Republic of Mainz

The Republic of Mainz was the first democratic state on the current German territoryThe shortlived republic is often ignored in identifying the "first German democracy", in favour of the Weimar Republic; e.g. "the failure of the first German democracy after the First World War (the Weimar Republic)..." (Peter J. Burnell, Democracy Assistance: international co-operation for democratization 2000:131), or Ch. 3. 'The First Attempt at Democracy, 1918-1933', in Michael Balfour, West Germany: a contemporary history, 1982:60 and was centered in Mainz. A product of the French Revolutionary Wars, it lasted from March to July 1793.

Context

During the First Coalition against France, the Prussian and Austrian troops that had invaded France retreated after the Battle of Valmy, allowing the French revolutionary army to counterattack. The troops of General Custine entered the Palatinate in late September, and occupied Mainz on 21 October 1792. The ruler of Mainz, Elector and Archbishop Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, had fled the city.

Jacobin club

On the next day, 20 citizens of Mainz founded a Jacobin club, the Gesellschaft der Freunde der Freiheit und Gleichheit (Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality). Together with their filial clubs founded later in Speyer and Worms, they promoted the Enlightenment and the French revolutionary ideals of liberté, egalité, fraternité in Germany, aiming for a German republic to be established...
Read More