History of North Rhine-Westphalia

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The imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire used for coronations in Aachen probably comes from a goldsmith's workshop in the Lower Rhine region of the 10th century.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), grandson of a singer
who immigrated from Mechelen in the Austrian Netherlands , was born in Bonn.
"Greetings from the cannon city of Essen" (postcard depicting the "Krupp works" , 1913) - the technological and economic potential of the Rhine and Ruhr was perceived as an important power factor in the 19th and 20th centuries. Both after the First and after the Second World War, in connection with the Ruhr question, it was the subject of international political negotiations and actions aimed at using it for reparations and controlling it internationally. When North Rhine-Westphalia was founded, it was once again the focus of political considerations.

The history of North Rhine-Westphalia encompasses developments in the area of ​​the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia from prehistory to the present. The story in the narrower sense began shortly after the Second World War on August 23, 1946, when the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was founded by military ordinance No. 46 of the British occupying power from the province of North Rhine , the northern part of the Prussian Rhine province , as well as the Prussian province of Westphalia . With the Military Ordinance No. 77 of January 21, 1947, through which the state of Lippe North Rhine-Westphalia was incorporated, today's territorial layout was essentially achieved.

North Rhine-Westphalia became the legal successor of the Free State of Prussia and the State of Lippe. In contrast to some other newly created or restituted German states, North Rhine-Westphalia as a whole did not have a predecessor state that had a strong identity or was identical to the territory. Rather, a mixture of many different historical territories, some from pre-Prussian times, has developed its effects on the culture and identity of its residents . Against the background of the incipient East-West conflict , Great Britain, as the occupying power , sought to create a West German country that would combine the important industrial resources of the Ruhr area in order to evade them from the efforts of the Soviet Union and France , which a four-power regime over the Favored the Ruhr area or an international control of its resources. Cultural and historical aspects were taken into account in the layout of the land, but remained subordinate. The cultures of remembrance and history politics in North Rhine-Westphalia tie in with the stories and myths of the individual rooms and predecessor territories in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. In this respect, there is an inconsistent historical awareness , which is fed by a history that often developed differently in the individual regions of the country. At the same time, this heterogeneous historical and spatial awareness shows parallels and similarities in its strands. Important historical sites in North Rhine-Westphalia are, for example, the Palatine Chapel in Aachen and the City Hall in Münster .

With industrialization and the founding of the German Customs Union in the 19th century, an economic and technological potential arose on the Rhine and Ruhr, by means of which the Kingdom of Prussia achieved a supremacy in Germany and thus the foundation of the German Empire under the Empire of the Prussian Hohenzollern as a so-called small German solution of the the German question . The prospering industries on the Rhine and Ruhr formed the most important economic potential of the German Empire . For their part, they exerted a great influence on his politics and came into the focus of international politics in the 20th century, for example during the Ruhr occupation by Belgium and France in the years 1923 to 1925. After the Second World War , the Ruhr question led to an international one in the form of a Ruhr statute Regime over the industrial area on the Rhine and Ruhr. With the Schuman Plan , France continued to develop its Ruhr policy by offering Germany to merge the coal and steel industries of both countries, especially those of the Ruhr area , in a common market and under common supervision. This not only allowed the removal of the Ruhr Statute, but led establishing the European Coal and Steel to a continuous process of European integration and the formation of a European identity and to the creation of today's association of states of the European Union .

The land on the Rhine and Ruhr has produced a large number of important people such as the composer Ludwig van Beethoven .

prehistory

prehistory

Finds from the Oberkassel grave

The finds in the Balver cave and other caves in the Sauerland indicate that relatives or predecessors of modern humans penetrated the area of ​​today's land as early as prehistory . The famous finds from the Neandertal near Düsseldorf also confirm that the Neanderthals , a relative of modern humans , lived in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. The double grave of Oberkassel and the finds of the leaf cave near today's Hagen indicate that modern man has migrated to the Rhineland for at least 14,000 years and to what is now Westphalia for 12,000 years. These sites, as well as those at the Hohlen Stein near Soest, show that afterwards people with different cultures lived in the area of ​​what is now North Rhine-Westphalia.

Neolithic

North Rhine-Westphalia is an area in which - unlike in eastern Germany - no continuous transition from linear ceramics to stitch ceramics can be observed. The region is oriented to the southwest, where a new beginning took place with the cultural sequence Hinkelstein - Großgartach - Rössen . The new beginning is shown by the change in the shape and decoration of the ceramics, the choice of flint stones used, the building of houses and a changed settlement structure. The results of the pollen analysis indicate that in the Rhineland between 4900 and 4800 BC. A lower population density and an extremely late facies of the band ceramics, which coexisted with the early Middle Neolithic in southwest Germany, are to be expected . There is no evidence at all from the early and middle Großgartach that followed.

The prerequisites for a better understanding of this new economic and social structure were created primarily through the large-scale excavations in the Rhenish lignite area and in the urban area of ​​Dortmund in the settlement chamber of the Oespeler Bach. Due to the dynamic development in southwest Germany with settlement concentration and a new identity, the previous communication network has been fundamentally changed. The network becomes tangible through the transfer of rock materials.

Early history

Roman Imperial Era

Roman Cologne,
diagram in the Roman-Germanic Museum
Representation of the borders of the Roman Empire on the Rhine and the military operations under Drusus in today's area of ​​the Netherlands, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse
Floor plan of the Roman camp Novaesium in Neuss based on excavation findings from 1887–1900

The reports of ancient, mostly Roman historians allow for the first time around the birth of Christ a representation of the region of today's North Rhine-Westphalia apart from the archaeological findings. Historians describe this epoch as the Roman Empire , although the greater parts of today's country never became an integral part of the Roman Empire . The population living between the Meuse and the Weser at that time , which, in contrast to the ancient world , was still shaped by the Celtic La Tène culture or the Germanic culture, has increasingly moved into the focus of the empire since the Gallic Wars . With the conquest of Gaul in the Gallic War (58 to 51/50 BC) by Gaius Iulius Caesar as far as the North Sea and east to the Rhine, the first areas of today's North Rhine-Westphalia came under the control of Rome. The inhabitants of these regions took over parts of Roman civilization ( Romanization ) relatively quickly .

The inhabitants of the areas left of the Rhine were the Romans since Caesar usually a flat rate to the Gauls , for the right bank colonizing population Caesar coined little differentiates the term " Germans ". A differentiation and the relationships between the Germanic (and Celtic) tribes and an exact localization of the tribes in the area on the right bank of the Rhine of today's North Rhine-Westphalia remains during the entire Roman Empire and beyond (especially before) due to the fact that they are only fragmentary and often imprecise Sources difficult. Modern science assigns the tribes in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia on the right bank of the Rhine mostly to the group of the Rhine-Weser Germanic tribes .

Campaigns by Roman troops led far into Germania from the secured areas on the left bank of the Rhine. The first Roman military leader who undertook major military campaigns in the areas on the right bank of the Rhine was Drusus from 12 BC. His successors set up various military camps in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, some of which were occupied for several years, such as the Roman camp in Haltern , and penetrated along the Lippe into what is now East Westphalia and beyond. The long-term goal of the Romans was the establishment of a province of Germania magna on the right bank of the Rhine. In the Varus Battle of 9 AD near or even in what is now East Westphalia , the expanding empire suffered a serious setback against a Germanic tribal coalition led by the Cheruscan prince Arminius . Although there were still major campaigns of conquest after Germania under Germanicus until around 16 AD , a massive Roman settlement or conquest policy no longer took place in today's North Rhine-Westphalia, although there were isolated sources afterwards from the advance of Roman troops into the area report (see also Harzhorn event ).

As a result, the Roman province of Germania inferior (Lower Germany) was established around 85, which included all parts of the current state on the left bank of the Rhine. The only exception was the small Divitia bridgehead on the right bank of the Rhine (today Cologne-Deutz ). While the tribes on the right bank of the Rhine remained in their rural and agrarian tribal culture until the end of the Roman province, but traded with the empire, large cities such as Germania inferior , which was conquered at an early stage and were considered relatively peaceful for the conditions at the time , developed partly out of Roman military camps Colonia Ulpia Traiana (near today's Xanten ) or the capital of the province, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (today's Cologne), which was one of the largest and most important cities north of the Alps and had a fixed bridge over the Rhine from around 310 . Cities like today's Bonn or Neuss also have Roman origins.

Agrippina , a Roman woman from the Julier dynasty, born in Cologne in 15 , was a sister of the Roman emperor Caligula , a wife of the Roman emperor Claudius and mother of the heir to the throne Nero . She achieved it in the year 50 that her husband elevated her hometown to a Colonia . Around the same time, the headquarters of the as early as 13 BC. Founded Classis Germanica , one of the largest naval associations of the Roman Empire, moved from Vetera (Xanten) to Cologne to the Alteburg naval fort .

Time of the Great Migration

Formation of a Franconian tribal area west of the Rhine before the fall of the Western Roman Empire

Around 400 the Germania inferior came increasingly under the influence of Germanic tribes, which, even oppressed by peoples from the east, pushed west in a great migration of peoples . Around 400 the Roman province collapsed in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, before the fall of the Western Roman Empire . Although there is hardly any reliable detailed knowledge of the migration movements of the Germanic tribes or their development into tribal associations after the withdrawal of the Romans from Germania magna , it is assumed that two ethnic groups in particular developed into the greatest power factors in today's North Rhine-Westphalia. On the one hand these were the Franconian tribes , on the other hand the Saxons . As early as the second half of the 4th century, the Franks, especially the Sal Franks, attacked the Roman areas from their area of ​​origin on the right bank of the Rhine and extended their settlement area, partly tolerated by the Romans, to the Roman area on the Lower Rhine and into the area between the Scheldt estuary and the Meuse ( Toxandria ). Under Childerich I from the Merovingian dynasty, the Salfranken were increasingly able to free themselves from the initially subordinate status of Roman federations . In Germania, too, the Franconian sphere of influence expanded noticeably around 400; The rulership of the Rhine Franconians , also known as the Ripuarians , arose along the Rhine .

In the year 511, this East Franconian territory became tangible as Austrasia under Theuderich I , a son of the Merovingian warlord Clovis I , due to the Salic inheritance . Clovis I had previously temporarily united the Franconian territories under his kingship into a first Frankish empire, and after a victory over the Roman military leader Syagrius (486/487) to the west and after a victory over the Visigoth king Alaric II (507) to the south expanded. In the Gallic part of the Frankish sphere of influence, with the decline of Roman power, a Franco-Gallic culture developed, which, however, also had strong Roman elements. During the Great Migration, the Franks were able to assert themselves against the peoples from the east in their central Rhenish area.

The second large ethnic group in today's state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Saxons, were formed similarly to the Franconian group through the amalgamation of several tribes, details are not known. The core of their settlement area, which was relatively stable during the migration period, was mainly in what is now northern Germany. In what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, the Saxon Westphalia and Engern settled east and northeast of the Franconia, roughly in what is now Westphalia-Lippe, while the Franks ruled roughly today's Rhenish part of the country.

Early middle ages

Expansion of the Franconian Empire with Austrasia as the core and origin
Expansion across the Saxon tribal area in what is now Westphalia through the conquests of Charlemagne
Columns in the westwork of Corvey Monastery
The Coronation of Charlemagne by Raphael , 1516–1517, Raphael's Rooms in the Apostolic Palace , Vatican City

The Duchy of Ripuarien existed in a large area of ​​today's North Rhine-Westphalia, especially on the left bank of the Rhine, in the early Middle Ages . The Frankish noble family of the Merovingian took about 496 under I. Clovis - after the Battle of Tolbiac - as part of an assimilation to the late ancient Roman culture , the Catholic Christianity on.

After the collapse of West Rome, the Merovingians succeeded in forming Frankish kingdoms in the 5th and 6th centuries by subjugating Gallo-Roman and other areas in an area between the west French coast and Thuringia . In the regions along the Rhine, Maas and Moselle rivers , these areas also included the independent East Franconian kingdom of Austrasia , which formed the starting point for the formation of a large Franconian empire in the 8th century. This imperial domain, known as the Frankish Empire , eventually extended over large areas of western, central and southern Europe in the 9th century. The Franconian kings, initially the Merovingians, from 751 the Carolingians with Pippin the Younger , thus became the decisive early medieval great power in Europe.

During the Saxon Wars , the Christian Franks under Charlemagne succeeded by 804 in subjugating and largely Christianizing the bitterly resisting, loosely Saxon tribal duchy and its leader, Duke Widukind . While the Romans had failed in their attempts to embed the area east of the Rhine and thus the entire area of ​​today's North Rhine-Westphalia in their ancient state, Charlemagne succeeded in combining all of today's parts of the country into an early medieval state . In 776 Karl founded a palace and a Karlsburg in Paderborn as a residence. In 777 the first Reichstag and a mission synod took place there . The place is considered to be the birthplace of the later Holy Roman Empire , because Charlemagne and Pope Leo III met here in 799 . met and, according to the Paderborn epic , should have arranged his coronation as emperor in 800, they created a historically significant ideological and cultural point of contact with the Roman Empire and antiquity (Frankish imperial idea in the tradition of the Translatio imperii ).

The Christian centers sponsored by the Franks such as Werden , Corvey , Paderborn, Minden , Münster or Herford carried the Franconian civilization, which was connected with the ancient remains of Roman culture, far into today's Westphalia and beyond. The missionary Liudger and his family, the Liudgerids, played a decisive role in this development . In contrast to the former Roman areas in the Rhineland, Westphalia, which was then only a rural area, had an underdeveloped infrastructure and hardly any large settlements. Paderborn, Münster, Herford or Soest did not develop until around 800.

Aachen , which is favored by natural thermal springs and is now the westernmost city in North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany, was able to rise under Charlemagne from a settlement with Roman origins to the most important residential city of the Franconian Empire and the center of the Carolingian Renaissance through the construction of a royal palace . The Palatine Chapel of Aachen, an imitation of the late antique central building of San Vitale in Ravenna , is to be built in the winter of 804/805 by Pope Leo III. have been personally initiated.

The Franconian Empire broke up in the middle of the 9th century as a result of inner-dynastic battles of the Carolingians . The east of what is now North Rhine-Westphalia became part of Eastern Franconia through the Treaty of Verdun , which later also appropriated the northern part of Lotharii Regnum , which was also created in the Treaty of Verdun . This northern part, known as Lotharingia - divided into the Duchy of Lower Lorraine and the Duchy of Upper Lorraine in 959 - also included today's Rhineland, so that today's North Rhine-Westphalia was completely reunited in one state - in the East Franconian Empire. The tribal cultures and spheres of influence of the peoples originally subjugated by the Franks were still alive in the loose East Franconian Empire, which was deeply divided over its leaders. Viking raids in the last decades of the 9th century led to the plundering of Franconian centers in the Rhineland.

With the decline of the Carolingians, who died out in Eastern Franconia in 911, the tribal duchy of Saxony , which was located in the east of what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, gained particular importance. With Heinrich I , a Saxon-born duke from the Liudolfinger family was elected King of East Franconia at the beginning of the 10th century . His successor Otto I formed the Holy Roman Empire from Eastern France and, following on from the tradition of Charlemagne, was crowned king in Aachen. Out of this legitimacy- giving tradition, Aachen remained for centuries the coronation place of Roman-German kings .

High Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages

Cappenberger Barbarossakopf , head bust of Friedrich I. - Emperor Friedrich I., an important patron of Aachen , Duisburg , Cologne and Kaiserswerth , had his predecessor Charlemagne canonizedin 1165and then stylized as an "imperial saint". In 1180 he createdthe
Duchy of Westphalia on the court in Gelnhausen .
The Karlsschrein in Aachen Cathedral was commissioned by Emperor
Friedrich II as a legitimizing reference to the Roman and Frankish empires and was completed in 1215. The medieval cult around the person of Charlemagne as Pater Europæ finds a contemporary continuation in the form of the annual Charlemagne Prize award, at the center of which is the honor of people who have campaigned for the idea of ​​Europe.
Area of ​​today's North Rhine-Westphalia in the system of the Hanseatic League around 1400, map display from 1902

In the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages , the Holy Roman Empire remained a loose alliance. The partial duchy of Saxony , which also included large parts of what is now Westphalia-Lippe, fell to the mighty Guelph Heinrich the Lion in the 12th century . In the conflict between Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa and Heinrich the Lion, however, his Saxon duchy was divided in 1180 and the ducal dignity of Westphalia was transferred to the Archbishop of Cologne . The Duchy of Westphalia , which was created in this way, mainly comprised areas of South Westphalia today .

In the remaining formerly Saxon areas of today's Westphalia-Lippes, several territories were emancipated over time after the break-up of Heinrich's Duchy, which were to remain characteristic of the areas of today's North Rhine-Westphalia until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The larger of these areas, which existed in various forms of statehood and form of government, were Lippe , Kurköln , Berg , Kleve , Jülich , Westphalia , Paderborn , Ravensberg , Minden , Münster and Mark . About half of these areas were spiritual territories under the influence of the Roman Church , which gained considerable power in the Ottonian-Salian imperial church system.

In the west of what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, the spiritual territory of Kurköln gained particular importance, which, in addition to the already described influence in the Duchy of Westphalia, also had a considerable influence on territories such as Mark, Paderborn and Minden in today's Westphalian regions. In addition, the county of Mark was established in South Westphalia, and in some cases the Duchy of Berg . In the Rhineland, several other dominions expanded in addition to Kurköln, including the duchies of Jülich, Kleve and Berg, which later united and gained control of Ravensberg, Mark and other areas. The legal and factual relationships as well as the power relations between these territories were intricately interwoven and subject to constant changes in the course of the High and Late Middle Ages, thus changing their importance in the Holy Roman Empire. In addition to these larger territories, there were a number of smaller territories, including imperial direct cities and imperial direct pens .

Many cities in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia - not only those located on the Rhine trade route - prospered in the Middle Ages due to the sharp increase in trade, especially long-distance trade , which in medieval Westphalia was likely to have reached the level on the left bank of the Rhine during the time of the Roman Empire for the first time had been achieved. The Hellweg joined as one of the most important trade routes large commercial cities like Dortmund or Soest each other, which in the Middle Ages to city leagues came together and eventually many of the Hanseatic joined.

Early modern age

Imperial circles at the beginning of the 16th century. The Lower Rhine-Westphalian Empire is shown in light brown.
At the beginning of the modern era, the United Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg combined Rhenish and Westphalian areas under the rule of the aristocratic family of Mark .
Allegory of the acquisition of the Klevian Rhineland by Prussia in the Treaty of Xanten (1614), lithograph from the 19th century: deities representing Prussia and the Rhineland pay homage to the Brandenburg-Prussian electoral couple Johann Sigismund and Anna .
Invocation of the Peace of Münster as part of the Peace of
Westphalia of 1648

As in the context of reform of the Empire of Maximilian I , the imperial estates in 1500 to six in 1512 to ten imperial circles were combined, was one of them the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle . Beyond the area of ​​today's North Rhine-Westphalia, it included the west of today's Lower Saxony and the largely Belgian area of ​​the bishopric of Liège . If the Free Imperial City of Cologne was still part of the Imperial Circle, Cologne's area to the left of the Rhine ( Kurköln ), Bonn and also the Duchy of Westphalia ( Sauerland ) were part of the Kurheinische Reichskreis .

The imperial estates of the area were largely ecclesiastical areas and thus firmly in the hands of aristocratic families in the respective territories, in particular the Münster , Paderborn , but also Osnabrück monasteries . In the course of the Reformation and the confessionalization of northwest Germany, a dichotomy arose: As a result of the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute , the Lower Rhine and parts of Westphalia became or remained permanently Lutheran , and Lippe was reformed . The Counter-Reformation achieved a strengthening of the Roman Catholic imperial estates in the area.

The Thirty Years' War , which also raged in the territories between the Weser and Rhine from 1618, was not least a war for denominational supremacy. The Peace of Westphalia negotiated between the powers of Europe between 1645 and 1648 in Münster and Osnabrück ended this war and led to a stabilization of the territories with regard to questions of faith and the first codification of a federalist order in the Holy Roman Empire. Through the Peace of Westphalia, the Netherlands , with which the areas on the Rhine and Ems were always closely intertwined, became a sovereign state whose state borders border today's North Rhine-Westphalia to the west and northwest.

The subsequent epoch of absolutism encouraged certain tendencies towards the centralization of secular rule. In particular under the rule of Clemens August von Bayern (1700–1761), large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia were "united": the Hochstifte Münster and Paderborn (1719) and Kurköln with the Duchy of Westphalia (1723). Clemens August only partially centralized the administration of these territories from his headquarters and government seat in Bonn. The personal unions in the spiritual territories changed. Often the cathedral chapters made a conscious decision against personal unions of their future prince-bishops. Nevertheless, through their successful endeavors to secure positions for each other in the cathedral chapters and monasteries, the Catholic aristocratic families created "North Rhine-Westphalian" continuities and territorial connections that should not be underestimated. In this context, the House of Wittelsbach should be emphasized , which ruled large spiritual and secular territories between the Meuse and the Weser for many decades.

Prussia , which was not a decisive power factor in today's North Rhine-Westphalia, gained Rhenish and Westphalian territories such as Ravensberg, Kleve and the Mark as a result of the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute and the Treaty of Xanten concluded in the early 17th century. In the middle of the 17th century, Minden also fell to the Brandenburgers. In the Peace of Utrecht they gained the east of Obergeldern , while the smaller part of this region (area around Erkelenz ) was incorporated into the Duchy of Jülich. Although the Brandenburg-Prussian electors and kings unified the administration of their Lower Rhine-Westphalian lands, these territories in Prussia enjoyed great autonomy due to their situation as an exclave. The possession of the exclaves in the west established a momentous Prussian striving for a territorial connection between the western parts of the country and with the core states of Brandenburg and Prussia in the east.

In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, all ecclesiastical and most of the smaller secular territories were mediated and added to larger secular countries. After Kleve , Ravensberg , Mark and Minden, Brandenburg-Prussia was able to acquire further important areas with the secularization of spiritual territories of the declining Holy Roman Empire with the hereditary principality of Münster and the principality of Paderborn thanks to its pro-France policy, which it initiated in the Peace of Basel in 1795 which were of great importance for its anchoring in western Germany. In 1803 the Duke of Arenberg , the Duke of Croÿ , the Duke of Looz-Corswarem , the Prince of Salm-Salm, the Prince of Salm-Kyrburg and the Wild and Rhine Count of Salm-Grumbach were compensated with areas of the Hochstift Münster , after they had lost their former domains to France through the occupation and cession of the left bank of the Rhine as a result of the First Coalition War . Before the annexation of the left bank of the Rhine, France had briefly considered the establishment of a subsidiary republic called the Cisrhenan Republic .

Under Napoleonic influence

Map of the Rhine Confederation in 1808: incorporation of the Rhineland and Westphalia into the Napoleonic state system during the First Empire

Under Napoleon , other areas of today's country came under French influence: After the First and Second Coalition Wars , which ended in defeat for the Holy Roman Empire , the left bank of the Rhine was lost to France in the peace treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville . With the founding of the Rhine Confederation , suggested by France in 1806 , the Duchy of Berg , the right bank of the Duchy of Kleve with other parts of the right bank of the Rhine and Westphalian regions were merged to form the new Grand Duchy of Berg with the capital Düsseldorf , with the abolition of some of the miniature states that had emerged in 1803 . Joachim Murat , a brother-in-law of Napoleon , became Grand Duke . The Sauerland areas around Arnsberg were added to the Grand Duchy of Hesse . The county of Dülmen fell in 1806 to the Duchy of Arenberg-Meppen , the rule of Gemen to the Principality of Salm .

These states under French hegemony succeeded in expanding their areas of power by 1806 and, through the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, in becoming sovereign states under international law. From 1806, Berg comprised a large part of the western part of what would later become North Rhine-Westphalia, but without the left bank of the Rhine, which fell to France . With regard to various legal, economic and socio-political aspects, it developed into one of the most progressive and modern German states.

Large parts of the East Westphalian areas of Prussia became part of the Kingdom of Westphalia created in 1807 . This state under King Jérôme Bonaparte , a brother of Napoleon, included not only today's East Westphalia but mainly areas outside the eponymous landscape and also extended to Hanover and Hessian regions. An efficient administration based on the French model was also introduced in the Kingdom of Westphalia.

In 1811 the northern parts of the country (from the Lippe via Haltern , Telgte to Borgholzhausen ) were annexed by France and incorporated into the newly created departments of Ober-Ems and Lippe .

In 1813 the Grand Duchy of Berg and the other areas were occupied by coalition troops, in 1815 they were reorganized by the Congress of Vienna and most of the territories were incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia. Düsseldorf lost its leading role as the capital and residence city, but as the seat of the Rhenish provincial parliament it remained a political center. In addition to the regained Prussian territories, Prussia's holdings in today's state of North Rhine-Westphalia increased considerably. With the exception of Lippe , which was more or less dependent on Prussia , which was able to maintain its independence during the Napoleonic period through its entry into the Rhine Confederation and also after the end of the Napoleonic order despite its membership in the Rhine Confederation, the area of ​​what would later become North Rhine-Westphalia was after the end of the French rule completely Prussian. The historian Thomas Nipperdey assessed the expansion of the Prussian territory in the west and the associated shift in the Prussian sphere of power as "one of the fundamental facts of German history, one of the foundations of the German Empire's foundation in 1866/1871".

As part of Prussia

Expansion of the Kingdom of Prussia after the Congress of
Vienna in 1815: the first contours of what will later become the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are visible in the western part of Prussia.
Industrialization on the Ruhr through the coal and steel industry : here photo of the Krupp works in Essen from 1864
Allied occupation of the Rhineland after the First World War

Since 1815, large parts of what would later become North Rhine-Westphalia were united under the umbrella of the Kingdom of Prussia . The area of ​​today's country was located on the western edge. Prussia restructured its West German territories and in 1815 formed the province of Westphalia with the capital Münster, the province Jülich-Kleve-Berg with the capital Cologne and the province of the Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine with the capital Koblenz. The latter were united in 1822 to form the Rhine Province with the capital Koblenz. Although the Kingdom of Prussia also allowed and promoted the identity of the Rhinelander and Westphalia to a certain extent, this could not hide the fact that their provinces are, under constitutional law, only dependent government and administrative districts in a large, heterogeneous unit - and acted multiethnic state , which was centrally governed in distant Berlin.

From 1815 to the German War of 1866, this sovereign state was loosely integrated into a Greater German confederation called the German Confederation . After Prussia had closed the territorial gap between the New Prussian state area on the Rhine and the old Prussian areas due to the victory in the German War in the annexations of 1866, the North German Confederation of the same name was formed in 1867 under Prussian rule and according to Prussian ideas from a military alliance of sovereign northern German states as a federal state which , after the Franco-Prussian War , was expanded into a nation-state called the German Empire through the accession of southern German states in 1871 . The Kingdom of Prussia was integrated into it as only a partially sovereign member state .

After the fall of his Hohenzollern - monarchy in 1918 Prussia took the form of government of a republican Free State of. During this period of upheaval after the First World War , which resulted in uncertain political conditions, the advisory board of the Rhenish part of the Center Party called on December 4, 1918, for fear of a Marxist state, to establish a sovereign Rhenish-Westphalian Republic . The Weimar Constitution , which came into force in 1919 , clarified the political order in the German Reich, but weakened the ability of the Free State of Prussia to exert influence on the politics of the German Reich.

In connection with the suppression of the Kapp Putsch , the Ruhr uprising broke out in 1920 . In 1923, separatist tendencies to found a Rhenish Republic flared up again in various cities on the Rhine, including Prussian cities . During the so-called Prussian strike , the Reich government under Franz von Papen took over government power over Prussia in a coup d'état in 1932.

Within the Kingdom of Prussia, the early industrialized areas in the west were regarded as pioneers of modernity . On the basis of coal deposits and the mining industry and favored the liberalization of navigation on the Rhine , the installation of railways and the German Customs Union founded in 1833 , which transformed Germany into a large domestic market from 1834 , the Ruhr area in particular developed in the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries Century a powerful center of industry . The formerly rural area, characterized by individual trading cities, merged into one of the largest urban centers in the world. In order to be able to better control certain public tasks on a planning level above the numerous municipalities in the Ruhr area, the Ruhr coal district settlement association was founded in 1920 . By then, however, railway companies, mining and industrial companies had already acquired, developed and settled ever larger areas of the Ruhr and Emscher area - often with the construction of company housing in the wake, in a dispersed structure and largely without coordinating public spatial planning. During the founding period , the Krupp works in Essen advanced to become the largest industrial company in Europe under Alfred Krupp . Thanks to the technology produced there - railways and cannons - Prussia was able to achieve supremacy in the German Confederation and position itself at the head of the German Empire .

As a result of the First World War , whose fighting did not directly affect today's North Rhine-Westphalian area, the Allied victorious powers occupied parts of the Rhineland on the basis of the Versailles Treaty until 1930 ( Allied Rhineland occupation ) and between 1923 and 1925 also the entire Ruhr area ( Ruhr occupation ), whose strategic importance for the German economy, especially for the armaments industry, was very high. Subsequently, the region remained demilitarized until 1936.

National Socialist dictatorship and World War II

Share of votes of the NSDAP in the Reichstag election in March 1933
The largest city in the country - Cologne - lies in ruins in 1945.
Ruins and explosive bomb craters in the city center of Wesel in early 1945
Map of the operations of the Allies to cross the Lower and Middle Rhine between March 22 and 28, 1945 and to prepare a pincer-like enclosure of the Ruhr area by the military operation Ruhr Pocket (German Ruhrkessel )

In the Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 , Adolf Hitler , Chancellor since January 1933 , was able to secure government responsibility in the German Reich through a parliamentary majority of his NSDAP together with the votes of the German national black-white-red front . In the last Reichstag elections, the area of ​​today's North Rhine-Westphalia was characterized by below-average NSDAP votes. However, the state elections in Lippe on January 15, 1933 , which gave the NSDAP an enormous increase in votes , had great propaganda significance for the NSDAP and the 1933 Reichstag election .

In accordance with his totalitarian National Socialist state idea, Hitler shortly afterwards downgraded the states, including the Free States of Prussia and Lippe , to politically meaningless shells within the now dictatorial German Reich by means of laws on harmonization that were passed at the end of March and beginning of April 1933 . He violated the demilitarization of the Rhineland, which was envisaged in the Versailles Treaty for the period from 1935, by allowing German armed forces to march into the Rhineland in 1936 ( Rhineland occupation ).

Jews, political opponents, ethnic minorities, homosexuals and other groups were oppressed and persecuted. Due to the National Socialist racial ideology , almost all of the Jewish residents who had not fled in time were also deported and murdered in Westphalia, the Rhineland and Lippe .

The industrial centers on the Rhine and Ruhr were of considerable importance for the rearmament of the German Empire. Therefore, the Allies flew heavy air raids on the Ruhr area and the other centers of the country in the course of the Second World War . A particularly large-scale air raid took place on Cologne in May 1942 under the code name Operation Millennium . The Allies advancing from the west succeeded in capturing cities in the North Rhine from 1944, first Aachen in the battle for Aachen . Attempts by the Wehrmacht to repel the Allies in the Rhineland and Westphalia failed. The battle in the Huertgen Forest was particularly costly for both sides . Through the Operation Plunder the Allies succeeded in exceeding the Lower Rhine. The Ruhr basin ended in 1945 with the capture of the Ruhr area by allied associations. Area bombing in accordance with the Area Bombing Directive and the ground war that took place from late 1944 to April / May 1945 in what is now the country, led to a high number of civilian casualties and to the almost complete destruction of the industrial and urban centers in the Rhineland and Westphalia . Both Prussian provinces and Lippe were occupied by the British in accordance with the Allied agreements at the Yalta Conference .

Immediate post-war period and foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia (1945/1946)

Political considerations

Map of the "Rhenish-Westphalian Coal and Industrial Area" from 1896: The industrialization on the Rhine and Ruhr had created new socio-economic foundations on the geopolitical map of Europe. In the shape of the Ruhr question , they played a decisive role in founding the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Zones of occupation in Germany from June 1947 - With a view to increased cooperation, the British and American zones of occupation were united on January 1, 1947 to form the so-called bizone .
According to a non-implemented French draft of March 11, 1946, the Ruhr area and the adjacent Lower Rhine were to be placed under a special Allied occupation regime.
The British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin pushed through the merger of the northern Rhineland with Westphalia to form the newly founded state of North Rhine-Westphalia, against the concerns of his cabinet colleague John Burns Hynd , who saw the merger as the danger of a “new Prussia”.

After the Second World War , the area of ​​what is now the country was part of the British occupation zone with headquarters in Bad Oeynhausen, Westphalia .

Because of its enormous importance for the reconstruction and in view of its armament-technical importance, which extended to the whole of post-war Germany and beyond, the victorious powers concentrated in the reorganization of West Germany above all on the further fate of the Ruhr area and the surrounding industrial areas. This topos of international politics was called the Ruhr question and was an essential part of the German question raised again .

Initially, the Allies were divided about the future of the Ruhr area:

  • France advocated an independent, politically weak state or an internationalized area modeled on the Saarland for this area . France understood the Rhine as a "French security border"; in this respect the French idea of ​​an annexation of the left bank of the Rhine was initially revived. In a radio speech on February 5, 1945, Charles de Gaulle presented the concept of a "Ruhr basin" that is detached from a possible future German state - or from German states.
  • The Soviet Union favored on the London Foreign Ministers Conference in 1945 in a concept of "dismemberment" of Germany in several areas in which the respective occupation regime should implement their own ideas, the internationalization of the Ruhr area and a four-power status, equivalent to that applicable to 1990 occupation law for Berlin . The Soviet side in particular spoke out in favor of a comprehensive dismantling and advocated a much more stringent Ruhr Statute .
  • The USA was officially neutral on this issue, but tacitly supported the British, who ultimately determined the fate of the areas between the Weser and Rhine as the occupying power.

There is evidence that Great Britain presented the idea of ​​dividing Germany into a northern German state and a " Danube Federation" to the USA and the Soviet Union as early as 1943 at the Tehran Conference . The British later expanded this idea to include the element of a West German state on the Lower and Middle Rhine. In a memorandum of November 27, 1944, the Foreign Office of the British government stated that the state order to be developed in Germany must take into account the population and their federalist tradition, with a system of constituent states balanced in terms of size and population . Both Prussia and the small states could not survive. The Prussian provinces could be linked to form partial states, "Rhineland-Westphalia could be such a case here."

At the end of 1945 a British Economic and Industrial Planning Staff , who had the task of advising the government of Great Britain, came to the conclusion that the intensely interwoven Rhenish-Westphalian coal, iron and steel industry could hardly be meaningfully disentangled. Therefore, the British government decided to establish a new West German state under its direct occupation control on this industrial cluster and at the same time to withdraw the area on the Rhine and Ruhr, which is important for the reconstruction of Europe, from the efforts of France and the Soviet Union by creating a fait accompli. In particular, the expansion of Soviet influence to the west was intended to be contained in the early phase of the looming East-West conflict . In addition, the British government advocated the incorporation of the Ruhr area into a future German state in order to avoid a repetition of the severe economic crisis and thus the instability that characterized the Weimar Republic after the First World War . However, both the economic power and the proletariat of the industrial district , who potentially sympathize with communism , should be compensated. That is why the British developed the idea of ​​merging with the rural and Catholic Westphalia. In addition, the inclusion of efficient agricultural landscapes should facilitate the logistically difficult task of supplying the densely populated Ruhr area, whose desolate supply situation was evident after the end of the war. The Ruhr Statute was supposed to ensure a control of the industry.

The French plans had British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin , in a memorandum dated 13 June 1946, because it the " devastating Ruhr experiment of 1923 resembled" ( "desastrous Ruhr experiment of 1923"), and characterized the French politicians as incapable To view the Ruhr question in a balanced and objective manner ("unable to view this question in a balanced and objective manner").

The province of North Rhine , which in April 1946 had received the order from the British occupying power to present a concept for the establishment of its own state of North Rhine, but in May 1946 initially with the demand for the restoration of the territorial unity of the Rhineland within the borders of the Rhine province answered, after the British rejection of the demand , under its Chief President Robert Lehr had come to the conclusion that a merger of North Rhine and Westphalia to form North Rhine-Westphalia would then be the politically and economically preferable solution. The province of Westphalia under their Provincial President Rudolf Amelunxen favored since May 1946, the idea of a country from the provinces of North Rhine Westphalia and, the country lip and the area of the administrative district Osnabrück to form.

On June 21, 1946, the Overseas Reconstruction Committee , a committee of British ministers, military and civil servants chaired by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee , secretly agreed on the establishment of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia at 10 Downing Street in London - Westminster . The Foreign Ministry, headed by Ernest Bevin and represented by the Minister of State Philip Noel-Baker , had submitted the proposal to the committee "in anticipation of a four-power decision regarding the international control of the Ruhr industry ... to establish a new state in West Germany that would include the Ruhr area" , ... "through the amalgamation of the existing provinces of Westphalia and North Rhine-Westphalia". The result of this meeting was not only the product of several months of conflict among the Allies, but also the conclusion of a controversy within the British government. While the British Minister for Germany, John Burns Hynd , saw the danger of a “new Prussia ” in a merger between North Rhine-Westphalia and Westphalia , Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, the head of his German department John Monro Troutbeck , the British Commander-in-Chief Sir Sholto Douglas and his deputy Sir Brian Robertson held the Regional Commissioner William Asbury and most members of the military government proposed the - initially still secret - plan to found the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the best solution.

Since the founding of the country also meant the strengthening of an administrative competence consisting of German administrators and thus a corresponding withdrawal of Allied decision-making power, the founding of the state, which Hynd presented on August 21, 1946 as a "policy of Germanization", was able to help the Germans from one To convince the “good will” of the British occupying power. Against the background of allied conflicting interests and the emerging East-West conflict, it was not only a step on the path to restoring German sovereignty, but also a suitable means of counteracting Soviet policy on Germany and the danger of communist infiltration of the Ruhr area. When the forced unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED was carried out in April 1946 under Soviet influence in the eastern zone of Germany , the British were able to see more clearly than ever that the Soviet Union was establishing a communist system of rule and society in its sphere of influence.

Foundation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia

The Stahlhof in Düsseldorf: This is where the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was founded by Military Ordinance No. 46 of the British military government on August 23, 1946.

After the decision to found the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was made internally on June 21, 1946, on July 17, 1946, at a press conference at the Allied Control Council in Berlin, the amalgamation of the northern Rhineland with Westphalia was announced by the British military governor Sholto Douglas. On July 20, 1946, the Düsseldorf city ​​director Walter Kolb was informed that his city had been designated the state capital .

North Rhine-Westphalia received its constitutional basis as a state with Ordinance No. 46 of the British military government of 23 August 1946 for the "dissolution of the provinces of the former state of Prussia in the British zone and their re-establishment as independent states". Based on this occupation law Regulation was from the province of North Rhine , the northern part of the Prussian Rhine province , and from the province of Westphalia in Regulation no. 46, moreover, even by a formed the new state of North Rhine-Westphalia, slash split designation of North Rhine / Westphalia wore.

Historical and cultural points of contact

Obviously, when considering the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia, the focus was not on the merging of culturally homogeneous areas, but rather on the desire of the occupying power Great Britain to embed the Ruhr area and its significant industrial resources as a whole in a single and inherently viable country. There were also discussions about the naming. So hit z. For example, in an urgent letter dated August 1, 1946, the Düsseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry proposed to then President Robert Lehr to name the new state " Lower Rhine- Westphalia".

North Rhine-Westphalia was not preceded by a predecessor state that had a strong identity. Prussia had not been able to take on this role because as a state it had overgrown the socio-culturally heterogeneous north of Central Europe without finding the full affection of its residents in all areas, especially not in the Catholic regions, in which the memory of the Kulturkampf remained alive for a long time, and because the political center had always been located in distant Berlin . Apart from a few Protestant areas in Westphalia, such as Minden-Ravensberg , in which Prussianism has been accepted as part of identity over the centuries, in the other areas of the largest successor state of Prussia the attitude towards the Prussian period was and is more shaped by distance, especially in the Rhineland . The predecessor state of Lippe maintained its own identity , which was incorporated in 1947 on the basis of British Military Ordinance No. 77. Like Westphalia, this area was culturally closer to Lower Saxony than to the Rhineland. The state of Lippe was far too small and too peripheral to be able to shape the new country and its identity as a whole. The boundaries of spatial awareness between the Rhineland and Westphalia blurred in the Ruhr area , whose own identity had only emerged after 1918, promoted by the events in connection with the occupation of the Ruhr in the years 1923 to 1925.

In addition to dividing things, there was also something connecting. At times there were larger administrative areas or larger states in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, which connected the Rhenish and Westphalian areas of today's state with one another. Examples are Kurköln , the Grand Duchy of Berg , the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Reichskreis or the Ruhrkohlen District settlement association . The historical references to it did not begin to have any significance for the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia, however, because for centuries what is characteristic of today's national territory was rather a confusing conglomeration of the numerous different historical territories and their effects on the culture and identity of its residents. In the 19th century, the writer Carl Leberecht Immermann wrote about the country west of the Westphalian Gate (Porta Westfalica):

“Memories of the most varied kinds dominate human spirits. Here was a free imperial city, close by was the bishop's crook, and a small dynast nearby commanded. But now the memory of a political past lasts longer than our state artists can dream. Furthermore, in the Rhenish districts, as is well known, the map was even more colorful at the time of the empire, which is not yet a generation dead. "

Nevertheless, even before the state was founded, there were organizations that connected the Rhineland and Westphalia apart from political administration. They arose primarily in the field of economy and thus took into account - also through the use of the term Rhenish-Westphalian - the interweaving of the Rhenish-Westphalian area, which the British also followed when the state was founded. In addition to economic organizations, there were other organizations whose main interests lay in other, especially cultural, areas. One example is the Royal Rhenish-Westphalian Polytechnic School in Aachen , which in 1870, as a Prussian university, combined the regions of Rhineland and Westphalia as its catchment area. As early as 1829, the art association for the Rhineland and Westphalia had begun to unite the patronage -minded Rhenish and Westphalian bourgeoisie as sponsors of the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the Düsseldorf School of Painting . From the 1870s, the industry that had developed on the Rhine and Ruhr began to increasingly form Rhenish-Westphalian associations, such as the association for the protection of common economic interests in Rhineland and Westphalia , the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate and the Rhenish-Westphalian Electricity Works . The later state capital Düsseldorf had already been the seat of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Börse since 1875 and had developed a corresponding central location meaning as the “ desk of the Ruhr area ” even before the state was founded .

In the 19th century , the Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke attributed a special identity , a “special spirit of the Rhinelander” and a tendency towards particularism to the inhabitants of the Rhine Province , many of whom considered themselves “ Must Prussians ”, when he remarked: "When the Rhinelander were having a drink, they liked to talk about the Rhenish-Westphalian viceroyalty, which governs according to the Napoleon Code and should only be loosely connected with the Junky East."

The political idea of ​​a "West German Republic" arose in the early days of the Weimar Republic and was openly discussed , especially in Rhenish circles of the Center Party and West German local politicians. It has not been established whether Great Britain wanted to build on this by founding North Rhine-Westphalia.

reception

The project of merging Westphalian and Rhenish areas - referred to by the British as Operation Marriage - was controversial in Germany from the start, as individual politicians feared the economic and population overweight of the new state and the borders of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in anticipation of the state's foundation and still questioned long afterwards. In addition, in the eyes of the critics, there were few cultural and historical similarities between the two parts of North Rhine and Westphalia.

Because the British ordered the continued existence of the northern and eastern borders of the previous province of Westphalia (later the border of the state of Lippe as the state border in the east), discussions remained among German politicians about the future border between North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony or one that was also proposed " Land Weser-Ems " without consequences. In anticipation of the founding of Lower Saxony on June 12, 1946, the district council of the Vechta district had already decided that in the event of the state of Oldenburg being dissolved, the Oldenburg Münsterland Westphalia should be added. Immediately after the end of the war , the opinion that the Oldenburger Münsterland should become part of Westphalia as well as the district of Osnabrück was widespread among the population of Westphalia. Conversely, the later Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf , demanded on April 1, 1946 that large areas in the north and northeast of what is now North Rhine-Westphalia should become part of a state to be founded in Lower Saxony, which he had been campaigning for since 1945. According to Kopf's ideas, the city of Bielefeld , the districts of Minden , Lübbecke , Tecklenburg , Bielefeld , Herford and Halle (Westphalia) , i.e. the historic Prussian administrative area of Minden-Ravensberg , and the Tecklenburger Land should be added to the state of Lower Saxony. After the British had formed the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in August 1946, his plans were obsolete. Lower Saxony was founded in November 1946 within the boundaries that still exist today, namely from the states of Braunschweig , Hanover , Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe .

With regard to the division of the Rhineland , which would be further strengthened by the intended founding of the state, Konrad Adenauer , chairman of the CDU Rhineland, said on July 24, 1946 before the state executive of his party in Cologne:

“At this moment we have to demand one thing, when it is certain that the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will be formed - and I hope that you agree to this - that we publish a corresponding resolution, namely the demand that the South Rhine Province close again come to us. The districts of Koblenz and Trier are so closely linked to us culturally, traditionally, economically and personally that we have to declare at this moment under all circumstances: We do not see the development of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as complete, we have to move on insist that the South Rhine Province will be added again. "

Even later discussions in Rheinland-Pfalz to spin off the Rhineland parts of the country and its ties to North Rhine-Westphalia led to a referendum in mid-1950s to a referendum in 1975, but ultimately the state of Rhineland-Palatinate managed to maintain its territorial integrity.

Up until the London Germany Conference on March 26, 1949, the Netherlands repeatedly advocated the assignment of a strip of territory to the southeast and east of the German-Dutch border. It was not until 1949 that these demands were largely shelved. Nevertheless, the Netherlands and Belgium retained some western peripheral areas of North Rhine-Westphalia until the 1960s, e.g. B. the Selfkant , under their management.

History of the country since 1946

Until the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany 1946–1949

Tabular overview of the reports on state reform that were voted on in the Zone Advisory Council in 1946.
Rudolf Amelunxen , first Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, here in the Federal Assembly in 1954
The Ständehaus in Düsseldorf, today the exhibition building "K 21" of the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection , since 1876 the seat of the Rhenish Provincial Parliament, from 1949 to 1988 the state parliament building of North Rhine-Westphalia
Cologne-born Konrad Adenauer , here on a photo from 1952, acted as CDU parliamentary group leader in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament from October 1946 . From 1948 onwards, as President of the Parliamentary Council, Adenauer shaped the deliberations on the development of the Basic Law and, from 1949, became the first Federal Chancellor to shape the policy of the Federal Republic . In addition to
Hermann Wandersleb , the head of the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia, he played a key role in the election of Bonn to the federal capital .

On July 24, 1946, William Asbury , the Regional Commissioner (civil governor) for the Province of North Rhine-Westphalia , offered the Upper President of the Prussian Province of Westphalia , Rudolf Amelunxen , to become the first Prime Minister of the new country and to form a cabinet in Düsseldorf after the The British military government had agreed on him in a meeting on July 22, 1946, chaired by Noel Annan , which took place in the Stahlhof in Düsseldorf. With the appointment of the Westphalian Upper President as Prime Minister, the British wanted to break the end of the disappointment of Westphalian interest groups who had hoped for the establishment of an independent state of Westphalia with the capital Münster. Asbury informed Amelunxen: "You and your cabinet will work under my direction." Amelunxen's appointment was announced on the evening of July 26, 1946. On July 30, 1946, Amelunxen made a radio address from Cologne “to the population of the Rhineland and Westphalia”.

Since March 1946, Amelunxen had already served the British occupation forces as a member of the zone advisory board. Even before decree No. 46 was issued on August 1, 1946, the British military government informed him: “The new land will comprise the existing provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia. Its capital will be Dusseldorf. " (German:" The new land includes the existing provinces of North Rhine Westphalia and its capital will be Dusseldorf "..) Amelunxen had before 1933 the Catholic Center Party belongs and returned in 1947 back to the party. The British gave preference to the then non-party to the Rhenish Christian Democrats Robert Lehr , Karl Arnold and Hermann Pünder .

The choice of Düsseldorf as the state capital came unexpectedly, although the relocation of the administrative headquarters of the province of North Rhine from Bonn to Düsseldorf in October 1945 had already shown that the British preferred Düsseldorf. On May 1, 1946, they established an important civil administrative authority, the Regional Commissioner (civil governor for North Rhine), also in Düsseldorf; he took his seat in the Stahlhof , like the British military governor of the province, John Ashworth Barraclough, before . Düsseldorf offered great potential in terms of office and administrative capacity and, as the “ desk of the Ruhr area ”, was the seat of large companies and important industrial interest groups, such as the Northwestern Group of the Association of German Iron and Steel Industries , the Stahlwerkverband AG and the Düsseldorf Industry Club . Since 1875, Düsseldorf had become a central trading center for financial transactions thanks to the headquarters of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Börse . This central location function was reinforced by the incorporation of the Cologne and Essen stock exchanges in 1935. Nevertheless, the city, which was heavily but less heavily damaged by the war than Duisburg, Essen and Cologne and which had lost its former capital city functions since 1815, for a long time only offered provisional conditions for the settlement of the authorities and political institutions of the newly founded state.

Just like the Prime Minister, the state government was also appointed. Amelunxen's first cabinet met for the first time on August 30, 1946 and consisted of non-party members as well as members of the center, the FDP, the SPD and the KPD. The CDU under the state parliament member Konrad Adenauer preferred the opposition after they could not get the Ministry of Interior and Culture. After a cabinet reshuffle at the end of 1946 and after a local election that went well for the CDU, in which it received 46% of the votes cast nationwide , the CDU also appointed state ministers to Amelunxen's second cabinet for the first time. From August 1946 to April 1, 1953, the state government occupied the Mannesmann House on the knee of the Rhine as the state chancellery and the official seat of the prime minister.

The opening session of the first state parliament took place on October 2, 1946 in the Düsseldorf Opera . The 200 MPs had been appointed and had previously essentially belonged to the two provincial councils; The SPD, KPD, CDU, Zentrum and FDP were represented, and some MPs were non-party.

The competences of the state parliament and the state government were still very limited compared to the rights of the occupiers. Meetings were initially held in makeshift arrangements. It was not until 1949 that the Ständehaus , which had been badly damaged in the war, was repaired to such an extent that the Landtag found its home there for the next few decades. The first local election - the first democratic election since November 1932  - had already taken place in October 1946.

In 1947 the former state of Lippe had to give up its independence at the instigation of the British. The small state had the choice of connecting to Lower Saxony or North Rhine-Westphalia. The Lippe government under the country President Henry Drake decided after negotiations for connection to North Rhine-Westphalia, as the country lip from Düsseldorf's government by Lippe Punktationen received comprehensive political commitments. Among other things, most of his state assets were not transferred to the state property of North Rhine-Westphalia, but to the specially founded state association Lippe . In addition, the seat of the new administrative district of Minden-Lippe (later the administrative district of Detmold) was relocated from Minden to the previous capital of Lippe, Detmold. The Lippers were also allowed to keep their community schools, while in Westphalia and the Rhineland the denominational school ("confession school") was the mainstream school until the 1960s. On January 21, 1947, the Association came into effect through British Military Ordinance No. 77. The British promised the Lippers a referendum within five years in which they should finally vote on accession. The vote planned until 1952 did not take place. On November 5, 1948, with the passing of the “Law on the Unification of the State of Lippe with North Rhine-Westphalia”, the incorporation of Lippe was finally legally regulated by the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The first state election took place in April 1947 . The CDU became the strongest party. The state parliament elected CDU politician Karl Arnold as the second prime minister . Arnold was assigned to the left wing of the CDU and, in the difficult economic and political time for the country, accepted the SPD as well as the "natural CDU partner" center, and until 1948 even the KPD, into his first government .

Under Arnold, North Rhine-Westphalia participated in the Parliamentary Council convened in 1948 in drafting the Basic Law , on the basis of which the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. In this constitution - as a consequence of the negative experiences to which the co-ordination of the federal states and the totalitarianism of the National Socialist regime had led - the federal character of the new state order was laid down in the eternity clause . North Rhine-Westphalia was the most populous state in the new republic, whose political orientation was significantly influenced by Cologne's Konrad Adenauer as the first Federal Chancellor . On the initiative of the head of the North Rhine-Westphalian State Chancellery , Hermann Wandersleb , Bonn was chosen as the venue for the Parliamentary Council; there the Basic Law was signed by the Prime Ministers of the federal states. In 1949 the Bundestag elected Bonn as the provisional federal capital , from which the name Bonn Republic refers to the Federal Republic of Germany. Most of the necessary infrastructures for the federal government and the federal parliament had to be rebuilt.

1946 was Dusseldorf Art Academy reopened and the precursor of the later Detmold Academy of Music founded and a year later with the Sports University in Cologne by Carl Diem , the first new university. In 1947 the first Ruhr Festival took place under the motto "Art for Coal". The Hamburg theaters thanked the Recklinghausen mates who had secretly given them coal for their theaters. In 1949, in the middle of the ruins of war-torn Cologne, the first Cologne Rose Monday procession after the war took place. One year after the end of the war there were already 19 licensed newspapers in North Rhine-Westphalia.

After the war, the supply situation for the population was catastrophic for years, especially in the cities. Housing and infrastructure were largely destroyed , especially in the country's industrial centers, which had been badly hit by bombing . The population in urban areas such as the Ruhr area had little opportunity to support themselves . In addition to the population residing in Westphalia, Lippe and Rhineland, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons also had to be cared for. Food was rationed (→ food stamp ). The black market flourished.
In the extremely cold starvation winter of 1946/47, the popular Cardinal Frings from
Cologne justified in his New Year's Eve sermon 1946 stealing from the mouth and stealing coal out of necessity, which was henceforth called "fringsen".

The Ruhr Statute, adopted on April 29, 1949, took into account the special economic and arms-political importance of the Ruhr area . In the Petersberg Agreement of November 22, 1949, the young Federal Republic accepted the international authority intended to implement the Ruhr Statute, which was supposed to control the region's coal and steel industry . The control authority, the seat of which the Atlantikhaus in today's government district of Düsseldorf (today the seat of the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Construction ) was determined to be, was only active until the European Coal and Steel Community came into force in 1952. Production restrictions were loosened after a short time in order to promote economic reconstruction and to supply the French steel industry with German coal. For example, the production of gasoline from coal was prohibited . The Petersberg Agreement also ended the dismantling of important industrial facilities in the Ruhr area.

1950s

In the state elections on June 18, 1950 , the CDU was again the strongest force in parliament, and the KPD was able to move into it for the last time. The CDU, which had previously led a coalition with the SPD and the center, entered into a coalition with the center party after the election , but without the SPD, which advocated the introduction of cross-denominational community schools and coalition participation . The latter fell primarily within the legislative competence of the federal government, but naturally had a special significance for North Rhine-Westphalia's industry. Karl Arnold was regarded as a Catholic social politician who was relatively open-minded or even positive about the demands for worker participation and even for the introduction of non-denominational schools. Konrad Adenauer from Cologne , who was elected Federal Chancellor and had become the dominant figure in the CDU, opposed Arnold and worked massively towards the formation of a government coalition without the participation of the SPD.

Simultaneously with the state elections in 1950, a vote was taken on the adoption of the constitution for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia , the draft of which had been passed by the state parliament shortly before with 110 votes from the CDU and the center against 97 from the SPD, FDP and KPD. The denominational school enforced by the CDU and the center was the most controversial . In the referendum, 57% voted yes, 35.2% no, and 7.8% of the votes cast were invalid. In the strongly Catholic areas, there was a clear majority in favor of the constitution, while in the predominantly Protestant parts of the country, the no-votes predominated very often, but not consistently. In the northern part of East Westphalia as well as in the eastern Ruhr area, the no-votes predominated, but the strongest rejection was in the former state of Lippe (58.6% no, 31.6% yes, 9.8% invalid). A referendum on the connection of the state of Lippe could not be held by the state government. The districts of Detmold and Lemgo , who had taken action against this treatment before the Federal Constitutional Court, did not prevail with their legal opinion there on July 28, 1955.

As Prime Minister Arnold worked towards the coal and steel co-determination, which was anchored in the Co-determination Act in 1951 and became the model for further co -determination laws in the social market economy of the Federal Republic. Because of its place of origin - with a slightly ironic undertone - the model of the social market economy is also referred to as Rhenish capitalism . It was based on the Düsseldorf guiding principles , which the CDU had put in front of its economic and social policy program in 1949.

The state coat of arms of North Rhine-Westphalia , introduced in 1948, symbolizes the three parts of the country: the northern Rhineland , Westphalia and Lippe .

In 1953 the national flag and coat of arms were legally established. The coat of arms shows the symbols of the three regions of Lippe, Westphalia and Rhineland.

In the state elections in 1954 , the CDU received a significant gain, while the previous coalition partner lost heavily. The KPD failed at the five percent hurdle. Karl Arnold succeeded in integrating the FDP into a government. In addition to the FDP ministers, the former Prime Minister and experienced State Minister Rudolf Amelunxen continued to be represented in the Arnold III cabinet . In 1956, the CDU / FDP coalition broke up because the FDP terminated the coalition in protest against an electoral reform aimed at by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, which would have had an adverse effect on small parties. In the state parliament, the FDP and SPD elected the former miner Fritz Steinhoff (SPD) as the new prime minister, who formed an SPD-FDP government with again Amelunxen from the center.

In the German-Belgian border treaty in 1956, the borders between North Rhine-Westphalia and Belgium were finally determined. Among other things, areas claimed by Belgium are again North Rhine-Westphalian.

The state elections in 1958 ended the social-liberal coalition after only about two years. Karl Arnold, who was voted out in 1956, ran again as the top candidate of the CDU in 1958, but died unexpectedly shortly before the state elections at the age of 57. The CDU won the state elections for the first time with an absolute majority. Arnold's political heir was Franz Meyers (CDU). The center missed its entry into the state parliament for the first time in 1958.

In 1952, the state parliament passed a municipal ordinance that the British had already introduced by resolution in 1945. The new municipal code was based on the principles of the North German council constitution and gave the council, which was the only body to be directly elected, a paramount role. This municipality order was fundamentally reformed in 1994. In 1953, the municipalities in the Rhineland region and in Westphalia-Lippe received landscape associations in order to better fulfill their municipal tasks .

In 1956 the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk split into the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). The broadcasting area of ​​the WDR was the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while the NDR produced for the northern German states. Since 1955 the citizens of the country were allowed to play the lottery again; In 1957 the state-owned West German Lottery became independent. In 1952, the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund , which had been destroyed in the war, were reopened. In 1957 the new opera opened in Cologne ; the remains of the old opera, which had been destroyed by the war, were torn down in 1958. In 1958, the Roman Catholic Church set up the diocese of Essen , its own diocese for the densely populated Ruhr area.

The Lufthansa logo of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, newly founded in Cologne in 1955, one of the best-known trademarks from North Rhine-Westphalia worldwide

The first photokina took place in Cologne in 1950 . In 1959, the reconstruction of the war-damaged Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne was completed. In 1955 Lufthansa was re-established with its headquarters in Cologne, in which the state of North Rhine-Westphalia also held direct equity investments.

In 1950 food and fuel rationing was lifted - the first sign of the emerging economic miracle . In 1952, the international control authority for the Ruhr Statute was officially dissolved, so that the coal and steel industry could again produce and export unchecked. The Ruhr Statute was replaced by the agreements on the European Coal and Steel Community , also known as the Mining Union and considered to be the root of what would later become the European Community and Union . Allied plans to reorganize the ownership structure of the German coal and steel companies and to control the entire steel industry, the idea underlying the Ruhr Statute, were abandoned in the course of the establishment of the coal and steel union. Due to the coal and steel co-determination law , the trade union movement had already risen as an antipole to the capital owners of the coal and steel companies. At the end of the decade, the country's coal and steel industry fell into its first major crisis. The coal crisis had various technical, economic and political causes and led to the loss of shifts and layoffs. One of the first mines in the area that had to shut down due to the coal crisis in 1959/60 was the Prinz Regent colliery in Bochum. The coal crisis, which later also hit the steel industry , heralded the structural change in the area, which became a major political issue in the coming decades.

As a result of the 1955 recruitment agreement with Italy, many Italians came to the country to cushion the labor shortage in North Rhine-Westphalia's industry. To this day, the Italians are the second largest group of foreigners in the country.

1960s

Dreischeibenhaus in Düsseldorf, planned and built from 1955 to 1960, symbol of the economic miracle
Audimax of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum : the Ruhruni was the first university to be founded in Germany in 1962
Logo of the EUREGIO , the first European region , initiated as a German-Dutch cooperation association of municipalities as early as 1958, formally founded in 1965 as a municipal association

On April 8, 1960, a contract ( Algemeen Verdrag ) was concluded with the Netherlands to regulate the German-Dutch border question , which provided for the return of areas under Dutch contract management to Germany by 1963 and represented a first step towards improving German-Dutch relations . Areas such as the Selfkant , Elten and Suderwick -West became fully North Rhine-Westphalian again in August 1963, while the Wylerberg fell under Dutch sovereignty.

In the state elections in 1962 , the CDU lost its absolute majority. Prime Minister Franz Meyers (CDU) succeeded in forming a coalition with the FDP. After the state elections in July 1966, the coalition was able to assert itself against the SPD with a majority of two state parliament seats.

Following the example of Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger , who formed a CDU / SPD government in December 1966, Franz Meyers, who was initially confirmed in office, decided (initially in secret) to seek a grand coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia. After his plans became public, he dismissed his FDP ministers. Contrary to his plans, the SPD did not form a government with him, but formed a government coalition with the FDP, which governed the rest of the legislative period with its own majority from the previous state elections. Heinz Kühn became the first SPD Prime Minister after the state parliament had elected him to office by a vote of no confidence around five months after the state elections.

In 1965 the EUREGIO , which had been prepared from 1958, officially came into force. The EUREGIO was the first European region with North Rhine-Westphalian participation. The Euregio Rhine-Waal , the Euregio Rhine-Maas-North and the Euregio Meuse-Rhine followed in the 1970s .

In 1969, the state government began to carry out extensive regional reforms , which were not completed until 1975. Against some violent protests, large municipalities and larger urban districts were created and the layout of the districts and urban districts rearranged in order to create more efficient municipalities.

The research reactor in Jülich started operations in 1962 . A facility went into operation that is now one of the largest research facilities in the country and is now known as Forschungszentrum Jülich .

In the 1960s a period of new university building began in North Rhine-Westphalia, which until now had only a few facilities of this type. In 1961 it was decided to build the Ruhr University Bochum , the first departments of which could be opened in 1965. In the same year, the previous Medical Academy in Düsseldorf was converted into the University of Düsseldorf . In 1968 the University of Dortmund opened , in 1969 the University of Bielefeld .

In order to meet the need for teachers at the state's schools, from 1963 Minister of Education Paul Mikat also allowed side entrants (so-called “ Mikkins ”) to study as a teacher. The elementary schools were the mid-1960s, according to Hamburg Agreement by a school system with primary schools replaced on which the secondary schools in addition to the high schools and high schools built up as secondary schools. In 1968 the SPD and CDU agreed on the introduction of the community school as a regular school. After this agreement, a denominational school (Hauptschule or Realschule) in North Rhine-Westphalia can continue to be set up or maintained under state sponsorship at the request of the parents and if the school size is sufficient

The Grimme Prize was first awarded in Marl in 1964 . In 1967 the first Art Cologne took place in Cologne .

In 1964, Walter Seifert committed the worst rampage in the country's history in Cologne-Volkhoven . Eleven people died, eight students, two teachers and the assassin himself.

The recruitment agreement signed with Turkey in 1961 led to an influx of Turkish workers beginning in the 1960s. In particular, the industries in the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation received the additional workers desperately sought after during the economic miracle. Today the population group with a Turkish migrant background represents the largest group of migrants in the country.

Heavy industry in particular in the “economic wonderland of North Rhine-Westphalia” created massive environmental problems. That is why the severe environmental pollution that was particularly evident in the Ruhr area was an important topic in Willy Brandt's federal election campaign as early as 1961 .

In 1962 the first Aldi branch opened in Essen ; Designed as a typical discounter , it laid the foundation for the later retail empire of the Albrecht brothers in Essen . In the early 1960s, an Opel factory was established in Bochum , where the Kadett was manufactured from 1962 onwards . In addition to the Ford plant in Cologne, it became the second large automobile plant in the country.

The death of collieries spread in 1966 with the closure of the Graf Bismarck colliery to include mines that had previously been considered profitable. Decommissioning for presumably purely economic reasons, namely in order to receive high decommissioning premiums, was particularly controversial. The federal government intervened in the mining crisis with Federal Minister of Economics Karl Schiller in 1967 and initiated a concerted action . The government threatened to cancel the subsidies if the collective bargaining partners and the government did not agree on a new coal law . This law then came into force in 1968. In response to pressure from the federal government, most of the mining companies merged to form Ruhrkohle AG . This large company was supposed to be more powerful in competition with foreign coal, but was ultimately only able to delay the death of collieries.

The Express first appeared in Cologne in 1964 as a competitor to the Bild newspaper and has held its own in the Rhineland to this day in the tabloid market segment.

1970s

Johannes Rau , North Rhine-Westphalia's sixth Prime Minister from 1978 to 1998, Germany's eighth Federal President from 1999 to 2004
The Niederrheiner Joseph Beuys , performance artist , university teacher at the Dusseldorf Art Academy and creator of the idea of social sculpture applies worldwide as one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

The state elections in 1970 enabled SPD Prime Minister Heinz Kühn to continue his government. His coalition partner, the FDP, only barely made it into the state parliament, and the CDU became the strongest party in terms of share of the votes. The election was the first state election after lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years. In 1970, the SPD was the first of the major people's parties to set up a regional association that encompassed the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 1974 a referendum against the heavily controversial local government reform failed . This enabled the final stage of the regional reform in 1975 to come into force as planned. The more than 2,300 municipalities belonging to the district became around 373 municipalities. As a result of district reform , 57 (rural) districts became 31 districts between 1966 and 1975; the number of independent cities was reduced from 38 in 1966 to 23 in 1975. In just a few years, North Rhine-Westphalia radically reorganized its municipal structures like no other state. In a national comparison, no other area has so far had similarly populous municipalities . In 1972 the administrative district of Aachen was also dissolved and its area was added to the administrative district of Cologne .

After the state elections in 1975 , Prime Minister Kühn was again able to form an SPD / FDP government as the SPD's top candidate. But the strongest force was again the CDU. Heinz Kühn resigned in 1978 because of the WestLB affair . Kühn's successor was Johannes Rau .

The government announced the introduction of the cooperative school in 1976 and met with great opposition from the population. A referendum against the introduction was organized and received the necessary support from the citizens. The introduction of the new type of school was then stopped in 1978. It should remain the only successful referendum in the country to this day.

The German autumn of 1977 began with the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer in Cologne and shook the German and North Rhine-Westphalian judicial and political systems .

From 1971 the technical schools in North Rhine-Westphalia were converted into 15 technical colleges ; In 1972 five comprehensive universities followed . In 1975 the Hagen Open University, unique in Germany, was founded.

The Westphalian Open Air Museum was inaugurated in the former state capital of Lippes in 1971 . In 1972 Heinrich Böll from Cologne received the Nobel Prize for Literature . In 1972, the Minister of Education, Johannes Rau, dismissed the then world-famous Joseph Beuys from his position at the Düsseldorf Art Academy because of an allegedly illegal art and protest campaign . Rau triggered a protest against the dismissal, which was supported by many artists and students as well as part of the public. In 1974 Pina Bausch founded her dance theater in Wuppertal and developed into a major player in the international dance scene.

For the 1974 World Cup , “modern” multifunctional stadiums with a playing field and athletics track were newly built or modernized in the North Rhine-Westphalian venues of Düsseldorf ( Rheinstadion ), Dortmund ( Westfalenstadion ) and Gelsenkirchen ( Parkstadion ). The Müngersdorfer Stadium in Cologne, which was initially also considered as a venue , was rebuilt by 1974. In the not modernized Bökelberg Stadium, Borussia Mönchengladbach dominated professional football in the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1979 the team became German champions five times , won the UEFA Cup twice , the DFB Cup and the Supercup once each . In 1976 the Casino Aachen was opened as the first casino in the country. Three more followed by 2007.

The trial of the sleeping pill Contergan , which caused mutilations in unborn children and produced by the North Rhine-Westphalian company Grünenthal , was brought to an end in 1970 with a settlement.

In 1971 Bertelsmann was converted into a stock corporation. The foundation stone was thus laid for the rapid rise to one of the largest media companies in the world. In 1977, Bertelsmann's main shareholder Reinhard Mohn contributed his shares to the Bertelsmann Foundation , which subsequently developed into one of the largest German foundations.

In 1974, speculative transactions by the Cologne-based Herstatt Bank led to the largest bankruptcy in banking in post-war history.

The steel industry was competitive until the mid-1970s . It still achieved a record output in 1974, but then, like the coal industry before, it increasingly fell into a major crisis , which was partly due to emerging foreign competition and partly to the oil crisis , which had led to high energy prices. The alleviation of the effects of this structural crisis and the shaping of the structural change became a central topic of all subsequent state governments. In 1979 the state government started the Ruhr Action Program . The Ruhr area should become cleaner and the residents should be enabled through education to carry out activities beyond the coal and steel industry. The state government used large parts of the budget for this. The country got more and more into debt. At the end of the 1970s, the state's earning power had fallen to such an extent as a result of the steel and coal crisis that North Rhine-Westphalia was no longer a donor state in the financial equalization system for the first time in 1979 . In the following decade, too, it should remain among the net recipients in the financial equalization. The steel crisis reached its climax around a decade later, when the protests against the closure of the Rheinhausen steelworks reached enormous proportions. At the end of the 1980s, only around 4% of employees were working in the coal and steel industry.

1980s

1988: Thyssen steel works in Duisburg
State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia : since 1988 the new building on the knee of the
Rhine has been the center of the government district in Düsseldorf

In the state elections in 1980 , the FDP narrowly missed the five percent hurdle. As a result, the SPD, as the larger of the two parliamentary groups, had an absolute majority in the state parliament. The SPD parliamentary group elected Johannes Rau , who had been prime minister since 1978 and remained so until 1998, as prime minister. Its popularity secured the NRW-SPD an absolute majority for the following three legislative periods. The country was subsequently dubbed by political commentators as the “heart chamber of social democracy” or the “home of the SPD”, the basis of which was the working class milieu of the Ruhr area. In 1988 the new state parliament was inaugurated on the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf. Almost 42 years after the founding of the state, the state parliament received a building designed for its needs for the first time. With him, the foundation stone was laid for the development of a government district on the Düsseldorf Rhine knee . In 1986, 40 years after the founding of the state, the two CDU party associations for the Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe merged to form the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia .

In 1987 the state parliament approved the purchase of 37,000 apartments from the North Rhine-Westphalian portfolio of the over-indebted Neue Heimat .

In 1984 Cemaleddin Kaplan founded a radical fundamentalist movement in Cologne. The self-proclaimed "Caliph of Cologne" died in 1995, his son Metin Kaplan succeeded him as "Caliph". It was not until 2001, after long legal disputes, that the German constitutional state banned the caliphate state and deported Kaplan to Turkey.

In 1981, after an extensive test phase , the comprehensive schools were finally integrated into the North Rhine-Westphalian school system. The country's first private university opened in 1983. Soon, however, the University of Witten-Herdecke was dependent on state grants that were granted from 2007 onwards.

In 1986 the Museum Ludwig was inaugurated in Cologne . RTL has been broadcasting from Cologne since 1988 and has subsequently developed into one of the largest private broadcasters in the country. In 1989 the first music fair popkomm took place in Cologne .

In 1985, smog alarm level III was declared in parts of the Ruhr area for the first time . Car traffic and industrial production were restricted; the environmental pollution in the Ruhr area had reached a new quality. The contract of the century , signed in 1980, was intended to give domestic hard coal an advantage over imported hard coal for generating electricity. The coal pfennig introduced in 1980 was used to finance this subsidy for domestic hard coal. In 1986 the coal pfennig was abolished due to constitutional concerns; Since then, the North Rhine-Westphalian mines have been able to maintain their operations through direct state subsidies. In 1982 the steel crisis reached its symbolic climax. The Krupp Stahl AG announced the closure of the steelworks in Rheinhausen , because the domestic steel production over foreign import goods were not competitive. A closure was planned for 1988. Mass protests and labor disputes in 1987 prolonged the survival of the plant, but it was finally shut down in 1993.

In 1989 the nuclear reactors in Jülich and the fast breeder in THTR 300 in Hamm were shut down. In the latter case, there were considerable operational disruptions up to and including a leak of radioactivity in 1986.

1990s

New plenary hall of the German Bundestag in Bonn: only used from 1992 to 1999, in 1999 the parliament moved to Berlin

The 1990 state elections brought the SPD and its top candidate Johannes Rau an absolute majority for the third time in a row. The Greens made it into the state parliament for the first time.

In 1991 the Bundestag decided to move the government and parliament to Berlin , replacing the “provisional” as the new federal capital. Nevertheless, parts of the government and other federal institutions remained in Bonn, which was given the title of federal city ​​for the loss of its capital function . As the location of important (former) state-owned companies such as the successor companies of the Deutsche Bundespost and the arrival of important UN institutions , the departure of the government and parliament was largely compensated for. New buildings by major state museums also created the nationally unique museum mile in the old government district .

In 1995 the SPD missed an absolute majority for the first time since 1980. Johannes Rau was able to remain Prime Minister, but was dependent on a coalition of the SPD and Greens. The approval of the Garzweiler II opencast mine led the red-green coalition to the brink of failure as early as 1996. In 1998 Johannes Rau resigned as one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers in Germany. In 1999 the Federal Assembly elected him Federal President. Rau was the fourth North Rhine-Westphalian in this office after Gustav Heinemann , Heinrich Lübke and Walter Scheel . Successor as Prime Minister was Wolfgang Clement . He moved the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia to the Stadttor high-rise office building . Clements' decision to merge the Justice and Home Affairs ministries provoked widespread opposition and lasted only one year since the Constitutional Court ended the merger in 1999. The 1999 local elections brought several innovations with them: The voting age fell to 16 years, the 5 percent hurdle was declared invalid, and the dual leadership was abolished, so that the now full-time (mayors) and district administrators can elect directly for the first time was.

In 1992 the worst earthquake occurred in the North Rhine-Westphalian Rheingraben since 1756. The earthquake with its epicenter in the Dutch border town of Roermond caused damage of around 150 million euros in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 1993, five people died in a right-wing extremist arson attack in Solingen . The attack sparked nationwide outrage. Already in 1992 around 100,000 people demonstrated against right-wing extremist violence in Cologne under the motto Ass huh, Zäng ussenander .

In 1994 the British Army of the Rhine was withdrawn from the country, officially ending the British occupation of the country. Only a few troops remained in the country under the name " British Armed Forces in Germany ", especially in East Westphalia , but were subsequently further reduced.

In 1990 the first local radio programs started. Most of them had come together in the Radio NRW network . In 1991 the North Rhine-Westphalia Film Foundation was founded. In the following years the film foundation supported numerous successful film productions. One of the most popular museums in the country, the Chocolate Museum, opened in Cologne in 1993 . In 1993, two more television stations, VIVA and VOX , started in Cologne , followed by Phoenix in 1997 . In 1998, the Kölnarena, the largest multi-functional hall in Germany to date, was opened.

In 1994 the Rhinelander Michael Schumacher won his first world championship and thus began one of the most successful careers for a North Rhine-Westphalian athlete. In 1997, Borussia Dortmund, one of the traditional clubs in the Ruhr area, won the Champions League and the World Cup .

The International Building Exhibition Emscher Park (IBA), which started in 1989, ended in 1999. Its main theme was the management of structural change in the Ruhr area in terms of urban development and culture.

In 1990 Nixdorf Computer , so far one of the most innovative IT companies in the country - based in Paderborn, got into economic problems and had to be transformed with the help of Siemens AG into the successor company Siemens Nixdorf in order to preserve most of the jobs.

The Kalkar nuclear power plant , which was almost completed in 1985, was not put into operation; in 1991 the project was finally abandoned. In 1994, the Würgassen nuclear power plant was also the last North Rhine-Westphalian nuclear power plant to be shut down. The country's steel groups, which had been badly hit by the ongoing steel crisis, consolidated their companies in the 1990s. First of all, Hoesch AG and Krupp became Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch- Krupp in 1992 , which in turn merged with Thyssen in 1997 into ThyssenKrupp AG . At the end of the decade, Düsseldorf began developing the futuristic-looking media harbor , which was primarily intended to attract service and media companies to the former industrial harbor area.

In Oberhausen, the site of the former Gutehoffnungshütte was transformed into the new center from 1992 , when the CentrO shopping center opened in 1996. The projects in Düsseldorf and Oberhausen are examples of other projects to shape structural change, such as the Mediapark and the Rheinauhafen in Cologne or the inner harbor in Duisburg , which in turn was initiated as part of the IBA .

2000s

Protest of the anti-coal power movement against Garzweiler II

The state elections in 2000 led to Wolfgang Clements being confirmed in the office of Prime Minister to lead the red-green state government for another legislative period. As early as 2001, his government came under considerable criticism in connection with the sale of the animation studio in Oberhausen ( HDO ). The core of the allegations was that the buyer was deceived by the studio's fancy balance sheets and the state government's unsuccessful subsidy policy. In 2002 Wolfgang Clement became Minister of the Federal Government after the general election . The state parliament elected the previous state finance minister Peer Steinbrück as his successor as prime minister. In the 2005 state elections , Steinbrück ran for the first time as the SPD's top candidate. The state election triggered a political "earthquake". The voters enabled a black and yellow alliance and the election of Jürgen Rüttger (CDU) as prime minister. For the first time in almost 40 years, the SPD was no longer involved in government in its home state, North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 2003, the comprehensive universities were transferred to regular universities . In 2006 the newly elected CDU / FDP government made it possible for the state's universities to charge tuition fees . In several cross-country PISA studies , North Rhine-Westphalia's school system only took lower places in the national comparison in many subjects, which sparked heated discussions about the quality of the North Rhine-Westphalian school system. In 2007, the state government introduced the central high school diploma in the state for the first time .

In 2009, a district reform was carried out in the country for the first time since the 1970s . The city of Aachen and the district of Aachen were combined in the city ​​region of Aachen in order to test a new regional model in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 2001, UNESCO named the Zollverein colliery, which was closed in 1986 , as the country's fourth World Heritage Site after Aachen Cathedral , the Augustusburg and Falkenlust palaces and Cologne Cathedral . The industrial complex, once one of the largest collieries in the world, is a unique testimony to the mining industry in the Ruhr area. After the closure, the Zollverein colliery and coking plant were preserved as an industrial monument and made usable as cultural and museum locations.

The first lit.Cologne took place in 2001 . In the years that followed, this event developed into the largest literature festival in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2001 the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and its nationally important art collection in Cologne received a new museum building. The contemporary collection of the Kunsthaus has been open to the public in the former state parliament building since 2002 . In 2004 c / o pop took place in Cologne for the first time , which was also launched as a reaction to Popkomm's move to Berlin, which was the largest music fair in the country until then. In contrast to Popkomm in Berlin, c / o pop has enjoyed increasing popularity since 2004. In 2007 the new building for the Kolumba Museum opened in Cologne .

The Muslim citizens, who have meanwhile become at home in North Rhine-Westphalia, planned representative mosques in many places in the state from around 2000 . Some of the construction projects in North Rhine-Westphalia met with violent protests. Massive protests were made especially against the DITIB central mosque in Cologne . In contrast , in Duisburg- Marxloh , which is dominated by migrants , the construction of the 2008 Mekrez mosque went largely smoothly.

By the middle of the decade, the Belgian armed forces gave up their last garrison in the country. In 2004 this made it possible to establish the Eifel National Park . The national park also includes parts of an area previously used by the Belgian military and is the country's first national park.

In 2009 the Cologne City Archives collapsed as a result of construction work on the subway. In the process, invaluable documents of regional and national history were lost or damaged in the rubble.

2001 was AufSchalke Arena in Gelsenkirchen, the most modern stadium in the country in Gelsenkirchen, right next to the traditional Park Stadium inaugurated. In the same year, the Düsseldorf councilors decided to build the multifunctional arena ( LTU arena ), which was to replace the traditional Rheinstadion and was intended as a venue for the soccer world championship. However, the Müngersdorfer Stadium , which was completely renovated by 2003 , the Arena in Gelsenkirchen and the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, which was continuously expanded until 2003, as the largest stadium in the state, were selected as the venues for the 2006 World Cup in North Rhine-Westphalia .

The telecommunications group Vodafone took over Mannesmann AG in 2000 in one of the largest and most controversial mergers in German economic history to date. With the takeover, one of the largest companies in the North Rhine-Westphalian coal and steel industry lost its independence. The severance payments for the then chairman of the board, Klaus Esser, trigger nationwide outrage and lead to one of the largest economic processes in Germany.

In 2003, WestLB , which was largely owned by local authorities and the state, revealed financial problems that continued in the following years for various reasons. The consequences of the financial crisis aggravated the financial difficulties of the largest bank in the country. Since the financial crisis at the latest, the state government has been considering a merger with another Landesbank or a sale of the bank. During the financial crisis, the private bank Sal. Oppenheim , headquartered in Cologne, got into serious trouble; it was taken over by Deutsche Bank in 2009 . The insolvency of the Karstadt parent company Arcandor , one of the largest North Rhine-Westphalian trading companies, contributed to this.

In 2008 the Finnish Nokia group closed the Nokia factory in Bochum and relocated production to Romania. The decision provoked outrage and protests on the one hand because the plant in Bochum posted no losses, and on the other hand because the Nokia plant was considered a showpiece of a crisis-proof successor industry for the coal and steel industry in the Ruhr area. From 2009 the problems of the insolvent GM group became threatening for Bochum , the Opel plant of the group there was closed at the end of 2014.

In 2007 , it was agreed that hard coal mining in Germany would cease until 2018 by closing the still working mines, all of which are owned by RAG Deutsche Steinkohle AG . The newly established RAG Foundation, as the owner of Deutsche Steinkohle, will then ensure that the perpetual costs are settled. The “white area” of the previous RAG was spun off as Evonik Industries . Evonik, also owned by the RAG Foundation, has been one of the largest companies in the country since it was founded and is intended to support the foundation's tasks with its income. According to the agreement, the lignite mining in the open-cast mining method in the Rhenish lignite mining area is expected to continue to be economically viable . In 2006, production began in the Garzweiler II district, which had been a highly controversial area for many years .

2010s

Shaft tower Zeche Zollverein in Essen. Relic of coal mining, world cultural heritage and venue of RUHR.2010

In the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2010 , the CDU / FDP government lost its majority, the SPD and the Greens formed a minority government under Hannelore Kraft (SPD) without concluding a tolerance agreement with other parliamentary groups. In February 2011, the red-green coalition abolished tuition fees for the following winter semester. For the first time in the state's history, on March 15, 2011 , the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia declared the supplementary budget passed by the red-green coalition for the 2010 budget year to be unconstitutional. The 2011 budget was also declared unconstitutional in March 2013. In both judgments, the court cited the inadmissibly high level of debt as a reason.

In 2012, the state election was brought forward after the state parliament dissolved itself for the first time in its history because the draft budget had not found a majority in parliament. The 2012 state election resulted in a red-green majority in parliament, with which the previous coalition was continued. The left missed entry into the state parliament, while the Pirate Party of North Rhine-Westphalia made it into the state parliament for the first time.

The Ruhr area was the European Capital of Culture in 2010 . Under the motto RUHR.2010 - European Capital of Culture , the focus was on developing one of the world's largest industrial regions into a culturally lively metropolitan region. The title of Capital of Culture was awarded to North Rhine-Westphalia for the first time. In this context, the Folkwang Museum received a new building. The Ruhrland Museum moved to the site of the disused Zeche Zollverein . The exhibition was completely redesigned and the building has been called the Ruhr Museum ever since . In connection with RUHR.2010, 60 km of the A40 federal motorway from Dortmund to Duisburg were closed and used for a cultural event for one day. In the style similar to the RUHR.2010 Love Parade in Duisburg were in a disaster , 21 killed Visitors triggered by the narrowness full of urge, and at least 652 more, some seriously injured.

By mid-2011, WestLB, which was partly owned by the state , and which had been in turmoil that threatened the existence of the country since the financial crisis from 2007 onwards, could not be rehabilitated. A planned sale or a contemplated merger with another Landesbank failed. In June 2011, the owners therefore decided WestLB - the first Landesbank in Germany - to resolve . The billions in funds that have flowed from the state budget to support the bank since 2002 are largely lost.

With the closure of the Prosper-Haniel colliery , the era of hard coal mining ended in the country. In the course of the discussion about the phase-out of coal , protests in the Rhenish lignite mining district were partly violent in the Hambach Forest and in the Garzweiler opencast mine .

timeline

June 21, 1946 The British cabinet decides in Whitehall in London to found the state of North Rhine-Westphalia
July 17, 1946 The merger of the northern Rhineland with Westphalia is announced at a press conference at the Allied Control Council in Berlin .
July 24, 1946 Appointment of Rudolf Amelunxen as Prime Minister by the British occupation authorities
August 23, 1946 Establishment of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia through Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government
October 2, 1946 Constituent session of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament
January 21, 1947 Ordinance No. 77 of the British military administration for the integration of the state of Lippe into North Rhine-Westphalia comes into force for the time being.
April 20, 1947 First state election. Karl Arnold (CDU) becomes the first elected Prime Minister.
November 5, 1948 The state parliament in Düsseldorf passes the "law on the unification of the state of Lippe-Detmold with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia", the establishment of the state association Lippe
April 23, 1949 The Netherlands occupy some western areas of North Rhine-Westphalia. The territories are not returned until August 1, 1963.
May 23, 1949 The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany comes into force. North Rhine-Westphalia becomes a state of the Federal Republic of Germany .
May 10, 1949 The Parliamentary Council designates Bonn as the provisional federal capital .
June 18, 1950 Approval of the state constitution by referendum
March 10, 1953 The state law on the state colors , flags and coats of arms is passed.
May 12, 1953 The regional associations of Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe are founded.
May 11, 1954 The founding of West German Broadcasting in Cologne is decided.
February 20, 1956 Thanks to a successful constructive vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Karl Arnold (CDU), Fritz Steinhoff (SPD) becomes the new Prime Minister with the support of the FDP parliamentary group.
July 21, 1958 Franz Meyers (CDU) becomes the new Prime Minister and successor to Fritz Steinhoff (SPD).
1960 The closure of the Prinz Regent colliery is a symbolic prelude to the coal crisis . As early as the 1950s, hard coal mining lost more and more of its former dominant position in the North Rhine-Westphalian economy.
June 30, 1965 The state government opens the Ruhr University in Bochum .
December 8, 1966 With the help of the FDP parliamentary group, Heinz Kühn (SPD) replaces Franz Meyers (CDU) with a constructive vote of no confidence as prime minister.
December 12, 1968 The state government opens the University of Dortmund .
July 1, 1969 The first stage of the reorganization of the municipalities and districts comes into force. This will initially reduce the number of municipalities in the state.
1st August 1971 The educational offer in North Rhine-Westphalia is expanded to include 15 universities of applied sciences in Aachen , Bielefeld , Bochum , Dortmund , Duisburg , Düsseldorf , Essen , Hagen , Cologne , Krefeld , Lemgo , Münster , Paderborn , Siegen and Wuppertal .
May 16, 1972 This is followed by the comprehensive universities in Duisburg , Essen , Paderborn , Siegen and Wuppertal, and in 1975 the only German distance-learning university in Hagen .
1st January 1975 The second stage of the reorganization of the municipalities and districts comes into force. This again reduces the number of communities and all districts in the country are reorganized.
20th September 1978 Johannes Rau (SPD) replaces Heinz Kühn (SPD), who has been in office for around twelve years, as Prime Minister.
1987 Massive labor disputes over the closure of the Rheinhausen steelworks mark the symbolic climax of the steel crisis , which had been on the horizon since the mid-1970s. The steel industry has been in an existential crisis since the 1980s at the latest. Their importance for the country's economy is shrinking.
June 20, 1991 The Bundestag decides to move large parts of the government and parliament to Berlin. Bonn is no longer the capital of the Federal Republic. The parliament and many government offices relocate to Berlin by 1999.
17th October 1994 The new district regulations and the new Municipal Code come into force after the municipal dual leadership is abolished. At the same time, the direct election of the district administrators and the mayor or mayor is introduced.
March 1994 The British Army of the Rhine is withdrawn from North Rhine-Westphalia. This officially ends the British occupation of the country. Only a few troops remain in the country as " British Armed Forces in Germany "
May 27, 1998 Wolfgang Clement (SPD) replaces Johannes Rau (SPD), who was in office for almost twenty years and was soon elected Federal President, as Prime Minister in the red-green coalition.
July 6, 1999 The constitutional court of North Rhine-Westphalia declares the five percent hurdle in local elections to be unconstitutional. The clause is then deleted from the Local Election Act.
November 6, 2002 Peer Steinbrück (SPD) replaces Wolfgang Clement (SPD) as Prime Minister in the red-green coalition.
January 1, 2003 All comprehensive universities will be transferred to universities .
January 1, 2004 The Eifel National Park is designated as the country's first national park
May 22, 2005 The SPD, led by Prime Minister Peer Steinbrück, loses its status as the strongest parliamentary group in the election of the 14th state parliament after 25 years and, after 39 years of government (since 1995 with the Greens ), the voters sent it into the opposition. On June 22, 2005, the CDU and FDP elect Jürgen Rüttgers (CDU) as Prime Minister.
October 21, 2009 First municipal reform since the 1970s: the city of Aachen and the district of Aachen were merged into the city ​​region of Aachen . For the first time, a new type of regional model is being tested in North Rhine-Westphalia.
January 1, 2010 The Ruhr area is the European Capital of Culture for one year .
July 14, 2010 Hannelore Kraft (SPD) is elected the country's first female Prime Minister. She leads a red-green coalition . For the first time, a minority government is being formed in North Rhine-Westphalia .
May 13, 2012 The red-green coalition under Hannelore Kraft (SPD) received its own parliamentary majority in the early state elections in 2012 . This was preceded by the self-dissolution of the state parliament.
May 9, 2014 A storm on Whit Monday caused numerous damage in NRW. It raged hardest in Düsseldorf with wind speeds of 142 km / h. It was the worst storm in North Rhine-Westphalia since Hurricane Kyrill .
May 14, 2017 After the state elections in 2017 , a CDU-FDP coalition elects Armin Laschet (CDU) as the new Prime Minister.
December 31, 2018 End of coal mining in the country

North Rhine-Westphalia Day

Until 2006, the state celebrated its milestone birthdays with events in the state capital Düsseldorf. Starting in 2007, these North Rhine-Westphalia Days will take place annually in different cities in the state.

See also

literature

Overall representations

  • Jörg Engelbrecht: North Rhine-Westphalia from a historical perspective . In: Werner Künzel, Werner Relleke (Hrsg.): History of the German countries. Developments and traditions from the Middle Ages to the present . Münster 2005, p. 255-278 .
  • Uwe Knüpfer: We in the West. How we became what we are; a historical guide to North Rhine-Westphalia . Klartext, Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8375-0180-3 .
  • Christoph Nonn: History of North Rhine-Westphalia . CH Beck, 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58343-8 .

Individual epochs

  • Hein Günter Horn (ed.): The Romans in North Rhine-Westphalia . Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-8062-0312-1 .
  • Wilhelm Ribhegge: Prussia in the West. Struggle for parliamentarism in Rhineland and Westphalia 1789–1947 . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-402-05489-5 .
  • Rolf Steininger : A new state on the Rhine and Ruhr: the Ruhr question in 1945/46 and the emergence of North Rhine-Westphalia . W. Kohlhammer, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-17-011113-2 . (Unchanged reprint: A new land on the Rhine and Ruhr. The history of the origins of North Rhine-Westphalia 1945/46 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-17-030732-2 . )

Individual topics

Web links

Commons : History of North Rhine-Westphalia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ordinance No. 46, Dissolution of the Provinces of the former State of Prussia in the British Zone of Occupation and their new formation as independent states of August 23, 1946 , reproduced in the portal Verassungen.de , accessed on January 20, 2012.
  2. Announcement of the British Military Ordinance No. 77 of January 21, 1947 (PDF; 476 kB), reproduced in the lwl.org portal of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association, accessed on January 20, 2012.
  3. ^ State of North Rhine-Westphalia - 1. Historical background . Website in the portal bpb.de ( Federal Agency for Civic Education ), accessed on November 17, 2013.
  4. ^ Karl Ditt , Klaus Tenfelde (ed.): The Ruhr area in Rhineland and Westphalia. Coexistence and competition of spatial awareness in the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular: Hans Heinrich Blotevogel: spatial awareness in the Rhineland, Westphalia, the Ruhr area and North Rhine-Westphalia: introduction and evaluation. LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History Münster, Research on Regional History, Volume 57 (Ed. Bernd Walter), Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-75748-7 .
  5. For example, through the Langnam Association or the Business Association for the Promotion of Spiritual Reconstruction Workers
  6. ^ John Gillingham: The French Ruhr Policy and the Origins of the Schuman Plan. (PDF; 8.2 MB). In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, issue 1/1987, ISSN  0042-5702
  7. Gottfried Eckertz: The Franconian Ripuarland on the left bank of the Rhine . In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine . 1st year. Cologne 1855, p. 19-46 .
  8. Friedrich Haagen: History of Achens from its beginnings to the exit of the Saxon imperial family (1024) . Paderborn 1868, reprint Salzwasser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8460-3547-4 , p. 88 (online)
  9. Added to this were Hildesheim in 1724 and Osnabrück in 1728 , the latter also in the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Empire
  10. ^ Thomas Nipperdey : German history. 1800-1866. Citizen world and strong state . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-09354-X , p. 91.
  11. Hans-Joachim Behr: North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-2000. The genesis. ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website with further documents and references, accessed on the portal nrw2000.de on March 17, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nrw2000.de
  12. ^ Raymond Poidevin: France and the Ruhr question 1945-1951. In: Historical magazine. Volume 228, Issue 2, pp. 317-334, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1979, ISSN  0018-2613
  13. ^ Rolf Steiniger: A new country on the Rhine and Ruhr. The Ruhr question in 1945/46 and the emergence of North Rhine-Westphalia. Writings on the political geography of North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 6, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-17-011113-2 , p. 55 f. And map No. 4, p. 13.
  14. ^ Raymond Poidevin, p. 317.
  15. ^ Armistice and Post-War Committee (44) 118. "Confederation, Federation and Decentralization of the German State, and the Dismemberment of Prussia". Cabinett Papers 87/68. In: Lothar Kettenacker: Prussia in Allied War Planning 1939–1947. In: Lothar Kettenacker, M. Schlenke, H. Seier (eds.): Studies on the history of England and German-British relations. Festschrift for P. Kluke. Munich 1981, pp. 312-340. Quoted from: Rolf Steininger: A new country on the Rhine and Ruhr. The Ruhr question in 1945/46 and the emergence of North Rhine-Westphalia. In: Writings on the political geography of North Rhine-Westphalia. Volume 6, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-17-011113-2 , p. 33.
  16. Kurt Düwell: "Operation Marriage" - The British obstetrics in the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia. Speech from September 14, 2006 on the 60th anniversary of the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia to members of the German-British Society in Schloss Jägerhof, Düsseldorf, lecture manuscript as PDF file brauweiler-kreis.de , accessed on December 5, 2020.
  17. Reiner Burger, Düsseldorf: 70 years: How NRW came about through a forced marriage . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 22, 2021]).
  18. ^ Wilhelm Ribhegge: Does North Rhine-Westphalia need a house of history? In: Saskia Handro, Bernd Schönemann (Ed.): Space and Sense. The spatial dimension of historical culture . LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12483-8 , p. 134, footnotes 12 and 13 (online)
  19. Martin Goosmann: The Ruhr area in the area of ​​tension between Western Allied and German economic policy 1945 to 1952 . Diploma thesis, Verlag diplom.de, 2001, p. 54 (online)
  20. Decision for North Rhine-Westphalia: Minutes of the meeting of the Overseas Reconstruction Committee on June 21, 1946 , website in the uibk.ac.at portal , accessed on August 27, 2016.
  21. Martina Kessel : Western Europe and the division of Germany. English and French policy on Germany at the Foreign Ministers' Conferences from 1945 to 1947 . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-486-55241-4 , p. 110.
  22. ^ Rudolf Arend: Citizens and municipal self-government in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1945. A contribution to the history of the country . Dissertation University of Duisburg 2009, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60245-4 , p. 71.
  23. Düsseldorf Administrative Court : On the history of the courthouse ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article in the portal justiz-online / Verwaltungsgericht Düsseldorf , accessed on October 27, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vg-duesseldorf.nrw.de
  24. ^ Hans Joachim Behr: North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-2000. The genesis. ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website with further documents and references, accessed on the portal nrw2000.de on March 17, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nrw2000.de
  25. a b Birth and Adolescence of a State Capital . Article in the duesseldorf.de portal , accessed on March 17, 2013.
  26. Ordinance No. 46 (PDF; 223 kB) - Dissolution of the provinces of the former Land of Prussia in the British Zone and their new formation as independent countries; In ordinance no. 46, the regions of North Rhine and Westphalia were linked with a dash: “North Rhine / Westphalia”.
  27. Veit Veltzke: The Prussian Museum North Rhine-Westphalia in Minden and Wesel . In: AHF information . No. 003 , January 14, 2004 ( PDF ( Memento of November 4, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on August 20, 2010]).
  28. Bernd Walter: Self-reflection and view in Westphalia on the Ruhr area: Introduction and evaluation. In: Karl Ditt, Klaus Tenfelde (Hrsg.): The Ruhr area in Rhineland and Westphalia. Coexistence and competition of spatial awareness in the 19th and 20th centuries. LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History in Münster, Research on Regional History, Volume 57 (Ed. Bernd Walter), Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-75748-7 , p. 118.
  29. Quoted from: Otto Pöggeler: Downfall and New Beginning on the Rhine. In: Gerhard Kurz (Hrsg.): Düsseldorf in the German intellectual history. Düsseldorf, Schwann, 1984, ISBN 3-590-30244-5 .
  30. See in particular: Manfred Rasch: Two Provinces - One Economic Area? On the perception of the “Ruhr area” by coal and steel industry in the 19th century. In: Karl Ditt, Klaus Tenfelde (Hrsg.): The Ruhr area in Rhineland and Westphalia. Coexistence and competition of spatial awareness in the 19th and 20th centuries. LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History Münster, Research on Regional History, Volume 57 (Ed. Bernd Walter), Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-75748-7 , p. 225 ff. And Appendix p. 259 ff (Use of the designation "Rheinisch-Westfälisch" or "Niederrheinisch-Westfälisch" from the 19th century to the end of the First World War)
  31. a b Der Spiegel 27/1959 of July 1, 1959: The Rheinisch-Westfälische Börse , Spiegel-Online portal , accessed on October 23, 2011.
  32. ^ Heinrich von Treitschke : German history in the nineteenth century . Volume 4: Until the death of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Leipzig 1889, p. 553 ( digitized version )
  33. ^ Kurt Düwell : Operation Marriage - The British obstetrics in the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia. on September 14, 2006 in the Goethe Museum, Schloss Jägerhof, Düsseldorf, requested on May 6, 2010 Speech text (PDF)  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.debridge.de  
  34. Landkreis Vechta: Zeitzeichen im Landkreis ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landkreis-vechta.de
  35. NRW 2000: North Rhine-Westphalia 1945–2000 ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nrw2000.de
  36. ^ Marcus René Duensing: The foundation of the state of Lower Saxony
  37. ^ Wolfgang Hölscher: North Rhine-Westphalia. German sources on the history of the origins of the country, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 507 ff. Quoted from: Beate Dorfey: One Rhine province, two countries and the question of regional reorganization after 1945 , website in the portal rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de , accessed on August 20 2020.
  38. 50 years ago. April 9 to April 22, 1956. “Popular initiative - popular consumption”. Referendum in Rhineland-Palatinate on the regional reorganization. (No longer available online.) Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, archived from the original on December 6, 2013 ; Retrieved August 20, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landeshauptarchiv.de
  39. Clemens Amelunxen: Forty years of service to the social rule of law . Publication series of the Legal Society eV Berlin, Issue 110, Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1988, ISBN 3-11-011704-5 , p. 34 (online)
  40. ^ Wilhelm Ribhegge: Prussia in the west. Struggle for parliamentarism in Rhineland and Westphalia, 1789–1947 . Verlag Aschendorff, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-402-05489-5 , p. 649.
  41. ^ Karl Teppe: Rudolf Amelunxen , biography in the online portal lwl.org of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, 2004, accessed on June 21, 2013.
  42. ^ Clemens von Looz-Corswarem: State capital. In: North Rhine-Westphalia. State history in the lexicon. Düsseldorf 1993, p. 251 and Rolf Steiniger (ed.): The Ruhr question 1945/46 and the emergence of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. British, French and American files. Düsseldorf 1988, Doc. 225, p. 958.
  43. ^ A b c Gerhard Brunn, Jürgen Reulecke: Small story of North Rhine-Westphalia 1946-1996 . Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Cologne 1996, p. 32.
  44. Düsseldorf in the bombing war , website in the portal duesseldorf.de , accessed on March 8, 2019.
  45. Sabine Gierschner: This is where the fathers of North Rhine-Westphalia sat: the first cabinet room of the state government in Düsseldorf. In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland. Issue 3/2011, p. 135 ff.
  46. Parliamentary advisory and expert service of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia : Investigations into the guidelines for the admission of the State of Lippe into the territory of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (PDF; 145 kB), Information 13/0719 of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, 13th electoral period, 27 March 2003, edited by Karsten Bron, Andrea Glende, accessed on the landtag.nrw.de portal on August 29, 2012.
  47. ^ Gerhard Brunn, Jürgen Reulecke: Small story of North Rhine-Westphalia 1946-1996 . Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Cologne 1996, p. 32/33.
  48. Frank M. Drost, Donata Riedel: damage balance. WestLB was a bottomless pit. In: Handelsblatt. June 28, 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2011 .
  49. ^ Rheinische Post from December 17, 2005, accessed on November 28, 2009 Rüttgers wants annual North Rhine-Westphalia Day