Rhenish-German National Convention
The Rhenish-German National Convention was the legislative organ of the short-lived Mainz Republic (1792/93) and the first parliament on German soil to be elected according to democratic principles .
Emergence
During the First Coalition War , French revolutionary troops under General Adam-Philippe de Custine conquered large areas of Germany to the left of the Rhine in autumn 1792 . In the occupied area, which roughly corresponds to today's Rheinhessen and the Palatinate , Custine had elections for a legislative body held on February 24, 1793 by order of the Paris National Convention , in which the male population of around 130 towns and villages participated.
decisions
The deputies of the freely elected Rhenish-German National Convention met for the first time on March 17, 1793 in the Mainz Deutschhaus , today the seat of the state parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate . The next day, they declared the areas they represented to be an independent state, to be governed according to "laws based on freedom and equality" . The decree with five articles is considered “the birth certificate of bourgeois democracy in Germany” and thus proclaimed a republic organized according to “bourgeois democratic principles”. On March 21st, the deputies decided to apply to the National Convention in Paris for integration into the French state association. The selected deputies who were to deliver this decision were Georg Forster , Adam Lux and the businessman Potocki. The deputies were accompanied to Paris by Convention Commissioner Nicolas Haussmann .
End of the National Convention
In the meantime, however, the coalition forces had counterattacked. They enclosed Mainz on March 31st and besieged the city until they were captured on July 23rd, 1793. This marked the end of the Mainz Republic and the Rhine-German National Convention.
MP
See the list of members of the Rhenish-German National Convention .
literature
- The Republic of Mainz. The Rhenish-German National Convention , ed. from the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 1993
- Heinrich Scheel , The Mainzer Republic , Berlin 1975
- Franz Dumont , The Republic of Mainz 1792/93. Studies on the revolution in Rheinhessen and the Palatinate , in: Alzeyer Geschichtsblätter , special edition 9, Alzey 1982
- Walter Grab , A people must conquer their own freedom. On the history of the German Jacobins , Frankfurt am Main 1985
- Peter Schneider, Republic of Mainz and French Revolution , Mainz 1991
Web links
- Republic of Mainz. From the cannonade near Valmy to the first republic on German soil ( Memento from May 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Andreas Joseph Hofmann : Decree of the Rhenish-German National Convention assembled in Mainz. March 18, 1793, Retrieved September 8, 2017 . Original in the Mainz city archive
- ^ March 18, 1793. The Rhenish-German National Convention in Mainz. State Main Archive Koblenz , accessed on September 8, 2017 .
- ^ Ludwig Uhlig: Georg Forster. Life adventure of a learned world citizen (1754–1794). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-36731-7
