Enclave Bonn

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The original area of ​​the Bonn enclave

The Bonn Enclave (also international zone , occupation-free zone , federal zone ; English Bonn Enclave , French Enclave de Bonn ) was an administrative area and a special area in the Bonn area , which was subordinate to the Allied High Commission (AHK). He was born on July 9, 1949 by the designated High Commissioners declared and existed until the entry into force of Germany agreement on 5 May 1955th

function

The special area was basically already laid down on June 20, 1949 at the so-called Paris Foreign Ministers' Conference in the Charter of the Allied High Commission , but was not spatially defined until July 9. In the region around the initially provisional seat of government Bonn, it was supposed to ensure the establishment of the federal organs that had arisen when the Federal Republic of Germany was founded on May 23 of that year. In addition, the zone was demilitarized in 1949 . In addition, the Allied High Commission should not be placed under the sovereignty of one of its members. While the rest of the Federal Republic was under the control of one of the three western allied occupying powers , the enclave was subject to joint control. The area was previously part of the British zone of occupation . The core of the enclave was the city of Bonn, which, as an “occupation-free” area, was intended exclusively to accommodate parliament and government authorities; for the rest of the area there was at least initially a subdivision into three sectors X , Y (both on the left bank of the Rhine) and Z (on the right bank of the Rhine), each assigned to one of the occupying powers for their accommodation .

construction

The powers of the Allied High Commission under the Occupation Statute were exercised in the enclave by a sub-committee , the Sub-Committee for the Administration of the Bonn Enclave . He was subordinate to the General Committee of the Allied High Commission and was based on the Petersberg until 1952 . The committee was made up of one representative from each of the three occupying powers, each with a suspensive veto right and a police unit with the right to arrest . The judicial functions for the crew members in the area were usually carried out by the country concerned, in cases of doubt a British occupation court, possibly with the assistance of an advisory representative from the Commission. The budget of the enclave, which amounted to DM 21 million in 1951/1952, had to be approved by the British occupation authorities.

The sovereign administrative functions of the Allied High Commission in the Bonn enclave were geared towards the AHK, its employees and its accommodation itself, so that the administrative structures of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia remained in force at the same time. The offices of the commission within the Bonn enclave were mostly occupied by France with 850 and the USA with around 700 employees (as of around 1952), while Great Britain carried out its tasks in the AHK, apart from a representative office in the Villa Wilhelma in Bad Godesberg, mainly by the High Commission on the Wahner Heide near Cologne.

Demarcation

At the time of its designation, the Bonn enclave comprised the city of Bonn west of the Rhine , its current district of Bad Godesberg and the area of ​​today's municipality of Wachtberg . To the east of the Rhine lay within the zone today's city district of Beuel , the cities of Königswinter and Honnef (today: Bad Honnef ) as well as the Siebengebirge and some villages to the east and north of it, including the area of ​​the future city of Sankt Augustin .

In the north, the zone was bounded by the confluence of the Sieg into the Rhine, from which the border ran in an easterly direction to the bridge over the Sieg route over today's federal motorway 3 . From there, the A3 formed the eastern boundary of the zone to the border with the French occupation zone in the south at Rederscheid or Aegidienberg - Rottbitze . The entire southern zone border was identical to today's state border between North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate and ran along the town of Honnef over the Rhine to the west to Adendorf and Meckenheim , which was outside the zone. From Meckenheim to the north, the railway line of the Voreifelbahn was used to draw the border. It did not leave the Voreifelbahn until the border entered what was then the Bonn district. From this point on, the municipal boundary of the Bonn city district was also the boundary of the enclave, which reached as far as the left bank of the Rhine.

The area of ​​the enclave was changed on August 1, 1950 with the adoption of a statute , the Bonn Enclave Statute . The new borders were no longer based on geographical criteria or traffic structures, but on the administrative area of ​​the municipalities involved. The inclusion of Bonn, Bad Godesberg and Beuel as well as the neighboring municipalities on the right and left of the Rhine in a common administrative area is considered a model and forerunner for the municipal reorganization of the Bonn area in 1969.

Associated municipalities

The following communities belonged to the enclave (as of August 1950):

References and comments

  1. ↑ after the name of the Federal Zone Office , a special authority affiliated to the Federal Ministry for Housing
  2. ^ Hermann Wandersleb (Ed.): The accommodation of the federal organs in Bonn . Düsseldorf undated (October 1949), pp. 3, 5 (ill.).
  3. ↑ a b Bonn Enclave Statute (PDF file; 1.54 MB) . In: Information Bulletin , September 1950, p. 94.

literature

  • Helmut Vogt : Guardians of the Bonn Republic: The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955 , Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-70139-8 , pp. 42–44.
  • Franz Möller : The Rhein-Sieg-Kreis in the area of ​​tension between federal and state government 1949-2000 . Rheinlandia Verlag, Siegburg 2006, ISBN 3-938535-20-2 , p. 12.