Rhineland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rhineland (Rheinland in German) is the general name for the land on both sides of the river Rhine in the west of Germany. After the collapse of the French Empire in the early 1800s, the German-speaking regions at the middle and lower course of the Rhine river were annexed to the kingdom of Prussia. The Prussian administration reorganised the territory as the Rhine Province (also known as Rhenish Prussia), a term continuing in the names of the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. Following the First World War of the early 1900s, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the Treaty of Versailles. German forces reoccupied the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, three years before the outbreak of the Second World War.
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[edit] Geography
The Rhineland is in the western part of Germany, and abuts international boundaries with France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The River Rhine forms the region's eastern boundary south (upstream) of a point north of Bingen.
The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country (Westerwald, Hunsrück and Eifel), cut by river valleys, principally the Rhine and Mosel. The north takes in the Ruhr valley.
Some of the bigger cities in the Rhineland include Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Koblenz, Krefeld, Ludwigshafen, Mainz, Mannheim, Mönchengladbach, Wiesbaden and Wuppertal.
[edit] Culture
The Rhineland is an overwhelmingly catholic region. In Germany it is often pictured as a region with an easygoing lifestyle, characterized by a vivid tradition of carnival, the cultivation (and consumption) of wine and a regional tradition of songs and singing ("rhenish songs"). This is an image by which the locals also identify themselves. The valley of the Rhine with its lovely landscape, its towns and castles has been an object of German romanticism since the 19th century with numerous folktales, legends, songs and poems having been written or gathered about. Among them "Loreley" by Heinrich Heine and the legend of the Nibelungs perehaps being known the most. The Rhineland is also known for its cathedrals, monasteries and an outstanding tradition of literacy like e.g. the historic library of Cologne's cathedral, which dates back to the early medieval era.
[edit] The political entity
The Rhine Province was created in 1824 by joining the provinces of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Its capital was Koblenz; it had 8.0 million inhabitants (1939). In 1920, the Saar was separated from the Rhine Province and administered by the League of Nations until a plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to Germany. At the same time, in 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium (see German-Speaking Community of Belgium). In 1946, the Rhine Province was divided up between the newly-founded states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. The town of Wetzlar became part of Hesse.
Today, the German region of Rhineland consists of the states of Saarland, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the prime German industrial areas, containing significant mineral deposits (coal, lead, lignite, magnesium, oil and uranium) and easy water transportation. In Rhineland-Palatinate Agriculture is more important, especially the highly valued vineyards in the Ahr, Mittelrhein, Rheinhessen, Rheinpfalz, Rheingau and the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer area.
[edit] Following the First World War
Following the Armistice of 1918, Allied forces occupied the Rhineland as far east as the river with some small bridgeheads on the east bank at places like Cologne. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 (formally ending World War I) the occupation was continued. The treaty specified three occupations Zones, which were due to be evacuated by Allied troops five, ten and finally 15 years after the formal ratification of the treaty, which took place in 1920. So the occupation was intended to last until 1935. In fact, the last Allied troops left Germany five years prior to that date in 1930 in a good-will reaction to the Weimar Republic's policy of reconciliation in the era of Gustav Stresemann and the Locarno Pact.
The French troops especially had become notorious for their harsh behavior towards the local civilian population. The French in a clear breach of the Treaty tried to separate the occupied areas from Germany by establishing an independent Rhenish Republic as a French puppet state. Separatist riots were encouraged and supported by the French, who tried to exploit traditional anti-Prussian resentments in the overwhelmingly Catholic region. In the end, the separatists failed to gain any decisive support among the population.
The treaty of Versailles also specified the de-militarization of the entire area to provide a buffer between Germany on one side and France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and to a lesser extent, the Netherlands) on the other side, which meant, that no German forces were allowed there after the Allied forces had withdrawn. Furthermore (and quite unbearable from the German perspective) the treaty entitled the Allies to reoccupy the Rhineland at their will, if the Allies unilaterally found the German side responsible for any violation of the treaty.
In violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the spirit of the Locarno Pact, Nazi Germany reoccupied the Rhineland on Saturday, March 7, 1936. The occupation was done with very little military force, the troops entering on bicycles, and could easily have been stopped had it not been for the appeasement mentality of post-war Europe. France could not act due to political instability at the time. In addition, since the remilitarization occurred on a weekend, the British Government could not find out or discuss actions to be taken until the following Monday. As a result of this, the governments were inclined to see the remilitarisation as a fait accompli.
Hitler took a risk when he sent his troops to the Rhineland. He told them to 'turn back and not to resist' if they were stopped by the French Army. The French did not try to stop them because they were currently holding elections in their country and no president wanted to start a war with Germany.
The British government agreed with the act in principle, "The Germans are after all only going into their own back garden" Lord Lothian, but rejected the Nazi manner of accomplishing said act. Not even ardent opposition to appeasement, such as that found in Winston Churchill, advocated military action.
The remilitarization of the Rhineland was very popular with locals, because of a resurgence of German nationalism and harboured bitterness over the Allied occupation of the Rhineland until 1930 (Saarland until 1935).
An interesting side-effect of the French occupations was the offspring of French colonial troops. These coloured Germans were not accepted into broader German society and were known as Rhineland Bastards. They were an object of the Nazi sterilisation programmes in the 1930s. The American poet Charles Bukowski was born in 1920 in Andernach as the son of a German mother and a Polish-American US soldier, serving among the occupation troops. Bukowski describes his father in a harsh way as a man, making use of his army food supplies to get a German woman (Bukowski's mother) in his bed. This is an allusion to the intentional malnutrition of the civilian population in the time between the signature of the armistice and the peace treaty.
[edit] The 1944-1945 military campaigns
Two different military campaigns were fought in the Rhineland.
[edit] U.S. Army
For five months from September, 1944 until February, 1945 the U.S. First Army fought a costly battle to capture the Hurtgen Forest. In terrain that negated Allied advantages and enhanced those of the German defenders, the US Army lost 24,000 troops. The value of their sacrifice has been argued over by military historians.
[edit] Canadian Army
In early 1945, after a long winter stalemate, military operations by most Allied armies in Northwest Europe resumed with the goal of reaching the Rhine river. From their winter positions in The Netherlands, the First Canadian Army under General Henry Crerar reinforced by elements of the British Second Army under General Miles Dempsey, drove through the Rhineland beginning in the first week of February 1945.
Operation Veritable lasted several weeks, with the end result of clearing all German forces from the west side of the Rhine river. The supporting operation by the First US Army, Operation Grenade, was planned to coincide from the River Roer, in the south. This was delayed for two weeks however, by German flooding of the Roer valley.
[edit] Other actions
On March 7, 1945 a company of armored infantry of the U.S. 9th Armored Division captured the last intact bridge over the Rhine at Remagen. General George Patton's Third US Army would also make a crossing of the river the day before the much anticipated Rhine crossings by 21st Army Group (First Canadian Army and British Second Army) under Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery in the third week of March 1945.
Operation Varsity was a massive airborne operation in conjunction with Operation Plunder, the amphibious crossings. By early April, the Rhine had been crossed by all the Allied armies operating west of the river, and the battles for the Rhineland were over.
[edit] Battle Honors
In the official histories of the British and Canadian armies, the term Rhineland refers only to fighting west of the river in February and March 1945, with subsequent operations on the river and to the east known as "Rhine Crossing". Both terms are official Battle Honours in the Commonwealth forces.
