AHC: Surviving Rhenish Republic

I've actually thought about this as a PoD for a TL, though I think the best way for it to survive would be if the rest of Germany became Communist. That way, France would look more reasonable for wanting a capitalist buffer state and even hosting a German government in exile (maybe?). Basically, it could serve as an alt-West Germany with a powerful industrial base for a couple of decades at least.
 
It is almost impossible for the Rhenish Republic to survive at all. The problem is, mostly, that the Rhenish Republic had trouble figuring out its position. The people of the Rhein did not want independence, and certainly not independence as a French puppet. The popular support simply did not exist, and when they attempted to gain independence, they were fought by the French. So the problem is that the Rhenish Republic would require the French to both support them, along with simultaneous propping up. By the 1920's, the French are in dire straights.
 
It is almost impossible for the Rhenish Republic to survive at all. The problem is, mostly, that the Rhenish Republic had trouble figuring out its position. The people of the Rhein did not want independence, and certainly not independence as a French puppet. The popular support simply did not exist, and when they attempted to gain independence, they were fought by the French. So the problem is that the Rhenish Republic would require the French to both support them, along with simultaneous propping up. By the 1920's, the French are in dire straights.

So not even if the rest of Germany were to become communist before? I agree that the Rhenish Republic had no chance otherwise.
 
So not even if the rest of Germany were to become communist before? I agree that the Rhenish Republic had no chance otherwise.

Yeah......Im of the opinion that a Communist Germany is impossible before 1920. Even then, it is extremely unlikely.

Fair enough. I just remembered that OTL's French occupation of the Rhineland had already been...controversial for the German population, so that would have eroded any potential for support for the republic anyway.
 
So not even if the rest of Germany were to become communist before? I agree that the Rhenish Republic had no chance otherwise.

If anything a communist Germany lowers it's chance of success because it was one of the most industrialized parts of Germany where a counter revolutionary secessionist movement would be at it's least popular.
 
What about a scenario where Kaiser Wilhelm remains in power with Germany later becoming a Constitutional Monarchy?

Perhaps have the Nazis, once they've assumed power plotting to have Wilhelm replaced with a more Pro-Nazi leaning Kaiser (like Prince August Wilhelm) while some Anti-Nazi members of Wilhelm's family escape Germany prior to WW2.

Post-WW2, East Germany comes under Communist rule as in OTL while an anti-monarchist Rhenish Republic secedes from West Germany after Louis Ferdinand becomes the new Kaiser replacing the disgraced August Wilhelm.
 
What about a scenario where Kaiser Wilhelm remains in power with Germany later becoming a Constitutional Monarchy?

Thats just not a realistic POD. A Hohenzollern Constitutional monarchy, with a POD in 1915 anything is possible, but Wilhem the Second? That man is a pariah.
 
To highlight the vagueness and contradictory nature of what movement there was (among Germans) for any sort of "Rhenish Republic," it isn't clear to me whether we are discussing a nominally independent western German nation, or, as Konrad Adenauer desired, a reorganization of the subunits of a united Germany at Prussia's expense!

Note that Adenauer got his way, partially, as the subaltern of a thoroughgoing Western Allied occupation some thirty years later. What he didn't get was a fully unified Germany, but the Western zones did reconsolidate, with the Länder reorganized to be more uniform, local units of comparable sizes, eradicating the former overwhelming dominance of Prussia. This was actually a compromise among Western Allies without direct reference to German interests, between the interest of breaking the threat of a unified Germany by breaking it up into harmless units, and the desire to marshal Germany as a whole (as much as possible) against the Soviet threat.

However, in retrospect, after a generation of occupation leading to the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany (initially under none other than Konrad Adenauer!:p) it would hardly have been stable if there wasn't some sentiment to be gradually consolidated by custom for the localities the Länder represent--just not sufficient such desire to serve to break the long-established submission to Prussian dominance that had after all been the means whereby Germany as a whole had become a major world power. Also, if post-WWII Germany had not been divided between Western and Soviet occupation zones, it isn't clear whether sentiment for continuing or even reviving Greater Prussian identity might not have prevailed; as things were, the heartland of Prussia was under Soviet control, so a Prussian identity in the West was off the table as long as East Germany existed. And of course the Soviets had reasons of their own to redraw the map so as to eliminate Prussia as well.

I wonder if there was any chance that the French might have persuaded Woodrow Wilson that a defeated Germany should have been reorganized internally so as to cut Prussia down to size, and thus the "liberation" of Prussia's 19th century western conquests incorporated into the surrender terms the Weimar Republic would have had to agree to. But if that were the origin of the new western German Länder, I guess that if Hitler or someone like him were to take over, he'd reverse it and restore Prussia in all its glory out of sheer spite.:mad:

Now if on the other hand we are talking about removing the Rhineland, perhaps with other regions to make a larger Rhenish Republic, from eastern Germany completely--no, I don't think very many people in Germany itself, on either side of the proposed line, would have stood for that. If it happens it has to happen as the outcome of the struggle between other powers stronger than Germany; it would be tantamount to a French colony unless as many here suggest it was some kind of refugee state seeking freedom from a powerful and unpopular Eastern regime. Note that a domestic German Communist movement would as someone has mentioned count parts of western Germany as their stronghold, so we aren't just talking about any Communist power but specifically one based to the east of Germany--the Soviet Union in some form, at some time, unless we can imagine a Polish regime strong enough to conquer the Prussian heartland and other eastern German lands but not so strong as to sweep up all of Germany!

So--as a realization of Adenauer's dream, we do indeed have the surviving Rhenish republic(s)--Rheinland-Pfaltz and Nordrein-Westfalia--today, as Länder of a united Germany. As completely independent state or states--that seems quite improbable.
 
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