Neutral Moresnet

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Unofficial flag from 1883
Neutral Moresnet on a postcard from 1900
1. The Netherlands (border from 1830) * , Province of Limburg
2. Belgium (border from 1830) * Province of Liège
3. Neutral Moresnet (1816–1919)
4. Prussia , Rhine Province

a. Today's Dutch-Belgian border (1843) *
b. Street Aachen - Liège
c. Today's German-Belgian border (1919) **
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*Areas (1) and (2) were part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands from 1815 to 1830 . Belgium gained independence in 1830, which the Dutch recognized in 1839. The border between the two states was formally established in 1843.
**In 1919, Belgium was awarded Moresnet and the largely German-speaking eastern cantons , the formerly known as the Eupen-Malmedy area, as compensation for the destruction suffered in World War I. Since then, the territories (2), (3) and (4) southwest of (c) belong to Belgium, with the exception of a brief period in the Second World War when these areas were annexed by the German Reich.
Coat of arms of Neutral-Moresnet (after a postcard from 1908)

Neutral Moresnet (pronunciation in German : [ ˈmɔʁəsnɛt ], [ ˌmɔʁəsˈnɛt ], (historical) [ moʁəˈneː ]; in French : [ mɔʁɛsˈnɛt ]; German also Altenberg ) was a neutral territory from 1816 to 1919 , which was shared as a condominium by the United Kingdom the Netherlands or (from 1830) Belgium and Prussia or (from 1871) the German Empire . The 3.4 km² area of ​​the former Neutral Moresnet is located seven kilometers southwest of Aachen and extends in the north to the Vaalserberg , which formed a four-country corner between 1830 and 1919 (with the Netherlands , Belgium and Prussia and Germany). The population grew rapidly from 256 people in 1815 to 4668 before the First World War .

history

Before 1794 Moresnet was undivided and belonged to the Montzen high bank in the Duchy of Limburg . After Napoleon's time, there was disagreement about which country this area with its mineral resources should go to: Prussia or the United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( Belgium did not exist as an independent state at that time, but was the southern part of the United Netherlands). There was calamine mined that for zinc - and brass manufacture was necessary at the beginning of the 19th century and was exported from this region to Europe. Article 25 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna (1815) describes the borders of Prussia, Article 66 those of the Netherlands. Moresnet was claimed by both sides. In December 1815, negotiators from Prussia and the Netherlands met in Aachen and after six months found the compromise to divide Moresnet between the two nations and leave a neutral piece in the middle. In June 1816 the three parts were created:

Neutral Moresnet remained "indefinite, since the two commissions could not agree on the way in which the demarcation [...] should be carried out". “This difficulty is submitted to the decision of the governments of both sides. [...] In anticipation of this decision, the provisional border will be formed by the municipality of Moresnet. ”The agreement also mentioned that the area“ is subject to communal administration and may not be militarily occupied by the two powers ”- hence the name neutral. Moresnet .

Boundary stone no. LX on Lütticher Straße

The entire borderline from Neutral-Moresnet was marked with 60 square stones, which have not yet been placed under monument protection and of which stones 16, 52, 54, 55 and 56 are no longer available. Stone number 3, which formerly stood on the Kelmis tennis court, was moved to the inner courtyard of the municipal administration in Kirchstraße and stone number 53 has been in the Vieille Montagne Museum for some time . In addition, the borders of the former area of ​​Neutral-Moresnet and the Belgian-Prussian boundary stones there between the southern tip with stone number 188 and the northern corner with stone number 193 on the Vaalserberg are special. According to the Emmerich Protocol of September 23, 1818, a border between the Netherlands / Belgium and Neutral-Moresnet was created west of the territory, along which the stones with the numbers 188, 189, 189½, 190, 190½, 191, 191½, 192 and 193 are positioned , and to the east a border between Neutral Moresnet and Prussia, along which the stones with the numbers 188, 189, 190, 191 and 192 are located.

Zinkwerke Neutral Moresnet around 1850, lithograph by Adolphe Maugendre

Neutral Moresnet had only 256 inhabitants when it was founded around 1815, due to its galmei deposits (zinc spar) and the associated zinc mining as well as the new zinc extraction methods discovered by Jean-Jacques Dony and the associated settlement of the Société Anonyme des Mines et Fonderies de, founded in 1837 Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne already had 2575 inhabitants in 1858, and then 4668 shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. Germans, Walloons, Flemings and Dutch settled here - until 1847, many young men to avoid military service . Thereafter, Belgium and Prussia regulated that only originally residents were exempt from the military. In the course of the 19th century there were numerous negotiations between Prussia and Belgium to repeal the provisional arrangement .

In the First World War it was occupied as Belgium by German troops, but to the German annexation of the end of 1915 separately from this managed.

In the Versailles Treaty of June 28, 1919, the German Reich recognized the full sovereignty of Belgium over Neutral Moresnet. Neutral Moresnet came to the Eupen-Malmedy Governorate on January 10, 1920 and changed its name to Kelmis (French La Calamine ). Prussian Moresnet became New Moresnet . During the Second World War , the German Reich conquered the area and annexed it.

Legal system

In Neutral Moresnet, the Civil Code and the Code pénal, introduced by Napoleon, were in effect until the end . Since there were no courts in the area itself, Belgian and Prussian judges had to decide according to these former French-Napoleonic laws.

Two royal commissioners were in charge of the area (a Prussian in Aachen and a Dutch commissioner until the Belgian Revolution of 1830 and a Belgian commissioner from 1835). They appointed the mayor , whose decisions could not be reviewed due to the lack of an administrative jurisdiction .

In 1817 Prussia first appointed the secret miner Wilhelm Hardt as commissioner, but he did not want to accept this position. The kingdom then commissioned Mayer, the director of the Düren mining authority responsible for the Moresnet zinc mines, with this task. The last Prussian commissioner to come from the Mining Authority, Oberbergrat Martins, who belongs to the Oberbergamt , repeatedly got into disputes with the Royal Prussian Government in Aachen. Because of its proximity, Moresneters called them with requests more often than Martins, who was based in Bonn. The government made decisions without consulting the Oberbergrat. In order to end this situation, the government asked for police supervision to be transferred to the Eupen district administrator , which the king approved in 1852. Martins protested without success and subsequently renounced his remaining responsibilities, so that these were also transferred to the district administrator in 1854. From this point on, the Eupen district administrators or their representatives in personal union were also the Prussian commissioners for Neutral Moresnet. However, they were each appointed separately by the Prussian king. Belgium adopted this procedure in 1889, and from then on the arrondissement commissioner of neighboring Verviers was also a representative in Verviers.

Only in the middle of the 19th century there was an additional municipal council . The mining company Societé de la Vieille Montagne , which ran its own settlements, shops, a hospital and the savings bank, also helped to determine.

Royal Commissioners for the Moresnet Neutral Territory

Netherlands
  • 1817–1823: Werner Jacob; Lawyer and Deputy of the City of Liège
  • 1823–1830: Josef Brandès; School inspector and deputy of the City of Liège
Belgium
  • 1830–1835: vacant during and in the first years after the Belgian Revolution
  • 1835–1840: Lambert Ernst; Substitute General Procurator in Liège
  • 1840–1889: Mathieu Crémer; Judge in Verviers
  • 1889–1915: Fernand Jacques Bleyfuesz; District Commissioner of Verviers
  • 1915: -9999Dr. Bayer; imperial civil commissioner in Verviers
  • 1915–1918: annexed by Prussia
  • 1918–1920: Fernand Jacques Bleyfuesz
Prussia

Mayor for Neutral Moresnet

  • 1817-1859: Arnold Timothée de Lasaulx
  • 1859: -9999Adolf Hubert van Scherpenzeel-Thim
  • 1859–1882: Joseph Kohl
  • 1882–1885: vacant
  • 1885–1915: Hubert Schmetz
  • 1915–1918: Wilhelm Kyll
  • 1918–1920: Pierre Grignard

Esperanto

From 1907 there was a group of Esperanto followers who wanted to form an Esperanto state with the name Amikejo (Esperanto for place of friends ) from Neutral Moresnet . Among others, the French professor Gustave Roy and Wilhelm Molly , the chief physician of the ore mine and after 1881 deputy mayor, tried to proclaim the world's first Esperanto state in Neutral Moresnet. In 1908, the World League of Esperantists moved its headquarters from Geneva to Moresnet. More and more congresses took place and the bar owners began to sign their bars in several languages.

Others

Taxes were low and hadn't increased for decades. Since both countries considered Neutral Moresnet as their sovereign territory , imports were duty-free. However, customs were charged for export.

There were numerous illegal distilleries and a booming alcohol trade. The smuggling with neighboring countries was well developed. There was also prostitution and numerous hidden gambling rooms. From the latter an attempt was made in 1903 to develop a legal business and to open a casino , which Prussia prevented. There was no conscription . Unions were banned. The priest, paid by the owners of the calamine huts, preached obedience and called for denunciation.

today

Apart from Moresnet-Village (Alt-Moresnet) and Moresnet-Chapelle (Eikschen), which have been places in the officially French-speaking municipality of Plombières since 1975 , the rest of the region now belongs to the municipality of Kelmis in the German-speaking community of Belgium . As a further indication of this peculiarity, there is still a street in the Dutch town of Vaals called Viergrenzenweg , which leads from the north to the border point on the Vaalserberg , where the four areas collided at the time and which is still today, despite the change in German -Belgian border line after the First World War, the three-country border point between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

On March 14, 2019, a path in Ahlem-Badenstedt-Davenstedt was named Neutral-Moresnet.

Sons and daughters

tourism

Because of the importance of the Esperanto episode, many language courses are offered today and the restaurants in the area use terms in Esperanto. On September 14, 2018, the Vieille Montagne Museum was opened in the former management building of the zinc mine . After several years of preparatory work, it replaced the older "Göhltalmuseum". In this museum, the history of zinc mining in Kelmis, which goes back to the Middle Ages, and the history of the neutral area are documented in detail.

literature

  • David Van Reybrouck : Zinc. From the Dutch by Waltraud Hüsmert. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-518-75176-3 .
  • Philip Dröge: No man's land. The unbelievable story of Moresnet, a place that shouldn't actually exist. Piper, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-492-05831-5 .
  • Hans-Dieter Arntz : persecution of Jews and help to escape in the German-Belgian border area. Schleiden, Euskirchen, Monschau, Aachen and Eupen / Malmedy districts. Kümpel, Euskirchen 1990, ISBN 3-9800787-6-0 .
  • Klaus Pabst: Neutral Moresnet. A village without citizenship (1815–1915). In: 150 years of government and administrative district Aachen. Contributions to their history. Aachen 1967, pp. 45-57.
  • Selm Wenselaers : De laatste Belgen. DG. A divorced van de Oostkantons. Meulenhoff et al. a., Amsterdam a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-90-8542-149-8 (Dutch).
  • Leo Wintgens (Ed.): Neutral-Moresnet-Neutre. Basis of the Kelmis - Neu-Moresnet - Hergenrath community. Echoes from a European curiosity (=  Documents d'Histoire. Volume 2). Helios, Aachen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86933-024-2 .

Web links

Commons : Neutral-Moresnet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Postcard from 1908 (above excerpt; left complete)
  2. ↑ Moresnet. In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon. Edition 14, Volume 12, Leipzig / Berlin / Vienna 1895, p. 2 (here the pronunciation “Moreneh” is given).
  3. ↑ Plombières: visite du Viaduc de Moresnet par les écoles. In: Tele Vesdre. 16th September 2016.
  4. ^ Sebastian Scharte: Prussian - German - Belgian (=  contributions to folk culture in Northwest Germany. Volume 115). Waxmann, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-8309-2406-7 , p. 137.
  5. ^ Procès-verbal Général de la ligne de démarcation entre les Royaumes des Pays-Bas et de Prusse, conclu et signé à Emmerich, le 23 Septembre 1818.
  6. ^ Boundary course and boundary stones Neutral-Moresnet , on historic.place
  7. ↑ Articles 32 and 33
  8. ↑ Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor on the reunification of the areas of Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet with the German Reich v. May 18, 1940 (RGBl. I p. 777). Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  9. ↑ cf. Leo Vossen: A legal anachronism . DJZ 1900, p. 477f. ( Digitized at MPIER ).
  10. ↑ 150 years of government and administrative district Aachen. Contributions to their history. Aachen 1967, p. 48 f.
  11. ^ Sabine Weber: Amikejo, place of friendship . How the state should be made with Esperanto. In: Deutschlandfunk. Feature. May 12, 2008. Retrieved June 29, 2014 (manuscript).
  12. ↑ Bernd Müllender: Neutral Moresnet in the Netherlands was independent for 103 years . In: Badische Zeitung , June 30, 2016, accessed April 8, 2018
  13. ↑ Bernd Müllender: antics on the edge of anarchy . In: taz , June 21, 2016, accessed October 4, 2019
  14. ↑ Bernd Müllender, in: Aachener Zeitung , March 28, 2019: "Neutral-Moresnet" now exists again
  15. ^ Lena Orban: Kelmis opens Museum Vieille Montagne . In: Belgischer Rundfunk , September 16, 2018, accessed on January 1, 2019
  16. ↑ Werner Breuer: Museum Vieille Montagne in Kelmis: How an ore mine became the unique Neutral Moresnet . In: Aachener Zeitung , December 8, 2018, accessed on January 1, 2019.

Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 59 ″  N , 6 ° 1 ′ 23 ″  E