The Rhenish Republic () was proclaimed at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in October 1923 during the occupation of the Ruhr by troops from France and Belgium (January 19231925) and subjected itself to French protectorate. It comprised three territories, named North, South and Ruhr. Their regional capitals were, respectively, Aachen, Koblenz and Essen.
Background
The name was one applied by the short-lived separatist movement that erupted in the German Rhineland during the politically turbulent years following Germany's defeat in the First World War. The objectives of the many different separatist groups ranged widely, from the foundation of an autonomous republic to some sort of change in the status of the Rhineland within the Weimar Republic. Others advocated full integration of the Rhineland into France. Similar political currents were stirring in the south: June 1919 had seen the proclamation by Eberhard Haaß of the "Pfälzische Republik", centred on Speyer in the occupied territory of the Bavarian Palatinate.
Rhenish separatism in the 1920s should be seen in the context of resentments fostered by economic hardship and the military occupation to which the previously prosperous region was subjected. After 1919, blame for defeat in the First World War was apportioned to (amongst others) the military or simply the French. France, like Germany, had been profoundly traumatised by the First World War and the conduct of its occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was perceived as unsympathetic, even among its Western wartime allies. Increasingly, however, blame was directed against the German government itself, in far-off Berlin. By 1923, as the German currency collapsed, the French occupation forces headquartered at Mainz (under the command of Generals Mangin and Fayolle) were having some success in their encouragement of anti-Berlin separatism in the occupied zones.
After 1924, economic hardship slowly began to ease and a measure of brittle stability returned to Germany under the Weimar State. The appeal of Rhenish separatism, never a mass movement, was damaged by the violence employed by many of its more desperate supporters. The political temperature cooled after the French occupation of the Ruhr attracted increasingly strident criticism from Britain and the United States. Following the Dawes Plan in September 1924, an agreement to lower Germany's war reparations payments, the French vacated the Ruhr in the summer of 1925. The end of the Rhenish Republic can be dated at December 1924, when its leading instigator, Hans Adam Dorten (1880–1963), was obliged to flee to Nice. By 1930, when French troops also vacated the left bank of the Rhine, the concept of a Rhenish Republic, independent of Berlin, no longer attracted popular support.
Historical context
The Cisrhenian Republic (1797–1802) and subsequent incorporation of the region into the French Empire lasted for less than a generation, but introduced to the occupied Rhineland many of the features of the modern state. These were revolutionary and widely welcomed. One objective of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was to undo Napoléon's territorial changes, so the German Lower Rhine and Westphalia reverted to the Kingdom of Prussia (joined by the Middle Rhine and Cologne), the Palatinate region to Bavaria. Nonetheless, Prussia's western territories continued to adhere to the Napoleonic legal system and, in many other respects, the relationship between the citizen and the state had been permanently transformed. In addition, mutual intolerance of religious differences, stretching back centuries, endured between Protestant Prussia and the predominantly Roman Catholic populations of the Rhineland. The incorporation/reincorporation of most of the Rhineland into Prussia did not run smoothly and remained incomplete more than a century later. Many Rhinelanders continued to regard rule by Prussia as a form of foreign occupation. At the same time, these events occurred during the occupation of the Rhineland by American, Belgian, British and French troops.
Chronology Dr Adenauer calls a meeting On 1 February 1919, more than sixty of the Rhineland's civic leaders together with locally based Prussian National Assembly Members convened in Cologne at the invitation of the city's mayor, Konrad Adenauer of the Catholic Center Party. There was only one item on the agenda: "The Creation of the Rhenish Republic" ().
In addressing delegates, Adenauer identified the wreckage of Prussian hegemonistic power as the "inevitable consequence" () of the Prussian system. Prussia was viewed by opponents as "Europe's evil spirit" and was "ruled over by an unscrupulous caste of war-fixated militaristic aristocrats" (). He said that the other German states should, therefore, no longer put up with Prussian supremacy, that Prussia should be divided up, and the western provinces separated out to form a "West German Republic". This would make future domination of Germany by Prussia's eastern militaristic ethos impossible. Adenauer was, however, keen that this West German Republic should remain inside the German political union.
In the end, the Cologne meeting produced a two-point resolution. The meeting asserted the right of the Rhineland peoples to political self-determination. The proclamation of a West German Republic was to be deferred, however, so that the Prussian state might be divided up. In this way a practical solution could first be agreed with the French occupiers and France's allies regarding the issue of reparations.
During the months following Adenauer's meeting, separatist movements with a range of priorities and agendas appeared in many Rhineland towns and villages.
Hans Adam Dorten and the Wiesbaden Proclamation Hans Adam Dorten (1880–1963), an army reserve officer and former Düsseldorf public prosecutor, made a speech at Wiesbaden, on 1 June 1919, in which he proclaimed "The Independent Rhenish Republic", which was to incorporate the existing Rhineland Province along with parts of Hesse and Bavaria's Upper Rhineland. A non-violent putsch was also attempted across the Rhine in Mainz. This, along with other poorly coordinated localised actions inspired by Dorten's Wiesbaden Proclamation, failed to attract significant popular support and soon failed. The Supreme Court in Leipzig issued an arrest warrant for Dorten, citing 'high treason', but by remaining in the French occupied territories, Dorten made the execution of arrest warrant impossible.
At liberty, Dorten continued his struggle: on 22 January 1922 he founded in Boppard a political party, the "Rhenish Peoples' Union" (Rheinische Volksvereinigung), chaired by Bertram Kastert (1868–1935), a senior Cologne pastor. Thanks to the outstanding treason indictment, Dorten and his circle found themselves shunned by members of the mainstream political parties. The Rhenish Peoples' Union stayed in the shadows, its weekly publication, German Standpoint (Deutsche Warte) and its leaders' other campaigning activities depending on French sponsorship. Dorten moved to France at the end of 1923 and later took French Citizenship.
Occupation of the Ruhr
The German government fell into arrears with war reparations payments. In response, on 8 March 1921, French and Belgian troops occupied Duisburg and Düsseldorf. On 26 December 1922 the Reparations Commission determined that Germany had wilfully held back from making payments due, and two days later troops occupied the rest of the Ruhr area. With the active support of the German government, civilians in the area engaged in passive resistance and civil disobedience which largely shut down the economy of the region. A number of acts of sabotage and retaliation took place as well. An estimated 137 civilians were killed and 600 injured during the occupation. Even though relatively little violence accompanied the passive resistance, French authorities imposed between 120,000 and 150,000 sentences against resisting Germans. Some involved prison sentences, but the overwhelming majority were deportations from the Ruhr district and the Rhineland to the unoccupied part of Germany.
The ongoing economic crisis in Germany worsened considerably as a result of the occupation. The government paid for its support of idled workers and businesses primarily by printing paper money. The action contributed significantly to the hyperinflation that brought major hardships to Germans across the country. Writing in the journal Die Weltbühne (The World Stage), from the perspective of August 1929, the distinguished political commentator Kurt Tucholsky offered an assessment: "There was no appetite in the Rhineland for union with France, but little enthusiasm for continued union with Prussia. All that people wanted, and were entitled to, was an end to the hellish nightmare of hyperinflation and the creation of an autonomous republic with its own currency."
"Government" in Koblenz: Separatism across the Rhineland
Koblenz had been the administrative capital of the Prussian Rhine Province since 1822. Amidst the turmoil of economic collapse, it was here that, on 15 August 1923, the "United Rhenish Movement" () was formed from a merging of several existing separatist groups. Leaders included Dorten of the "Rhenish Peoples' Union" (die Rheinische Volksvereinigung) and a journalist named Josef Friedrich Matthes (1886–1943) of the "Rhenish Independence League" (der Rheinischen Unabhängigkeitsbund) which had been founded by Josef Smeets from Cologne. Another leading figure present was Leo Deckers from Aachen. The unambiguous goal of the United Rhenish Movement was the complete separation of the Rhine Province from Prussia, and the establishment of a Rhenish Republic under French protection. The creation of the republic was to be publicly proclaimed: meetings would be convened across the Rhineland. Endorsement from the French, with their military headquarters in Mainz, was taken for granted: it is not clear what thought was given to the possibility that commanders of France's junior partner in the occupation might take a less benign view of separatist activities just across the border from Belgium's Eupen enclave, west of Aachen, only recently incorporated into Belgium under the terms of the Versailles settlement.
Two months later, ten kilometres to the east of Aachen, the tricolour flag of the Rhenish Republic appeared outside a house in the small town of Eschweiler. Inside, the movement set up a communications center on 19 October 1923. A week after that, the separatists attempted a putsch against the Rathaus. Surrender was refused however: a truce briefly ensued. The next day, the government urged resistance and eventually, on 2 November 1923, Belgian occupation troops expelled the separatists from Eschweiler.
Meanwhile, in Aachen itself, separatists led by Leo Deckers and Dr Guthardt captured the Aachen Rathaus (city hall) where, in the Imperial Chamber, they proclaimed the Free and Independent Rhenish Republic on 21 October 1923. The next day the separatists came up against counter demonstrators who surrounded and wrecked their Sekretariat in Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz, near the theatre. 23 October opened with shooting in the streets: meanwhile the city fire brigade reclaimed the Rathaus, forcing the separatists to retreat to government buildings. That day Belgian troops imposed martial law.
On 25 October, the local police were placed under the command of the Belgian occupation forces after attempting to storm the separatists out of the government buildings, only to find themselves thwarted by occupation troops. Across town, changes at the Technical High School included the exclusion from Aachen of non-resident students.