Rhenish Republic

Rheinische Republik

Unrecognized state

1923–1924

Flag

Capital

Aachen

Government

Republic

President

Josef Friedrich Matthes

History

•

Established

21 October 1923

•

Disestablished

26 November 1924

Today part of

Germany

North Rhine-Westphalia

Flag

The Rhenish Republic (German: Rheinische Republik) was proclaimed at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in October 1923 during the occupation of the Ruhr by troops from France and Belgium (January 1923 – 1925). It comprised three territories, named North, South and Ruhr. Their regional capitals were, respectively, Aachen, Koblenz and Essen.

The Rhenish Republic is best understood as the aspiration of a poorly focused liberation struggle. 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 a change of 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 Great War was apportioned to (amongst others) the military or simply the French. France, like Germany, had been profoundly traumatised by the Great War and the conduct of her occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was perceived as unsympathetic, even among her 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.

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Wikipedia