evening of October 29th, the Rhenish government announced by proclamation that it had taken over government power in the Wiesbaden administrative district and in the subordinate administrative structures. However, officials from the regional council declared on November 1 that they were not prepared to cooperate with the separatists. By the end of the Rhenish Republic, the situation in Wiesbaden seems to have calmed down to a large extent.

In the rural regions of the Westerwald and Lahn Valley , disputes similar to those in Wiesbaden took place. There, however, the Rhenish Republican forces were usually only able to hold onto power for a short time and with massive help from the French. Their approach was often reminiscent of that of gangs of robbers. The fighting developed more violently than in the cities, so that there were fatalities in the Westerwald with exchanges of fire and in Limburg an der Lahn on November 14th there was street fighting. Until the end of November, however, the separatists hardly played a role in Limburg.

On October 26th, the French High Commissioner and President of the Rhineland Commission, Paul Tirard (1879–1945), confirmed the separatists as "holders of real power". They should initiate all necessary measures “with natural respect for the existing authority of the occupation authority [...]”. Hans Adam Dorten and the editor Josef Friedrich Matthes were given general powers for this. A government cabinet was formed. Matthes, as its designated chairman, was therefore Prime Minister of the Rhenish Republic.

The power of the new government was based essentially on the protection and financing of the French occupiers and on the "Rhineland Protection Troops", which were largely recruited from the expellees of the Ruhr area. The troops, mostly without military training and very poorly equipped, enforced the new government's regulations. A night curfew was imposed and the freedom of the press was severely restricted. If there was a lack of clear guidelines locally, regulations were impromptu and impromptu. The “government” received no noteworthy support from the administrative staff, who often refused to take the new oath of office or stayed away from work at all. The population acted and waited.

The “Cabinet” in Koblenz was often divided and its regulations confusing. Rivalries arose between Dorten and Matthes. The French rulers increasingly distanced themselves and severely restricted financial contributions. Rhenish paper money was issued, and eventually the government ordered “requisitions” across the country. This started a massive wave of looting by the "Rhineland Protection Troops", which went far beyond the goal of procuring food. The situation was different in the individual cities and municipalities. The French military kept the increasing resistance among the civilian population in check.

Under the name “Flying Division North”, members of the Rhineland protection troops attacked Maria Laach and the surrounding farms from November 6th to 8th . In Brohl , where residents Anton Brühl and Hans Feinlinger led a resistance group, a murder squad appeared on November 9, looted and shot two men who had mistaken it for Brühl and Feinlinger.

On November 10th, looters appeared in Linz on the Rhine , occupied the town hall and chased the incumbent mayor Pieper out of office. From there they visited the communities of Unkel , Bruchhausen and Rheinbreitbach . In addition to food and vehicles, valuables were also “requisitioned” everywhere.

From November 12th the separatists gathered in Honnef , which was now intended as the new headquarters. They occupied the town hall and proclaimed the Rhenish Republic on November 14th, confiscated food and alcoholic beverages in numerous residential buildings and hotels and set the furniture up in flames at a large celebration in the Kurhaus .

Uprising in the Siebengebirge

Memorial stone in Rheinbreitbach
Plaque on the memorial stone

On the evening of November 14th, numerous residents of the surrounding communities as far as Windhagen and Uckerath gathered in the Aegidienberger restaurant Cremerius and decided to openly resist, as it was foreseeable that the looting would continue there soon. Food was donated everywhere for the resistance. Despite the gun ban by the occupiers, the arsenal that was now laid out contained axes, clubs and pitchforks as well as a large number of hunting and handguns and numerous infantry rifles. The former officer and mining engineer Hermann Schneider took over the management of the "Heimwehr" in Aegidienberg.

Grave of Peter Staffel in Eudenbach (2005)

Allegedly there were now around four thousand men under arms in the entire area. As soon as separatist troops appeared or rumors began to circulate, the local resistance associations were mobilized with factory sirens and alarm bells. Many people wandered about trying to get their livestock and property to safety.

On the afternoon of November 15, around 4 p.m., two vehicles manned by separatists drove into the Aegidienberg district of Himberg , which was guarded by around 30 armed quarry workers. Eighteen-year-old blacksmith Peter Staffel was shot dead after he forced the trucks to stop and tried to convince the occupants to turn back. This was the prelude to the battle of Aegidienberg . The separatists were then massively shot at by the miners and fled into the Schmelztal in the direction of Honnef. On their way they met the well-entrenched troops of Hermann Schneider, who captured their vehicles and finally put them to flight.

They gathered at the Jagdhaus inn in the Schmelztal , called for reinforcements and planned to massively attack Aegidienberg on November 16 and set an example for the population. Around 80 armed men under the leadership of a Mr. Rang found a gap in the line of defense at Hövel . There they took five residents hostage and put them, tied to stakes, in the line of fire against the advancing defenders. One of the hostages, Theodor Weinz (born August 15, 1858), received a shot in the stomach that cost him his life a little later. In the meantime, resisters from all over the world rushed to the hunt for the "hopeless refugees".

Tomb of the separatists in Aegidienberg (2003)

Fourteen separatists died and were later buried in the Aegidienberg cemetery in a mass grave without naming them. According to contemporaries, they came from the Kevelaer and Krefeld area .

To prevent the conflict from continuing, French-Moroccan troops took Aegidienberg under control over the next two weeks , and the French military police investigated the area. As a result of her investigation, she announced the violent deaths of around 120 people in connection with the events of those November days. More details on the dead and events may be found in the archives of the military police. Theodor Weinz is buried right at the entrance to the cemetery in Aegidienberg, and the Aegidienberg elementary school is named after him. Peter Staffel is buried in the cemetery in Eudenbach - today a district of Königswinter . He came from Hühnerberg, which is also part of Königswinter today.

The end of the Rhenish Republic

The Koblenz cabinet split into two camps as a result of the events. The separatist governments were driven out of the town halls and some of them were arrested by the French military. Matthes resigned from his “offices” on November 27th. Hans Adam Dorten had already formed a "Provisional Government" for the southern Rhineland and the Rhine Palatinate on November 15 in Bad Ems , continued agitating from there without success and now actively participated in the events in the "Palatinate Republic", which was still in progress existed until 1924. On December 31, he fled to Nice , later published his memoirs and died in 1963.

Matthes also went to France and later met Kurt Tucholsky there. Him and his wife was in spite of the granted in the London Agreement of August 31, 1924 amnesty under bending the law denied entry to Germany, which Tucholsky to moved, the essay for Josef Matthes publish.

In isolated towns in the Rhineland, the separatist mayors ruled until December, were voted out, and some had to answer for their actions before committees or courts.

Konrad Adenauer, who had always been in deep conflict with Hans Adam Dorten and was not actively involved in the "Rhenish Republic", submitted another proposal to the French generals in December for the formation of an "autonomous West German federal state". Neither the French nor the German governments could accept the proposals.

On December 30, 1923, a meeting of representatives of the Rhenish parties, trade unions, chambers and municipalities took place, and it was decided to initiate negotiations for the formation of a "Rhenish Republic".

National Socialism and the Rhenish Republic

The resistance of the population was later hyped up by the National Socialists as a beacon of loyal German sentiments. Former separatists were considered traitors and were monitored by the Gestapo , some imprisoned, which is why some of them went into exile, such as the Trier architect Peter Marx . Matthes, who had been in France since 1923, was expelled from the Vichy government in 1941 to Germany, where he died two years later in the Dachau concentration camp .

In the Siebengebirge , a memorial was to be erected on the Himmerich mountain , but this was not realized after the laying of the foundation stone by Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in October 1933. In 1935, in the district of Hövel in the district of Aegidienberg in Bad Honnef, the so-called separatist monument was erected to commemorate the residents who were killed and taken hostage. The vocabulary of the inscription is quite pithy and controversial:

Separatist monument in Hövel

As a reminder,
core German workers and peasants
shed their blood here on their own land
in successful defensive battles
to the complete annihilation of
the separatists on November 16, 1923
God helped them to win

The monument has been entered in the monuments list of the city of Bad Honnef since September 23, 2019 . The grave of the separatists can be found in the community cemetery, very simple but well-kept.

In fact, the population's resistance was primarily directed against arbitrariness and robbery. Supporters of all political directions participated “in astonishing common ground”.

See also

literature

  • Erwin Bischof : Rhenish separatism 1918–1924. Hans Adam Dorten's efforts towards the Rhine state. Verlag Herbert Lang & Cie AG, Bern 1969.
  • Jean Adam Dorten : The Rhenish Tragedy. Translation and epilogue: W. Münch, Bad Kreuznach 2nd edition 1981. (Uncommented translation of Dortens memoirs)
  • Klaus Reimer: Rhineland Question and Rhineland Movement (1918–33). Europ. Hochschulschriften III, 199, Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Bern / Las Vegas 1979, ISBN 3-8204-6550-2 .
  • Martin Schlemmer: "Los von Berlin": the efforts towards the state of the Rhine after the First World War. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, ISBN 3-412-11106-6 .
  • Stephen A. Schuker: Bavaria and Rhenish separatism 1923-1924. In: Yearbook of the Historical College 1997, pp. 75–111 ( digitized version ).
  • Jens Klocksin: Separatists in the Rhineland. 70 years after the battle in the Siebengebirge; a review. Verlag Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-89144-180-0 .
  • Henning Köhler : Adenauer and the Rhenish Republic, the first attempt 1918–1924. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1986, ISBN 3-531-11765-3 .
  • Elmar Scheuren, Christoph Trapp: Separatists in the Siebengebirge, the “Rhenish Republic” of 1923 and the “Battle” near Aegidienberg (November 16/17, 1923). Königswinter 1993.

Web links

Commons : Rheinische Republik  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Rhenish Republic  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic "online: The Stresemann I / II Cabinets, Volume 2, Documents, No. 199 Discussions with the President of the Inter-Allied Rhineland Commission Tirard on October 29, 1923 ( www.bundesarchiv.de )
  2. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic "online:" Matthes, Joseph Friedrich "(1.87 :) ( www.bundesarchiv.de )
  3. a b October 23, 1923 - The separatists in power in Koblenz. Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, accessed on February 28, 2020 .
  4. Martin Schlemmer: “Los von Berlin”. The efforts towards the state of the Rhine after the First World War. In: Rheinisches Archiv. Publications of the Department of Rhenish Regional History of the Institute for History of the University of Bonn. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-11106-9 , p. 731.
  5. ^ Dietmar Niemann: The revolution of 1848/49 in Düsseldorf . Self-published by the Düsseldorf City Archives, ISBN 3-926490-02-0 , Düsseldorf 1993, p. 225 f.
  6. Jürgen Herres: The Prussian Rhineland in the Revolution 1848/49 . In: Stephan Lennartz, Georg Mölich (Hrsg.): Revolution in the Rhineland. Changes in political culture in 1848/49 . In: Bensberger Protocols (series of publications by Thomas-More-Akademie Bensberg) , Cologne 1998, issue 29, pp. 13–36.
  7. ^ February 1, 1919: Konrad Adenauer tries to decouple the Rhineland as the Rhenish Republic from Prussia ; www.preussen-chronik.de
  8. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic ”online: Das Kabinett Scheidemann, Volume 1, documents, cabinet meeting of March 12, 1919, 4 pm, Weimar, National Assembly, 5th West German Separatism; Online at bundesarchiv.de
  9. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic ”online: The Bauer Cabinet, Volume 1, Documents, No. 9 The Hessian Prime Minister to the Reich President. Darmstadt, June 30, 1919 ( www.bundesarchiv.de )
  10. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic "online: Das Kabinett Scheidemann, Volume 1, Documents, No. 88 Cabinet meeting on May 27, 1919, 6 pm, 4th Rhenish Republic ( www.bundesarchiv.de www.bundesarchiv.de )
  11. "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic ”online: Das Kabinett Scheidemann, Volume 1, Documents, No. 97 Cabinet meeting of June 2, 1919, 11 am, 8th Rhenish separatism; Online at bundesarchiv.de .
  12. Kastert, Bertram ; in: files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic; online at bundesarchiv.de
  13. ^ Rudolf Morsey : Rheinische Volksvereinigung, 1920-1923 / 24. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . September 8, 2010, accessed March 8, 2012 .
  14. The New York Times, July 27, 1920: GERMANS FREE DORTEN AFTER ALLIED THREAT ( query.nytimes.com )
  15. ^ Kurt Tucholsky: For Josef Matthes ; 1929 ( online at textlog.de )
  16. Smeets, Josef ; in: files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic ; Online at bundesarchiv.de
  17. Dieter Breuer, Gertrude Cepl-Kaufmann: German Rhine - foreign horse potions? ( Memento from September 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) deutschesfachbuch.de, accessed on February 28, 2020.
  18. ^ Karl Gast: Aegidienberg through the ages (1964) - self-published
  19. ^ The Pittsburgh Press, October 27, 1923: RHINE SEPARATION MOVE "HOPELESSLY SPLIT" CLAIM - Google News Archive Search