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Appeal of the Westphalian Secessionists (1893)

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This is our program!

We have accordingly nominated our candidates.

To landowners and farmers we direct the urgent appeal to support with the utmost resoluteness the candidates that have been nominated after careful reflection and with thorough consideration of the wishes of individual electoral districts. But we also direct the same appeal to artisans and the smaller tradesmen, with whom we feel joined by a common interest, willing to support one of them with all our power, especially one of the candidates to be nominated by the artisans for the next Reichstag elections.

We enter into the campaign with the tried-and-true slogan: “For truth, freedom, and the law, and in the awareness that an economically strong and simultaneously religious estate of farmers and artisans is the strongest pillar for throne, altar, and Fatherland.”

Therefore, fellow Westphalian citizens from the city and the countryside!, let us show that we Westphalians have the strength, the will, and the independence to stand up for our rights with the steadfastness and tenacity that God has given us Westphalians; let no one dissuade us, no matter who he might be! Let us all, man for man, go to the polls on 15 June and let us all boldly cast our vote for our candidates!

We will name these our candidates once the individual district electoral committees have made up their minds.



Source: “Aufruf der westfälischen Agrarier (Sezessionisten) 1893” [Appeal of the Westphalian Secessionists“], from Günther Mees, Schorlemer-Alst und der Westfälische Bauernverein in der deutschen Innenpolitik, vornehmlich der Jahre 1890-1894 [Schorlemer-Alst and the Westphalian Farmers’ Association in German Domestic Politics, Particularly in the Years 1890-1914], phil. dissertation, University of Münster, 1956, Appendix, pp. 1-4.

Reprinted in Ernst Heinen, Staatliche Macht und Katholizismus in Deutschland [State Power and Catholicism in Germany]. Paderborn, 1969, pp. 241-43.

Translation: Thomas Dunlap

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