Ruhr Question

If the German Reich could not meet the requirements of the reparations, the negotiation terms of the Londoner Zahlungsplan threatened to divide the Ruhr through forced occupation.

At this time, the Ruhr was known as the Rhine-Westphalian coal and industrial area, including Lippe in the north, Dortmund in the east, and Düsseldorf in the south.

Germany defaulted on reparations, causing France and Belgium to occupy the cities of Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort in 1921 and the remaining Ruhr area stretching east to Dortmund in 1923.

This memorandum stated that the separation of the Rhineland and Westphalia, including the Ruhr area of the German Reich, as "indispensable for the protection of the frontier and an essential prerequisite for the security of Europe and the world.

"[4] The Soviet Union wanted the industrial area on the Rhine and Ruhr placed under common control of all four powers, as stipulated by the Berlin Declaration (1945).

The three Western Allies disliked the idea of the Soviet Union reaping the benefits of the industrial area of the Rhine and the Ruhr.

Basic differences of opinion led to tensions between the Soviet Union and Western Allies over various questions concerning the re-organization of Europe and the World.

This experiment retarded the recovery of Europe after the last war, precipitated the great inflationary wave of 1923–25 and stifled the infant Republic of Weimar and so contributed to paving the way of National Socialism.

Because we sympathise with sufferings there is no reason why we should adopt the restated view which results from them.The French side often encountered resistance to their proposals for the solution of the Ruhr Question.

This French-born idea of the ceding of French political authority towards the creation of a "European structure" was previously laid out in a memorandum written by Jean Monnet in Algiers on August 5, 1943.

The shift of France concerning Ruhr and German policy after the Second World War towards a "communalization" of the coal and steel industries, which was opened by the Schuman Plan, is explained by a cognitive process on the French side.

Map of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Kohlen- und Industriegebiets, 1896
"Greeting from the Cannon City of Essen" (postcard with the depiction of the Krupp Gussstahlfabrik , 1913) - The postcard flirts with the power of a Krupp railway gun , in the beam of which the greetings are inscribed.
Area of the Occupation of the Ruhr as it happened.
According to an unrealized French proposal of March 11, 1946, the Ruhr area and the neighboring Rhine ("Ruhr-Rhénanie") were to be placed under a special occupation regime of the Allies.
Atlantikhaus in the Government District of Düsseldorf , from 1949 to 1953 seat of the International Authority for the Ruhr , now Ministry of Building, Housing, Urban Development and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia