Eugene Ricklin

Eugen Adolf Ricklin (* May 12, 1862 in Dannemarie (German Dammerkirch); † September 4, 1935 ibid) was a doctor and member of the German Reichstag as well as president of the second chamber of the regional parliament of the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine ( Alsace-Lorraine Center Party ).

Eugen Ricklin (1915)

education and profession

Ricklin was the son of a hotelier and from 1872 to 1883 attended the Lycée Belfort , the Realgymnasium Altkirch , and the grammar schools in Colmar and Regensburg . 1883 to 1888 he studied medicine at the Universities of Freiburg , Munich and Erlangen and graduated with doctorate to Dr. med. from. He finished his service as a one-year volunteer with the rank of senior physician in the Landwehr. From 1889 he was a general practitioner in Dammerkirch and later in Carspach-Sonnenberg with the title of medical councilor and cantonal doctor.

Politics and World War One

At the age of 29, he became town councilor in Dammerkirch in 1891 and mayor in 1896. In 1902 he was re-elected but was not confirmed by the imperial government on charges of lese majesty . But he remained a council member until 1908. He was also a member of the Upper Alsatian District Assembly from 1896 to 1918 . In 1906, his district parliament election was declared invalid because the Catholic clergy influenced the election . In the new election in early 1907, his election was confirmed. On January 15, 1917, he was elected President of the District Assembly.

From 1900 he was a member of the regional committee for Alsace-Lorraine and from 1911 for the constituency Altkirch-Dammerkirch member of the second chamber of the Alsace-Lorraine state parliament. On December 6, 1911, he was elected President of the Chamber with 54 of 57 votes.

Because he was so strong for the autonomy of Alsace and even rejected the Order of the Red Eagle , he was nicknamed the Lion of the Sundgau (D'r Sundgauer Leeb). From 1903 to 1918 he was also a member of the German Reichstag for the constituency of Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen 1 Altkirch , Thann . In 1913 and 1914 he took part in the peace conferences of the Interparliamentary Union in Bern and Basel .

During the First World War he was first used as a military doctor in Sulz in Alsace. When he stood up for the convicted Landtag colleague Médard Brogly , however, he was transferred to northern France to the front north of Amiens and Verdun .

After the First World War

On November 11, 1918, the Alsace-Lorraine Landtag declared itself a National Council and thus the sole authority of the Reichsland. A day later, a sovereign Alsace-Lorraine was proclaimed and all the tasks of the ministry and the Reich governor were taken over. However, this independence was not recognized by the French occupying power. On December 6, 1918, the state parliament voted for annexation to France.

The new French rulers invited him to a Commission de Triage . From this he was expelled and interned in Kork and Bodersweier near Kehl . In 1919/20 he was temporarily imprisoned and thereby deprived of the possibility of running for the French National Council elections.

After he was able to return to Alsace, he was expelled from the Alsatian Medical Association on May 17, 1925 for political reasons.

From January 1, 1926, he was editor of the autonomist weekly newspaper Die Zukunft in Zabern and on June 5, 1926, founding chairman of the Alsace-Lorraine Home League , which advocated greater autonomy for the region. During Bloody Sunday in Colmar he was injured. Under his leadership, the Heimatbund began working with the Corsican and Breton separatists and developed the strategy of the united front.

On March 16, 1928, he was arrested in Mulhouse in the run-up to the elections to the Chamber of Deputies , but was elected on April 29 while still in prison in the Altkirch constituency. He was sentenced in the Colmar plot on May 24, 1928 to one year in prison and 5 years of "residence ban", but was given amnesty on July 14, 1928 by the French President . Furthermore, Ricklin was elected to the Conseil General du Haut Rhin in October 1928 . His mandate in the Chamber of Deputies, however, was declared invalid on November 8, 1928 in a controversial vote of the Chamber, although Ricklin's civil rights were not deprived of the Colmar judgment. However, on November 8, a law of 1852 was invoked in Paris , which excluded those convicted of conspiracy from parliamentary offices. The due by-election for the Altkirch constituency was won on January 13th by Ricklin's successor Marcel Stürmel .

In the election for French President on May 13, 1931, Ricklin received six votes from Alsatian MPs.

He died on September 4, 1935 at 8:20 pm after a long hospital stay in his hometown.

literature

• Hermann Hiery : Reichstag elections in the Reichsland. A contribution to the regional history of Alsace-Lorraine and the electoral history of the German Empire 1871–1918 (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. 80). Droste, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-5132-7 , pp. 462-463, (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), University, dissertation, 1984).
• Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. 42). Lang, Bern et al. 1975, ISBN 3-261-01485-7 (at the same time: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1972).

Web links

Commons : Eugène Ricklin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Eugen Ricklin in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of Eugen Ricklin . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)
• Eugen Ricklin in the database of the French National Assembly

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alsace-Lorraine communications. Vol. 10, 1928, ZDB -ID 216231-3 , p. 601.
2. ^ Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine homeland and autonomy movement between the two world wars. 1975, p. 167.
3. ^ Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine homeland and autonomy movement between the two world wars. 1975, p. 172.