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The Free Peasantry and Separatism

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Rural Protest in the Weimar Republic

Part of the book series: St Antony’s

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Abstract

The separatist adventure of Franz Josef Heinz was part of a general Rhenish crisis which for years spawned vehement propaganda. French nationalists railed against the threat of German aggression and claimed the essential Frenchness of the western bank of the Rhine, while their German counterparts proclaimed that the border of Germany was in danger from immoral French influence.1 The separatists received a particularly bad press, being portrayed as a lumpenproletariat of treasonous revolver-toting bandits.2 These images were potent and they poisoned political debate in the Rhineland through the 1920s and beyond. However, behind the rhetoric separatism had real causes. These included the French search for security to the east, but also the chaotic economic and political circumstances of the Rhineland.

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Notes and References

  1. E.g. M. Barrès, Les grands problèmes de Rhin (Paris, 1930)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, UK

    Jonathan Osmond (Lecturer in History)

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© 1993 Jonathan Osmond

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Osmond, J. (1993). The Free Peasantry and Separatism. In: Rural Protest in the Weimar Republic. St Antony’s. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11568-6_6

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