Bavarian State Archives of Nuremberg - The Jewish Registers 1813-1861 for Middle Franconia The Situation of the Jews in Modern Bavaria after 1806 by Gerhard Rechter The Origin of Modern Bavaria and Administrative Reforms With the abdication of Francis II as German emperor on 6 August 1806, the agony of the Holy Roman Empire, or old German Empire, that had started on earlier, long before the French revolution of 1789, had come to an end.1 The territories of the old empire on the western banks of the Rhine were by then part of the French empire. Some of those to the east of the Rhine had attained their full sovereignty, whereas others had been included into the dominions of more powerful states as mediate subordinated or secularized units.2 Only the two prominent powers within the former empire could, to some extent, defend their independence from France. The kingdom of Prussia, which had suffered substantial territorial losses after the 4th coalition war in the peace of Tilsit 1807, and Austria, which had earlier became an empire in 1804. With the support of Napoleon, Bavaria and Württemberg became kingdoms in 1806 and the states of Baden, Hessen- Darmstadt and Berg became grand duchies. The breach of former imperial law cumulated in the foundation of the confederation of the Rhine on 12 July 1806 by 16 princes from southern and western Germany, among whom was also the Bavarian king Max I Joseph.3 By breaking away from the empire, the members of this offensive and defensive alliance under the protectorate of Napoleon (whose presidency in the federal assembly fell to the former imperial archchancelor and prince primas Karl Theodor von Dalberg) received the complete constitutional sovereignty within their states. King Max I Joseph of Bavaria could therefore let his minister of state, Maximilian Joseph von Montgelas, take all the actions he deemed necessary for the implementation of the reform ideas set down in the "Ansbach Mémoir" of 1796, unchanged by the rules of former imperial law.4 The foundations for a modern centralized state were also created consequently: 1. uniform government agencies (central bureaucracy), department ministries and specialized staff of civil servants 2. abolition of the corporate governing bodies of town administrations. 3. guarantee of specific freedoms (commerce, choice of occupation, religion), equality of tax and civil rights. 4. state supervision over churches and schools.5 Religious tolerance can be regarded as one of the most prominent characteristics of the reforms, and Bavaria, by the decrees on religious matters in 1803, caught up with the German powers: Austria (legislation of 1781) and Prussia (legislation of 1788). "This Edict formed the basis for the denomination neutrality of the state opposite its citizens and officials. Nobody was allowed to be preferred or put at a disadvantage because of his denomination ".6 This built 1 Bavarian State Archives of Nuremberg - The Jewish Registers 1813-1861 for Middle Franconia up to the religion edict of March 24th, 1809. It created a stable foundation for the treatment of members of the Jewish faith by the introduction of the term "private church corporation". Thus it declared freedom of religion and conscience of citizens, but it was not before 1813 that the Jewish edict granted freedom of religion for the Jews, too.7 Without doubt this had been brought about by political evolution. In the beginning, the annexation of Franconian and Swabian regions had transformed many Jews into subjects of the King of Bavaria. Since 1802, Bavaria had continuously gained a foothold and expanded into these administrative divisions of the former Holy Roman Empire, in spite of temporary drawbacks. In this manner, at least ca. 42,000 - 43,000 Jews had become Bavarian subjects who gradually had to be integrated. In the Bavarian division of the Rhine ca. 2000 families with 10.470 heads were in possession of citizenship since the French legislation of l791 and only subject to the restrictions enforced by police and civil law contained in the decree of 18 March 1809. For the Jews in the former district of Steinfeld in the Margraviate of Baden (ca. 154 heads) the constitution of 1809 had decreed the complete equality of rights.8 Altogether the Bavarian territory changed its contours frequently between 1802 and 1814, and this had repeatedly forced regional and local administration to reorganize.9 This did not remain without consequences. The Jewish registers started when the decree of 1813 was implemented. The first requests to the district offices to begin the registers and adoption of family names by Jews, were issued as soon as 1814 or the following year. Because the administrative organization had again changed before the registers were completely drawn up in 1819 and even more until their final extrapolation in 1861 a short description of structure and changes of organization of the "Administration of The Interior" seemed inevitable. Taking under special consideration the division of the Rezat river (Rezatkreis) or, as it was later called, Middle Franconia (Mittelfranken). In 1806, in the middle level of government administration, Bavaria was, bedsides the general land direction in Munich, divided further into 4 land directions. Among them one each for the newly acquired Bavarian territories in Franconia (seat in Ansbach) and Swabia (seat in Ulm).10 After the ordinance of 21 June 1808, it consisted of 15 divisions named by rivers following the French example, each with a general commissioner at its head.11 In the case of the modern Franconian government divisions these were the [1st] Main division (seat in Bamberg), the Pegnitz division (seat in Nürnberg), and the [1st] Rezat division (seat Ansbach). It must be noted that considerable parts of modern Upper Franconia only became Bavarian with the acquisition of the principality of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in 1810 as a result of the peace treaty of Schönbrunn. Whereas, the principalities Aschaffenburg and Würzburg, as the core parts of the modern division of Lower Franconia, came to Bavaria only as result of the treaty of Ried concluded on 3 June 1814. After the first Bavarian intermezzo since 1802 as compensation for the former ecclesiastic principality of Eichstätt had definitively become Bavarian. In 1806 the territory of Würzburg had been granted as a principality and possession of a side line of the house of Habsburg to electorate prince and archduke Ferdinand of Tuscany. At the same time in 2 Bavarian State Archives of Nuremberg - The Jewish Registers 1813-1861 for Middle Franconia 1803 sections on the river Main of the former ecclesiastic principality of Mainz, with six former local office districts of Mainz and one from the principality of Würzburg, were shaped into the principality of Aschaffenburg for former imperial archchancellor von Dalberg.12 As an outcome of the peace of Schönbrunn (24 October 1809) by the treaty of Paris (28 February l810), Bavaria received the principalities of: Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, the Austrian eastern bank of the river Inn, parts of the adjoining eastern slopes of the Hausruck hills, parts of the Austrian Salzkammergut, a region in the northern Alps adjoining Salzburg and the Hausruck country, the Franconian principality of Bayreuth (ceded from Prussia to France in 1807), various territories of the Teutonic knights (most of them, of course, occupied and annexed before) and the town of Regensburg, a part of the prinicipality of chancellor von Dalberg. At the same time it lost the south Tyrol and some Swabian territories.13 The new state territory was subdivided by ordinance on 23 September 1810 into 9 general division commissions (Generalkreis- kommissariat, again named by rivers): Main division (seat in Bayreuth), Rezat division (Ansbach), Regen division (Regensburg), Upper Danube division (Augsburg), Lower Danube division (Straubing), Iller division (Memmingen), Isar division (München), Salzach division (Burghausen), Inn division (Innsbruck).14 The frontiers were definitely determined by the Vienna Congress (October 1814 to June 1815). In the following period they only changed by the cession of the districts Gersfeld and Orb to Prussia in the year 1866 and the loss of the Bavarian division of the Palatinate on the Rhine after the second World War in 1945. However, the promises made in Vienna (with treaties on 3 and 23 April 1815) regarding a territorial connection through the valley of the river Neckar and the Odenwald hills between the eastern bulk of Bavaria and its western exclave of the Palatinate on the Rhine, were never fulfilled.15 Then the third division reform (see map sketch "Kreiseinteilung 1817") created by ordinance on (20 February 1817) eight divisions, again called by rivers: Isar division (seat in München), Lower Danube division (Straubing), Regen division (Amberg), Upper Danube division (Augsburg) Rezat division (Ansbach), Upper Main division (Bamberg), Lower Main division (Würzburg) and Rhine division (Speyer).16 As part of the policy of restoration and integration of King Louis I, son and successor of Max I, the ordinance of 29 November 1837 brought a further division reform (see map sketch "Kreiseinteilung 1837") that replaced the general commissioners by regional government division presidents (Regie- rungspräsident). In this case the number of divisions (Kreis) remained the same and it resulted in few territorial changes, but important and valid to this day is the fact that the divisions were no longer called by rivers, but received the historical names of