19. A response to the economic turmoil and occupation by the French in 1923, the Rhenish Republic was a short-lived effort to declare independence from the Weimar Republic that quickly turned into anarchy
Following the humiliating end of the First World War, the German region of the Rhineland endured a period of immense political and economic turbulence. Dissatisfied with the performance of the Weimar Republic, in 1923 the German currency collapsed and France occupied the Ruhr to claim war reparations. Resulting in a moment of anti-Berlin sentiment, on October 21, 1923, separatists captured the Aachen Rathaus, proclaiming in the Imperial Chamber a “Free and Independent Rhenish Republic. However, the chamber was held for less than two days, with loyalists responding and the streets descending into violence.
Becoming reminiscent of the Thirty Years’ War according to observers, with plunder, rape, and murder widespread, local militias began to organize to defend themselves from the anarchy. Resulting in the massacre at Aegidienberg, where, in response to the shooting of some of their own, a group of locals murdered fourteen separatists. Triggering a split in the movement, combined with a crackdown by the occupying French, on November 28, 1924, Matthes announced he had dissolved the government. Fleeing into exile, those who remained were protected by an amnesty but widely shunned for years.