Mainz Jacobin Club

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Assembly of the Mainz Jacobin Club in the academy hall of the electoral palace. Probably Georg Forster at the lectern . The members of the Jacobin Club seated in front of the barrier, behind them spectators and visitors.

The Mainz Jacobin Club was founded on October 23, 1792 in the academy hall of the Electoral Palace in Mainz as an association of German Jacobins . The official founding name was Society of Friends of Freedom and Equality . It was founded two days after the conquest of Mainz by French revolutionary troops under General Adam-Philippe de Custine . The model for the Mainz Jacobin Club was the French Society of Friends of the Constitution , which had met in the Paris Jacobin monastery since December 1789 and was given the common name of the Jacobin Club .

The Mainz Jacobin Club is considered to be the first democratic movement in Germany and was a formative political force of the short-lived Mainz Republic . With almost 500 members it was the largest of the revolutionary clubs that were founded in 1792/93 during the French occupation of southwest Germany. Politically, the members were active in the spirit of the ideals of the French Revolution until the final dissolution in May 1793.

prehistory

General Custine

After the first phase of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1791, the political course for countermeasures was set at the Fürstentag in the Favorite pleasure palace in Mainz (July 19-21, 1792). The recently crowned Emperor Franz II , the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II , the host Elector of Mainz Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal and numerous other princes and diplomats decided here to take another, also military, action against revolutionary France. The result was the First Coalition War . After the cannonade of Valmy , which was victorious for France on September 20, 1792, the French revolutionary army counterattacked and conquered Mainz on October 21, 1792 under General Adam-Philippe de Custine . Here he found a large number of citizens who sympathized with the ideas of the French Revolution. These were mostly professors and students of the University of Mainz, but also officials of the electoral administration.

Possible predecessor institutions of the Mainz Jacobin Club

Matthias Metternich, Jacobin of the first hour in the learned reading society , from 1791 democratic reading society

The question of whether there were institutions to be interpreted as predecessor institutions to the Mainz Jacobin Club during the electoral era is controversial. While historians such as Heinrich Scheel , Walter Grab , Hans Grassl or Jörg Schweigard, among others , clearly affirm this, Franz Dumont speaks out against it.

The Mainz learned reading society in particular could be considered the predecessor institution of the Mainz Jacobin Club . This was founded in 1781/82 with the aim of making modern literature accessible at affordable prices and providing a discussion platform on current topics. The 24 political magazines in the portfolio alone and a large number of enlightened-liberal intellectuals as members of society ensured an increasing politicization of the reading society. This is also supported by the fact that Mathias Metternich , Felix Anton Blau , Anton Joseph Dorsch or Andreas Joseph Hofmann , all professors of the electoral university, later became leading and radical Jacobins members of the reading society. When this split in 1791 due to differences in the content of its members over writings on the French Revolution, Metternich and his colleague Andreas Joseph Hofmann were in charge of dividing the reading society into an aristocratic and a democratic reading society .

The Mainz group of the politically active Illuminati movement , which was banned in 1785, was also a reservoir for pre-revolutionary activities. Numerous later Jacobins from Mainz, such as the electoral police officer and later mayor Franz Konrad Macké , had their first contact with the ideas of the Enlightenment here . After the abolition of the Mainz Illuminati Lodge in February 1786, a secret society of propaganda was founded in May of the same year , whose members were largely recruited from former Mainz Illuminati and whose activities were largely similar to those of the Mainz Jacobin Club, which was founded six years later. So it is not surprising that three of the founding members of the Mainz Jacobin Club came from the ranks of the "Propaganda Club" and that the committee for management and correspondence of the Mainz Jacobin Club was made up of the same active members from the circles of the former Illuminati and propagandists except for one person.

It is also known that there were numerous private circles and circles in Mainz as early as 1792, in which primarily intellectuals, but also students from the electoral university who were not admitted to the learned reading society , more or less actively discussed enlightenment and revolutionary ideas.

The Mainz Jacobin Club

founding

Georg Wilhelm Böhmer, initiator of the Mainz Jacobin Club

With the takeover of power by General Custine and the affiliation of Mainz as Mayence to the First French Republic , all the necessary prerequisites for political activity in the spirit of the new masters of Mainz were created. The Worms theologian, canon lawyer and former university professor Georg Wilhelm Böhmer , meanwhile Custine's secretary, had come to Mainz with the French troops. Just one day later, on October 22nd, 1792, he publicly called in the “Privileged Mainzer Zeitung”, of which he had just become editor, for the establishment of a “Society of German Friends of Freedom and Equality”, which would be like the Paris Jacobin Club:

“ Tonight at 6 o'clock a society of German friends of freedom and equality from all classes will join in the large academy hall at the local castle by a solemn oath to live or die freely. The citizen, General Cüstine, has promised her to glorify this scene in the name of the Franconian Republic by his presence. Admission is free to every German to whom the happiness of his fatherland and humanity sighing on slave chains is a holy name. One only notices that no one can be admitted who does not belong to the society or who wants to join it by taking the oath mentioned. Immediately after this ceremony, all members sign their names under the oath formula in the minutes of the society, which then through daily public meetings the freedom and equality of the people of Mainz - and maybe God give it! will prepare that of the rest of the great German nation. "

- Georg Wilhelm Böhmer in the Mainzer Zeitung No. 168 on October 22, 1792
Georg Wedekind around 1800

This was preceded by a meeting the day before with Custine's Adjutant General Stamm, which Böhmer led. During his campaign, Custine planned the establishment of revolutionary societies and looked for experienced people as suitable mediators for the revolutionary ideas in these bodies. Boehmer's activities were expressly promoted and supported by him. Custine also arranged for monetary payments to be made to the supporters of the French cause who were willing to set up the business through Böhmer. Böhmer, on the other hand, referred directly to General Custine several times during his activities in Mainz and officially acted on his behalf and on behalf of him.

20 people, mostly from the environment of the University of Mainz, appeared on the evening of October 23, 1792 in the academy hall of the Electoral Palace. Böhmer appeared accompanied by the doctor Georg von Wedekind and the merchant André Patocki . He opened the constituent session with General Custine's apology that “urgent war business” was being held up, and propaganda material was distributed. Speeches followed by the court judge, Kaspar Hartmann , who was to develop from an electoral court official into one of the most uncompromising Jacobins in Mainz, as well as the professors Georg Wedekind and Mathias Metternich , in which the old regime of the elector and his aristocrats were primarily attacked. Then those present signed a joint protocol. This welcomed the liberation and the support of the French, declared the formal union of the Society of Friends of Freedom and Equality and stated that the Strasbourg Jacobin Club would be asked to send its statutes. Live or die free with the solemn oath of acceptance ! this first meeting of the Mainz Jacobin Club ended.

In addition to Böhmer, the founding members of the Mainz Club included university professors Mathias Metternich, Georg Wedekind and Andreas Joseph Hofmann , other professors and students at the university, as well as businesspeople such as André Patocki or Georg Häfelin or the military such as Rudolf Eickemeyer . Georg Häfelin was elected founding president at the next meeting on the following day, and Mathias Metternich became his deputy.

Growth and climax

Protocol book of the Mainz Jacobin Club

The academy hall was already overcrowded at the second meeting on October 24th, at which General Custine also attended and spoke to the visitors. In the following, approximately two-week founding phase, the number of members increased rapidly and by the end of November 1792 reached the highest level of exactly 492 registered members. During this phase the club’s political program was drawn up in its broad outline.

The attempt by conservative and moderate forces to use the Jacobin Club merely as a passive forum for discussion in the context of the changes that followed was also clearly rejected during this time. Most members wanted to be actively involved in the democratization process that was now beginning. The fact that the club members actively and of their own accord took part in actions in the context of social change was demonstrated by the high-profile self-initiative to erect a tree of freedom on the farm and the creation of a “Red Book of Freedom” and a “Black Book of Slavery” in the the people of Mainz should freely decide and vote for or against the revolutionary ideas of the French.

Jacobins from Alsace , such as Anton Joseph Dorsch , who held a professorship for philosophy at the University of Mainz from Strasbourg until 1791 , contributed to the further intensification of the club's work . These had been recruited by Custine at an earlier point in time to support the newly founded Jacobin Club in the area on the left bank of the Rhine and in the early days they had a lasting impact on the structure, organization and propaganda effect of the Mainz Jacobin Club. The club's popularity and reputation also increased with the later entry of important and well-known Mainz personalities. The entrance of the popular among the people police commissioner and later mayor elected Franz Konrad Macke had an important signaling function for the little represented plebeians. Two days later - after initial reservations and hesitant weighing of his future political stance - the entry of the researcher and scholar Georg Forster , who is well known far beyond the city and state borders, was noticed outside of Mainz.

Georg Forster, painting by JHW Tischbein

In mid-November, General Custine appointed leading members of the club such as Forster and Dorsch to high offices in the newly created civil administration. Dorsch, for example, became President of the General Administration and thus the highest civilian representative in the entire French occupied territory. This increase in authority, regulatory power and prestige and thus the appreciation of Custine for the Mainz Jacobins active in the club and the high number of members at the end of November with almost 500 members simultaneously show the high point of the work of the Mainz Jacobin Club.

From the beginning of December 1792 there was a stagnation of the continuously growing membership. The first military failures of the French Revolutionary Army near Frankfurt am Main against Prussian and Austrian troops, combined with the recapture of Frankfurt by them, were largely responsible for this. In addition, on December 13, 1792, the French occupying power officially declared a state of war for Mayence. The exercise of unrestricted powers by the military council under Custine drastically restricted the scope of action of the civil administration. The Mainz Jacobin Club was severely restricted in its possibilities and previous sympathizers and members now kept more distance from the Mainz Jacobins because of the uncertain political future. Another extremely negative development for the future of the Mainz Jacobin Club began at the end of December 1792. As early as mid-November 1792, different views on the future of the territory on the left bank of the Rhine and above all a possible merger with France led to internal ideological and programmatic disputes. The result was a camp formation between a moderate and a more radical wing of the leading club members. These have now come to light.

Dissolution, end, re-establishment and final dissolution

Seal of the Second Jacobin Club, 1793

The decline of the Mainz Jacobin Club continued at the beginning of 1793. There were violent disputes, this time publicly fought, between the moderate and radical wings of the Jacobin Club. The radically oriented club leadership around Dorsch, Wedekind and Böhmer was confronted with growing opposition to the question of how to proceed in the "revolutionization" of the population. At the club meeting on January 10, 1793, therefore, the topic Why do the principles of liberty and equality receive so little approval? to be discussed. There was a scandal when Andreas Hofmann, spokesman for the dissatisfied club members, took turns attacking Wedekind, Dorsch as head of the general administration, Forster, his deputy, Friedrich Georg Pape , the chairman of the influential Correspondence Committee and, ultimately, the French occupation forces. Andreas Hofmann now represented the interests of the Mainz population in the Mainz Jacobin Club, and in particular those of the lower social classes. He was charged with defamation in return by Custine the next day and threatened with execution for treason. The clubists he attacked immediately accused Hofmann of collaborating with the coadjutor and deputy of the elector, Karl Theodor von Dalberg , which was, however, a fictitious one . The intensification of these internal disputes, the increasing inability of the club to act, the criticism of the behavior of the French soldiers and their leadership, which was presented for the first time so publicly, in clear contrast to the behavior of the French soldiers and their leadership, all of which ultimately led to a further stagnation of the "revolutionization" of the population, the main goal of the Mainz Jacobin Club.

This did not progress as quickly and sustainably as the French (and most of the German Jacobins) still wanted. Both the German Jacobins and the French administration were disappointed by the "liberated" who, in their opinion, behaved too phlegmatically and did not take the initiative to change course politically. Forster in particular expressed himself in private letters - but never publicly - about the people's inability to exercise their own freedom: I maintain that Germany is not ripe for a revolution. ... our raw, poor, uneducated people can only rage, but not constitute themselves.

From the right promised to the Mainzers by Custine on October 26th, 1792 “Your own, unconstrained will should decide your fate. Even if you prefer slavery to the benefits with which freedom beckons, it is up to you to decide which despot should return your bonds to you. ” Soon there was no longer any question. In a decree of the French Convention of December 15, 1792, there was a paradigm shift of previous revolutionary policy in the occupied areas on the left bank of the Rhine, which was already becoming apparent. The liberated population's right to self-determination was quasi suspended and the convention in Paris increased its pressure in the occupied German territories, which in fact were increasingly being given the status of "war conquests". General assemblies to elect and set up provisional governments and courts should be held in order to finally control and accelerate the process of political reshuffle on the French model. The French convention sent the three convention members Nicolas Haussmann , Merlin de Thionville and Jean François Reubell and two national commissioners to Mainz as direct delegates from the convention and the executive council. The latter, in cooperation with General Custine, represented the interests of the occupying power France in the provisional government to be elected. Their instructions, which were discussed and adopted in advance in the Convention on the same day, gave them far-reaching powers: the two National Commissioners should immediately eliminate all reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, especially those among the nobility and clergy, acting openly or secretly. They were responsible for the control of the French occupation army and the research and rectification of grievances in equipment or food. Both had far-reaching powers in political matters with the still-to-be-elected and constitutive administration in Mainz. Jean-Frédéric Simon , an Alsatian intellectual, and Gabriel Grégoire, his brother-in-law, also from Alsace, were appointed on January 13, 1793 and arrived in Mainz on January 31.

In addition to this clearly stricter control by Paris, there were also military defeats of the French troops and the steady advance of Allied troops (Prussia and imperial troops from different areas of the Holy Roman Empire) towards Mainz. All this led to a drastic decline in membership from 492 members at the end of November 1792 to around 150 in February 1793, and to an increasing insignificance of the club and its activities.

The French national commissioner of the “Pouvoir exécutif”, Jean-Frédéric Simon, finally announced in March 1793 in Mainz the closure of the Mainz Jacobin Club and the simultaneous re-establishment of a “Société des Allemands libres”. This successor organization, known in German as the Society of Friends of the Republic , was supposed to replace the previous club while excluding the previous moderate members. Just like its role model, the Jacobin Club in Paris, it was primarily intended to prepare the content of the parliamentary debate in the Rhenish-German National Convention . This "second Mainz Jacobin Club" started its work in March 1793; one last sign of life of this meaningless successor organization dates back to the beginning of May 1793. With the enclosure of Mainz in June 1793 at the latest, it quietly dissolved. Immediately after the reconquest of Mainz on July 23, 1793, many clubists were subjected to reprisals by the population, and there was abuse and looting in the urban area and in front of the city gates. Goethe himself was an eyewitness to such abuse of fleeing clubists and later described this in his autobiographical work Siege of Mainz :

“ Individual coaches ran hurriedly down the street again, but everywhere the citizens of Mainz had camped in the Chaussegraben, and as the fugitives escaped an ambush they fell into the hands of the other. The car was stopped, and if French women were found they were allowed to escape, well-known clubists by no means. A very beautiful three-horse traveling carriage rolls around, a friendly young lady does not fail to be seen and greet us on both sides; but the postilion is caught by the reins, the blow is opened, an arch-clubist at their side is immediately recognized. Of course, he could not be mistaken for his short build, plump, broad face, pale pitted. He's already torn out by the feet; one closes the blow and wishes the beauty a happy journey. But he is dragged to the next field, pounded and beaten terribly; all the limbs of his body are bruised, his face unrecognizable. A guard finally takes care of him, they take him to a farmhouse, where he was lying on straw from the assaults of his enemies of the city, but not from abuse, glee and abuse. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Siege of Mainz

About a hundred of the most active clubists, including Mathias Metternich and Franz Macké, were taken hostage to the fortresses of Königstein and Ehrenbreitstein and imprisoned for a long time. The last 39 former prominent club members , meanwhile imprisoned at the Petersberg Citadel in Erfurt , were allowed to emigrate to France at the beginning of 1795; In return, Mainz residents deported in 1793 were allowed to return. Other leading clubists such as Andreas Joseph Hofmann were able to get out of the city unmolested. Many went into exile in Strasbourg or Paris, where there was a Societé des Refugiés Mayençais , an association of exiled Mainz revolutionaries.

But the less active or even passive members of the Mainz Jacobin Club were also affected. For example, craftsmen who were members of the club were expelled from their guilds at the instigation of their colleagues loyal to the regime. Former electoral officials or holders of public offices who exposed themselves publicly within the framework of club membership were punished with various penalties, from fines to suspension from office to expulsion from the Electorate of Mainz. Nevertheless, from 1798 onwards, many of these "clubists" were to play a leading role again in the Mayence , which was now permanently part of France .

organization

After the constitution of the club in the following period - up to the beginning of December 1792 - organization and regulations were established. These were essentially based on the model of the Parisian and Strasbourg Jacobin Club, to which many German emigrants belonged. At the founding meeting it was decided, among other things, to ask the Strasbourg Jacobins for their statutes. In the second club meeting on October 24th, the executive committee was elected with the businessman Georg Häfelin as president and Mathias Metternich as vice-president and it was decided to hold public meetings in principle.

The presidium consisted of the president and the vice-president as well as four secretaries who were newly elected every four weeks. Organs of the club were the public plenary and the non-public "Comité général". In addition, there were five more committees, the installation of which lasted from November 1792 to January 1793. These were devoted to different tasks: the teaching, security, economics, charity and correspondence committee. The teaching or instruction committee ("Comité d'instruction") was of particular importance. The committee consisted of a total of 21 members, who not only set the agenda for the club meetings, but also independently carried out revolutionary propaganda. The population should be comprehensively informed about topics such as the constitution, law, finance, science or religion in the context of public lectures by members. The security committee was set up along the lines of the Paris model to combat counter-revolutionaries, but it also proved to be an effective tool against opposition inside and outside the club. The charity committee was supposed to help needy Jacobins as well as people outside the club who it wanted to win over to membership. The correspondence committee set up immediately after the club was founded was also of great importance. Top-class members of Metternich, Wedekind, Patocki, Hofmann, Westhofen and later also Forster and Pape, this committee devoted itself in many ways to correspondence at national and international level. He was also responsible for the "Affiliation", the fraternization of the Mainz Jacobin Club with the clubs in Strasbourg and especially in Paris; a process that gave the Mainz Jacobin Club, on the one hand, a great gain in prestige and authority and, on the other hand, was very important psychologically for the Mainz Jacobins.

Members could be men from the age of 18, from the beginning of November from the age of 24. Certain social and professional groups such as servants, day laborers and women in general were excluded from membership. A potential candidate for admission had to be "promoted" by a Jacobin and supported by five other members. If no more than eleven members of the Jacobin Club objected in three consecutive meetings, the candidate was considered accepted.

An essential aspect of the activity of the Mainz Jacobin Club was its principally public work. All meetings of the club were public according to a resolution taken on the second day of its existence. In the beginning they met every evening in the academy hall of the Electoral Palace, but later they only met four evenings a week. When the castle was converted into a hospital in early December 1792, the club moved into the "Comedy House".

Size and composition

Festive event in the academy hall of the former Electoral Palace

With a total of 492 registered members, the Mainz Jacobin Club was a considerable size - also in comparison to similar institutions that followed in the cities of Speyer and Worms , which were also occupied by French . The approximately 450 club members resident in Mainz came from among the approximately 7,000 Mainz residents who were entitled to admission. Of the total of 23,000-25,000 inhabitants of Mainz in 1792, these were only men over the age of 18, later 24 years of age. Women and younger men were not allowed to join the club. The degree of political organization within the population was thus around 6%, a value that comparable French organizations or today's political parties rarely achieve.

The registered members of the Mainz Jacobin Club were made up of almost all strata of the Mainz population. After the formalities that preceded the official admission, the new members signed a list of members that was kept for the club by the notary Johann Baptist Bittong. This list of members, later stored in the main state archive in Darmstadt, was the only authentic source on the members of the Mainz Jacobin Club until it was destroyed in World War II . 50 members of the Jacobin Club were French. The most prominent member was General Custine himself, who, however, did not join the club until November 18, 1792 - for reasons related to the war, as he stated.

With around 45%, the largest individual group, albeit almost entirely passive, was made up of smaller merchants and master craftsmen and journeymen as representatives of the guild bourgeoisie . Representatives of the educated middle class and intellectuals such as professors, clergy, doctors, lawyers and students followed with 21%. They were followed with equal strength by the group of former electoral officials and French citizens with 10% each. 8% of the club members did not give a job title when they joined; they often included farmers, for example. The proportion of upper-class merchants who stayed away from the Mainz Jacobin Club was vanishingly small.

Professors and other intellectuals

Although only about every fifth member of the Jacobin Club belonged to this group, their influence on its activities was disproportionately great. Almost all of the professors who were politically active before October 1792, such as Wedekind, Metternich, Eickemeyer, Hofmann, were either directly involved in founding the Jacobin Club or soon joined it. With the internationally known researcher and writer Georg Forster , who only joined the Jacobin Club at the beginning of November, the institution gained an additional reputation.

With a few exceptions, the group of professors and intellectuals, such as the lawyer, publisher and journalist Christoph Friedrich Cotta , provided the president and vice-president of the Mainz Jacobin Club.

Students at the University of Mainz

Friedrich Lehne

When the club was founded, numerous students from the Metternich, Wedekind and Hofmann environment also joined the club. The entry age there was initially 18 years and was raised to 24 years on November 7, 1792 at Dorsch's suggestion, despite violent protests from the younger, predominantly student members. Numerous students were thus excluded from membership, but those who had previously joined could remain in the club.

Of these students, Nikolaus Müller and Friedrich Lehne should be mentioned in particular , who were already politically active in the run-up and quickly made a career. The law student Dominik Meuth was also a founding member and later published the Franconian observer together with the former court judge Kaspar Hartmann .

Electoral officials

The members of the Mainz Jacobin Club also included some high electoral court officials. The proportion of civil servants in the total number of members was around 11%. The electoral court judge Kaspar Hartmann was already involved in the founding of the club and gave a speech at its founding meeting on October 23, 1792 for the "resurrection of previously suppressed human rights and (the) introduction of freedom and equality" and attacked leading Mainz aristocrats . The early arrival of the Prince Elector of Mainz Police Commissioner Franz Konrad Macké was also attentively registered by the Mainz population.

Wholesale merchants

As already written, their share of the members was extremely small. One of the leading representatives of this small group, however, was the commercial clerk André Patocki. Already in the electoral times he belonged to the pro-revolutionary circle around Mathias Metternich and was a founding member of the Mainz Jacobin Club. The merchant Georg Häfelin was deliberately elected as its first president on October 24, 1792, the second day of its existence. Together with Mathias Metternich as Vice President, he held the office until November 24, 1792. Patocki and Häfelin also played an important role in the later Mainz municipality. Eight days after it was constituted, the 24-year-old Jewish money broker Nathan Maas joined the Jacobin Club. He also accompanied the train, which four days later, on November 3, 1792, set up the first freedom tree in Mainz on the courtyard. On the same day that he took the oath on the revolutionary constitution, Maas resigned from the Jacobin Club in the spring of 1793. For his support of the revolutionary activities he was arrested and imprisoned in the Electorate of Mainz at the end of 1794 and expelled from Mainz in 1796.

Craftsman

The craftsmen, who were still organized in guilds , together with small businessmen and lower officials of the electoral state, made up the largest single group of club members with 45%. In this group, around 200 Jacobin craftsmen were dominant, but in the organized guilds they only represented 10% of the guild citizens. However, the numerical dominance of the craftsmen was not reflected in the management level of the Mainz Jacobin Club. Here intellectuals such as professors, publicists, students or senior officials of the electorate dominated.

Political activity

Many of the leading club members were already politically active in the run-up to the club's formation in the spirit of the French Revolution. With the founding of the Mainz Jacobin Club and the protegation by General Custine, these activities have now been bundled, intensified and subsequently carried beyond the city limits. The Mainz Jacobin Club became the most important organ of the Mainz Jacobins and the most important instrument of the French occupying power for the political mobilization of the population. His main task was to educate, inform and of course revolutionize the population of Mainz. For this purpose, the active club members mainly used the public meeting evenings in the academy hall of the Electoral Palace. There, political speeches were given in front of club members and - at the club's weddings - up to 1000 visitors, and some of them were printed out and distributed free of charge or sold later.

Leading members of the Jacobin Club such as Mathias Metternich visited places around Mainz in their function as "Voting Commissioner" ( Sub-Commissair ) at the end of 1792 / beginning of 1793 and promoted the ideas of the French Revolution and, more specifically, for the establishment of a republic based on the Paris model the adoption of the "Frankish Constitution" . The vote initiated by the general administration, consisting of nine members of the club, on a new constitution and a new form of government (“ Mainz Republic ”) was the last and - in relation to the citizens with voting power - the most concrete approach to revolutionizing. As part of this constitutional vote, the Mainz Jacobins supported the local activities massively and with personal commitment, but with very different degrees of success.

In the subsequent elections of the local councils (in Mainz a Maire and his deputy were elected) and members of the Rhenish-German National Convention, the parliament of the desired Mainz Republic, from February 24 to 26, 1793, the members of the Mainz Jacobin Club were rarely represented. In the lists of names of the Mainz electoral sections, a total of only 168 club members and 15 suspected club members were recorded, making up 49% of the total voters. Since only 8% (372 citizens) voted in the entire Mainz city area, measured against the 4626 citizens entitled to vote, the active club members did not succeed in politically mobilizing their own members or even the voting population. On the contrary, the elections were boycotted by the majority of the eligible population of Mainz - in clear contrast to the other large cities of Worms and Speyer - as an expression of a conscious political demonstration.

The political work of the now dissolved club was later carried on by its leading members in other areas of public and political life. In the municipal administration, from Maire Macké downwards, all elected persons were former, usually leading, club members. Leading members of the club were elected in the Rhine-German National Convention with Andreas Joseph Hofmann as President and Georg Forster as Vice-President. Likewise, of the 45 candidates who received votes at all, all but two were former club members.

The political position of the Mainz Jacobin Club towards the occupying power of France and its goals was quite ambivalent during its active time. At the beginning, almost all revolutionary goals were agreed with the French, but this changed at the end of 1792. A rather radical wing in the Jacobin Club around Wedekind, Dorsch, Pape and Metternich saw the realization of the revolutionary ideas and goals only in unconditional cooperation to reach with the French. The closest possible connection to France, which should become a reunification address with France after the establishment of the Mainz republic, and the Rhine as the border of the republic against aristocratic-despotic Germany was championed by this wing. The more moderate part of the Mainz Jacobin Club, to which Hofmann and Macké belonged, thought more pragmatically here. On the one hand you saw the lack of support from the population, especially the farmers and guild citizens, and on the other hand the increasing violence and restriction by the French occupying forces, especially by the army. In their respective offices, Hofmann and Macké also represented the interests of the Mainz population vis-à-vis the French occupation forces rather than their more radical colleagues in the club.

Despite all the quarrels, the work of the Mainz Jacobins and - at a later point in time - the affiliation of Mainz and Rheinhessen to France formed a starting point for the political and social attitude of the population in southwest Germany in later attempts at a liberal-democratic development of Germany. The Hambach Festival in 1832 was not randomly oriented citizens who were active in a significantly more liberal system than the rest of Germany politically and socially or growing up. Important components of the system were known as the Rhenish Institutions and primarily concerned the liberal legislation and jurisprudence adopted from the French era. Some of the first Jacobins like Georg Friedrich Rebmann or Franz Konrad Macké were still active as mayor in Mainz at that time, some were representatives of the next generation or the next but one such as Germain Metternich , son of Mathias Metternich or Franz Heinrich Zitz , grandson of the clubist Jakob Schneiderhenn. And so in 1833, exactly 40 years after the dissolution of the Mainz Jacobin Club, the Austrian State Chancellor and namesake of the Metternich system, Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich, could say about Mainz: "Mainz is a terrible Jacobin nest."

Counter-revolutionary journalism for the Mainz Jacobin Club

Portrait of the Elector of Mainz statesman and General Feldzeugmeister Franz Joseph von Albini

The contemporary view of the Mainz Jacobin Club by the counter-revolutionary forces is usually to be equated with that of the Mainz Jacobins and often also connected with the complex of topics of the Mainz Republic . Conservative forces throughout the Reich began a "counter-revolutionary journalism" that was highly personalized and often directly attacked leading Jacobins of the Mainz Club. These were accused of treason, ingratitude and also a lack of morality. The surrender of the mighty imperial fortress Mainz to the French without a fight could, according to the tenor of journalism, only be explained by treason. Here Rudolf Eickemeyer in particular was attacked in his capacity as a member of the military council and leader of the surrender negotiations with Custine. Georg Wedekind was accused of betraying the plans of the Mainz fortress works during a visit by Custine to Nierstein .

Scientists such as Georg Forster or Mathias Metternich, who came to Mainz penniless, were exposed to the most widespread accusation of ingratitude towards the electoral patron. Thus Georg Forster from under the pseudonym Gottlob Teutsch written Franz von Albini , in his Electoral Mainz court chancellor and ministers, as a counter-revolutionary pamphlet in 1793 "true parasite on Mainzer ground" referred.

A lack of morality and moral misconduct was primarily attributed to the revolutionary and highly exposed clergy such as Anton Joseph Dorsch or Felix Anton Blau , as they had broken celibacy, among other things . The still conservative and strictly Catholic population of Mainz and Rheinhessen welcomed these, often voyeuristic and excessively exaggerated and expanded accusations and, above all, weakened the position of the politician Dorsch. Other motives of counter-revolutionary journalism were denominational prejudices, which also met with a great deal of acceptance among the Catholic population. Georg Forster and Georg Wedekind, both Protestants and leading representatives of the Mainz Jacobin Club, should be mentioned here. An anti-revolutionary printed work brought this to the following statement: " To be a stranger and a Protestant - that was the best recommendation at court!"

More subtle and less direct were the allegations that the enthusiasm for the revolution in Mainz was driven by intellectuals - mostly foreigners - above all professors and students from the University of Mainz. They not only disappointed and disappointed the elector who supported them, but also, as foreigners, had no interest in Mainz and the well-being of the residents. Here the conservative publicists successfully alluded to the latent xenophobia that was widespread in Mainz in the late 18th century and to the social envy of the simple city population towards these outsiders, who were extensively protected by the electorate until recently.

A large number of counter-revolutionary leaflets, especially in rural areas, also unsettled the rural population. If they collaborated with the French and Jacobins, they were threatened with losing their property later on; a threat which, together with the increasingly rigid approach taken by the French army command and its soldiers in the requisitioning of food, had an effect.

reception

Franz Dumont sees the extensive counter-reporting of conservative forces in the empire against the leading Jacobins of the Mainz Jacobin Club in the years 1792 and 1793 as characterized by "a high degree of defamation, even demonization of the opponents" and by "polemical exaggerations". The designation of people as “clubists” became a winged term used exclusively pejoratively . Following the revolutionary propaganda, leaflets and printed publications of all kinds were used, which were distributed generously and in large quantities among the people, also on the left bank of the Rhine.

After the end of the Mainz Republic and the club, these activities came to an end quickly. It was not until the middle of the 19th century and some time after the revolution of 1848/1849 that this chapter of the Mainz people and the all-German-French past were dealt with again. In German historiography , critical voices about the Republic of Mainz and its protagonists, the Mainz Jacobins, dominated for almost 100 years. In the wake of the Franco-German hereditary enmity , catchphrases such as “French rule”, “French affection” or “clubism” dominated the publications that were often regional history until the end of the Second World War. Mainz historians such as Karl Klein , who wrote in his work History of Mainz during the first French occupation 1792–1793 1861 about the time when “our country fell into the hands of the hereditary enemy” or Karl Georg Bockenheimer with his publication from 1896 about The Mainz Clubists of the years 1792 and 1793 should be mentioned here. As an example of the supra-regional and negative evaluation of the Mainz Jacobins, reference is made to the formulation used by Heinrich von Treitschke in his German history and reduction of the Jacobins to “a handful of noisy fireheads” who also committed treason.

The stations of German-French relations between 1850 and 1945 and in particular the close ties between Mainz and the area on the left bank of the Rhine with France after the First World War ( French occupation of the Rhineland , Rhenish separatism ) continued to shape the view and repeatedly resulted in negative revival occupied parallels to the Republic of Mainz, shaped by the original counter-revolutionary view. An exception to this was the four-volume work Sources and History of the Rhineland in the Age of the French Revolution by Joseph Hansen , which appeared in 1931 and which also went into other sources on the Republic of Mainz in its second volume.

Even after the Second World War , the image of the Republic of Mainz and its protagonists, the “clubists” in historiography and by conservative historians, was rather negatively influenced. In the first case, the episode in revolutionary history of the short-lived Mainz Republic with its institution Jacobin Club was found to be insignificant and therefore not worth mentioning. The leading Jacobins in Mainz were either still referred to with the conventional and unchanged adopted pejorative attributes of the counter-revolution, for example Helmut Mathy , who Anton Joseph Dorsch wrote in 1967 in his work Anton Joseph Dorsch (1758-1819). Describes the life and work of a Rhenish Jacobin as "obstinate and selfish in his character", or was not a subject of historical scientific work. It was not until the beginning of the 1970s that the Mainz Jacobin Club and its members became the subject of research. In the GDR , the topic was addressed as early as the 1960s for political and ideological reasons. This work culminated in the three-volume work by Heinrich Scheel Die Mainzer Republik , the second volume of which is devoted to the minutes of the meetings of the Mainz Jacobin Club. Today there is broad consensus among historians that Scheel's source work, especially in the area mentioned, is exemplary, but that many of the conclusions drawn from it are outdated due to the political-ideological orientation of his work.

Through suggestions from the milieu of the intellectual scene of the social democracy and the labor movement, but also, for example, from the Federal President Gustav Heinemann , who called for the search for the roots of German democracy, one occupied himself in the period after 1968 and with the help of a new and less conservative one Generation of historians with the topic again, but this time from a more social-liberal and workers-historical perspective. This new research work was often in contrast to the classical, established research.

Another basic work on the subject complex is the book by Franz Dumont, Die Mainzer Republik , published for the first time in 1982 and revised and reissued in 1992, from 1792/93 . Dumont analyzes, among other things, the Mainz Jacobin Club, its composition and its political work in detail. For him, the Mainz Jacobin Club and its activists were "the undisputed center of all efforts to introduce democracy" and the "supporting and shaping, sometimes also the pressing forces" in the process of the political mobilization of the new subjects initiated by the French. Dumont also stated that the Jakobin Club in Mainz had a barely controversial significance at the end of the 20th century (among historians) as the first organized group of German democrats and a precursor to a political party. However, the Mainz Jacobin Club failed as a representation of the "common people" or the "working masses". This was due, on the one hand, to the discrepancy between the numerically small but politically leading stratum of intellectuals on the one hand and the significantly larger number of, however, politically inactive craftsmen on the other. And among the rural population, the support of the club through membership of 2% (that is, less than ten members of the total number of members) was virtually non-existent among the farmers group.

"Place of the Mainzer Republic".

The Republic of Mainz and its protagonists were discussed on a larger scale again in 2013. In the run-up to the 220th anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Mainz on March 17th, the Old Town Advisory Board in Mainz applied for the name of Deutschhausplatz to be renamed “Platz der Mainzer Republik”. This proposal was partly controversially discussed in public, with the question of the legitimation and understanding of democracy of the Republic of Mainz and its founders, the Mainz Jacobins, being discussed again. After the Mainz city council approved the renaming by a majority, it was carried out punctually on March 17, 2013, exactly 220 years after the proclamation of the Mainz republic in the same place. Franz Dumont was a prominent proponent of the renaming, and shortly before his death he commented in detail in the Mainz daily press.

swell

  • Heinz Boberach : German Jacobins. Republic of Mainz and Cisrhenans 1792–1798. Volume 1: Manual. Contributions to the democratic tradition in Germany. 2nd Edition. Hesse, Mainz 1982.
  • Franz Dumont : The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate (= Alzeyer history sheets. Special issue 9). 2nd, expanded edition. Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey 1993, ISBN 3-87854-090-6 (At the same time: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1978).
  • Joseph Hansen : Sources and history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution 1780 - 1801. Volume 2. 1792–1793, Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1933, reprint of the edition Hanstein Verlag, Bonn 1933, 2004, ISBN 3-7700-7619-2 .
  • Heinrich Scheel (Ed.): The Mainzer Republic. Volume 1: Protocols of the Jacobin Club (= writings of the Central Institute for History. Vol. 42, ISSN  0138-3566 ). 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1984.

literature

  • Heinz Boberach : German Jacobins. Republic of Mainz and Cisrhenans 1792–1798. Volume 1: Manual. Contributions to the democratic tradition in Germany. 2nd Edition. Hesse, Mainz 1982.
  • Franz Dumont : Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). In: Franz Dumont, Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz (Eds.): Mainz. The history of the city. 2nd Edition. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 , pp. 319-374.
  • Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate (= Alzeyer history sheets. Special issue 9). 2nd, expanded edition. Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey 1993, ISBN 3-87854-090-6 (At the same time: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1978).
  • Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz 1792/93. French revolution export and German attempt at democracy (= publication series of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate. Issue 55). President of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament, Mainz 2013, ISBN 978-3-9811001-3-6 .
  • Walter Grab : Conquest or Liberation? German Jacobins and the French rule in the Rhineland 1792 to 1799. In: Archives for social history. Vol. 10, 1970, ISSN  0066-6505 , pp. 7-94 (also special edition : Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen GmbH, Hannover 1970; also: (= writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 517447-8 ). Karl-Marx-Haus, Trier 1971), online .
  • Heinrich Scheel (Ed.): The Mainzer Republic. Volume 1: Protocols of the Jacobin Club (= writings of the Central Institute for History. Vol. 42, ISSN  0138-3566 ). 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • Jörg Schweigard: The love of freedom calls us to the Rhine. Enlightenment, reform and revolution in Mainz. Casimir Katz, Gernsheim 2005, ISBN 3-925825-89-4 .
  • Association for social history (ed.): All around the freedom tree. 200 years of the Republic of Mainz. (= Mainz history sheets . Issue 8, ISSN  0178-5761 ). Association for Social History, Mainz 1993.
  • Bernd Blisch , Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg : 200 years of the Republic of Mainz. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. Pp. 7-29.

Web links

Commons : Jacobin Club  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • mainzer- Republik.de - The Mainz Jacobin Club
  • mainz.de - Historic Mainz: The Republic of Mainz - The political and cultural significance of the city of Mainz in the late 18th century

Remarks

  1. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 319 ff.
  2. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 18.
  3. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 216.
  4. ↑ Jörg Schweigard: The love of freedom calls us to the Rhine. Enlightenment, reform and revolution in Mainz. 2005, p. 85 ff.
  5. ↑ Jörg Schweigard: The love of freedom calls us to the Rhine. Enlightenment, reform and revolution in Mainz. 2005, p. 94.
  6. ↑ Jörg Schweigard: The love of freedom calls us to the Rhine. Enlightenment, reform and revolution in Mainz. 2005, p. 205 ff.
  7. ^ Georg Wilhelm Böhmer : The Mainz Clubists. In: Conversations-Lexikon or concise concise dictionary for the subjects occurring in social entertainment from the sciences and arts with constant consideration of the events of the older and more recent times. Volume 3: M to Q. Art and Industry Comptoir, Amsterdam 1809, pp. 33–36, at zeno.org .
  8. ↑ Text from: Heinz Boberach: Deutsche Jakobiner. Republic of Mainz and Cisrhenans 1792–1798. Exhibition by the Federal Archives and the City of Mainz. Volume 3: Catalog. 2nd Edition. Hesse, Mainz 1982, cat. No. 102.
  9. ^ Custine in his report of October 26, 1792 to the President of the Convention in Paris. Original in AG P / B 1, 10.1.3, quoted from: Franz Dumont: Die Mainzer Republik von 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 66.
  10. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 99 ff.
  11. ↑ The membership list of the Mainz Jacobin Club was kept by the notary JB Bittong and was visible in the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt until it was destroyed in World War II.
  12. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 133 ff.
  13. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 25.
  14. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 26 ff.
  15. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 24.
  16. ↑ quoted from: Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 20.
  17. ^ Appeal to the oppressed people of the German nation on behalf of the Franconian Republic by Adam Philippe Custine, Franconian citizen and general of the armies of the republic. In: Mainzer Zeitung. No. 170, from October 26, 1792, ZDB -ID 11629-4 .
  18. ^ Archives parlementaires. De 1787 à 1860. Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des Chambres Françaises. Series 1: 1787 à 1799. Volume 55: 11 Décembre 1792 au 27 Décembre 1792, au soir. Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1899, pp. 70-76, Moniteur No. 353 of December 18, 1792.
  19. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 259 ff.
  20. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 297 ff.
  21. ↑ Loïc Chalmel: Réseaux et philanthropinistes pédagogie au 18e siècle. Peter Lang, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften, Bern et al. 2004, ISBN 3-03910-101-3 , p. 217.
  22. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 341.
  23. ↑ quoted from Project Gutenberg-DE: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Siege of Mainz - Hamburg edition, Chapter 8/9
  24. ↑ Jörg Schweigard: The love of freedom calls us to the Rhine. Enlightenment, reform and revolution in Mainz. 2005, p. 151
  25. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 345 ff.
  26. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 108 ff.
  27. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 326.
  28. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 326.
  29. ^ Heinrich Scheel: The Republic of Mainz. Volume 1. 1975, p. 241.
  30. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 208.
  31. ↑ All percentages from Franz Dumont: The Mainzer Republic of 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 208 ff.
  32. ↑ Klaus Harpprecht : "Only free people have a fatherland". Georg Forster and the Republic of Mainz (= series of publications by the Rhineland-Palatinate Landtag. Vol. 25, ISSN  1610-3432 ). Lecture in the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate on November 24, 2004. President of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 2004, (PDF, 1.34 MB).
  33. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 109.
  34. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 107.
  35. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 106.
  36. ^ Friedrich Schütz: Magenza, the Jewish Mainz. In: Mainz. The history of the city. von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 , 679-702, here p. 690.
  37. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 326 ff.
  38. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 482 ff.
  39. ^ Heinrich Scheel: The historical place of the Mainz republic. S. 17. In: Heinz Boberach: German Jacobins. Republic of Mainz and Cisrhenans 1792–1798. Volume 1: Manual. Contributions to the democratic tradition in Germany. 2nd Edition. Hesse, Mainz 1982, pp. 17-24.
  40. ^ Franz Dumont: Mayence. The French Mainz (1792 / 98-1814). 1999, p. 325.
  41. ↑ Mario Keller: Around the Tree of Freedom - The Movement from Below and its spokesman Mathias Metternich in the time of the Mainz Republic (1789–1799). Frankfurt 1988, p. 582.
  42. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 169.
  43. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 489 ff.
  44. ↑ Figures based on Franz Dumont: The Mainzer Republic of 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 382. The original electoral lists of the six Mainz electoral sections, broken down by name, are in the Mainz City Archives, Department 11, Fasc. 95.
  45. ↑ Gustav Seibt : With a kind of anger: Goethe in the Revolution CH Beck, 2014 ISBN 9783406670565
  46. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 379 ff.
  47. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 379 ff.
  48. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 385
  49. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 19
  50. ^ Wilhelm Kreutz: Focus Hambach: Europe-Germany-Palatinate. In: Hambach 1832. German freedom festival and harbinger of the European springtime. 3rd edition, State Center for Civic Education Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz, p. 5. Franz Dumont: A "Revolution" after the Revolution - The French era on the left bank of the Rhine (1798–1814). In: The Republic of Mainz 1792/93. French revolution export and German attempt at democracy (= publication series of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate. Issue 55). , P. 86
  51. ^ Anton Maria Keim : From Mainz to Hambach. in: The Republic of Mainz. The Rhine-German National Convention. Published by the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate, Hase & Koehler Verlag, Mainz 1993. ISBN 3-7758-1284-9 . P. 230
  52. ^ Quoted from Friedrich Schütz: Provincial capital and fortress of the German Confederation (1814 / 16-1866). in: Franz Dumont , Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz (eds.): Mainz. The history of the city. 2nd edition, p. 395.
  53. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 231 ff.
  54. ↑ Gottlob Teutsch: For and Against the Mainz Constitution. Frankfurt am Main 1793, p. 46
  55. ↑ Nice rarities to pass the time of the Mainz citizen with dry bread and empty jugs and for strangers who are interested in Mainz. Mainz 1793, ( digitized version )
  56. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 233
  57. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 25.
  58. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 233.
  59. ↑ As an example, reference is made to the following work: Beautiful rarities to pass the time of the Mainz citizen with dry bread and empty jugs and for strangers who are interested in Mainz. Mainz 1793, ( digitized version )
  60. ↑ In detail: Bernd Blisch, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg: 200 years of the Mainz Republic. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. 1993, pp. 7-29, here pp. 7 ff.
  61. ↑ Bernd Blisch, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg: 200 Years of the Mainz Republic. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. 1993, pp. 7-29, here p. 8.
  62. ^ Heinrich von Treitschke: German history in the nineteenth century. Volume 1: Until the Second Peace of Paris. Leipzig, 1879, p. 129.
  63. ↑ quoted from: Bernd Blisch, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg: 200 years of the Mainz Republic. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. 1993, pp. 7-29, here p. 9.
  64. ↑ Bernd Blisch, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg: 200 Years of the Mainz Republic. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. 1993, pp. 7-29, here p. 8.
  65. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 10.
  66. ↑ Bernd Blisch, Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg: 200 Years of the Mainz Republic. The difficulties of dealing with a cumbersome past. 1993, pp. 7-29, here p. 9.
  67. ↑ Walter Grab: Conquest or Liberation? 1970, p. 10 ff.
  68. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 109.
  69. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 113.
  70. ^ Franz Dumont: The Republic of Mainz from 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate. 1993, p. 26.
  71. ↑ Franz Dumont: A time full of contradictions. Article in the Allgemeine Mainzer Zeitung of June 26, 2013. Printed in: Franz Dumont: Die Mainzer Republik 1792/93. French export of revolution and German attempt at democracy. Pp. 93-96.


This article was added to the list of excellent articles on July 15, 2013 in this version .