Franz Josef Heinz

Franz Josef Heinz (second from left) and members of his cabinet, 1923

Franz Josef Heinz , called Heinz-Orbis after his home community (born February 25, 1884 in Orbis ; † January 9, 1924 in Speyer ), was a Palatinate separatist . He advocated detaching the Palatinate from the German Empire and integrating it into the Rhenish Republic , a new state to be created, based on France , west of the Rhine .

origin

Heinz, who came from the northern Palatinate , was a farmer . As a self-proclaimed president, he led the Free Peasantry and in 1923 founded the armed Palatinate Corps . As a member of the German People's Party (DVP), he belonged to the Palatinate District Assembly from 1920, the successor organization of which is now the District Assembly of the Palatinate .

Autonomous Palatinate

Heinz's body, 1924, police photo from the crime scene

Memorial plaque at the Wittelsbacher Hof

On November 11, 1923, Heinz proclaimed the "Government of the Autonomous Palatinate in the Association of the Rhenish Republic" in Speyer . In doing so, he and his followers also opposed the government of the Free State of Bavaria, which was then responsible for the Palatinate .

With their approval, a group of opponents of the separatists carried out a fire attack on Heinz on January 9, 1924 in the dining room of the Wittelsbacher Hof Hotel in Speyer . The assassins were under the command of Edgar Julius Jung . In the attack, the separatists Heinz and the Trier separatist Nikolaus Fußhöller were shot, as well as a bystander, Matthias Sand from Würzburg . While the assassins fled, there was an exchange of fire with supporters of Heinz. Two of the assassins, Franz Hellinger and Ferdinand Wiesmann , were fatally injured.

The assassination of Heinz was transformed into a heroic patriotic act in the propaganda of the political right in the following years. In a plea from 1929 on the matter of the state of emergency, the lawyer Friedrich Grimm said that he could “from precise knowledge of things” assure “that the killing of the traitor Heinz Orbis was the decisive act”, “which the Palatinate at that time to Germanship have received. According to this setting the two dead bombers were later by right-wing parties, including the Speyer manufacturers Eduard Heintz, Gustav Kuhn and Karl Schalk belonged, and by the coming to power, the Nazis honored as martyrs for their country.

In addition to a commemorative plaque at the Wittelsbacher Hof, a Hellinger-Wiesmann memorial was erected in the Speyer cemetery in 1932 . It was maintained well into the 21st century and was part of the official city tour for Memorial Day until 2001 . According to a report by Matthias Spindler on SWR2 on February 23, 2002, the then Lord Mayor of Speyer, Werner Schineller , had maintenance work stopped.

Heinz himself has been buried in the cemetery of his birthplace since January 14, 1924 and was honored with a commemorative plaque on the cemetery wall. The Bishop of Speyer, Ludwig Sebastian , had refused a Catholic funeral service because Heinz had “acted as a revolutionary against the God-given order. Obvious and known sinners were not worthy of a church burial, and Mr. Heinz was to be treated as such. "

literature

• Gerhard graves, Matthias Spindler: Revolver republic on the Rhine. The Palatinate and its separatists . tape 1 : November 1918 to November 1923 . Pfälzische Verlags-Anstalt, Landau / Pfalz 1992, ISBN 3-87629-164-X .
• Gerhard graves, Matthias Spindler: The Palatinate Liberators. People's anger and state violence in the armed struggle against Palatinate separatism 1923/24 . Pro Message, Ludwigshafen / Rhein 2005, ISBN 3-934845-24-X .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jonathan Osmond: Free Peasantry, 1919–1929 / 33. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . March 24, 2011, accessed September 18, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Helmut Gembries: Palatinate Corps. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . January 26, 2010, accessed February 25, 2015 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Memorial commemorates an assassination attempt. Historischer Verein Speyer, accessed on September 18, 2015 (button “ Read more ”). 
4. ^ Wilhelm Kreutz, Karl Scherer (ed.): The Palatinate under French occupation (1918 / 19–1930) (=  contributions to the history of the Palatinate . Volume 15 ). District Association of the Palatinate, Kaiserslautern 1999, ISBN 3-927754-24-2 , p. 72 .
5. ↑ Attorney Prof. Dr. Grimm food. Defense speech . In: The Heines trial. A chapter of German hardship . Munich 1929, p. 92.
6. ↑ Michael Ohmsen: Memorial for Franz Hellinger and Ferdinand Wiesmann. April 20, 2010, accessed January 25, 2015 . 
7. ^ ^{A b} Lothar Wettstein: Josef Bürckel - Gauleiter, Reichsstatthalter, crisis manager Adolf Hitler . 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-1761-3 , pp. 51 ( Google Books, accessed September 18, 2015 ).