Josef Friedrich Matthes
Josef Friedrich Matthes (10 February 1886 – 9 October 1943) was head of the short lived Rhenish Republic.[1]
Biography
He was born on 10 February 1886 in Würzburg. He moved to Switzerland in 1909 and worked as an editor in Baden. By 1918, he was editor of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's newspaper in Aschaffenburg. In 1921 he was convicted of libel and sentenced to 6 months in prison after accusing the major of hoarding food. He fled to Wiesbaden, then under French occupation, where he worked as editor of the magazine "The Torch" (Die Fackel).
In early 1923, he was co-founder of the "Rheinischer Unabhängigkeitsbund", which sought independence for the Rhineland. In October 1923, he and his supporters seized the city of
By 1930, he was working as a journalist in Paris. After the
References
- New York Times. November 29, 1923. Retrieved 2011-01-23.
Joseph Matthes chief of the "Rhineland Republic," announced today that he had dissolved the Separatist Government at Coblenz. He is back at Düsseldorf, where he told the New York Times correspondent he intended "to start the movement afresh along better lines, freed from compromising elements which had done no much to discredit it."
- ISBN 978-3-412-11106-9.