In the first half of the 19th century, the industrial district of Aachen was a small dynamic economic
region in the West of the Prussian Rhineland. It was a leading industrial region in terms
of production and a region in which modern economic institutions advanced modern industrial
organizations. The regional institutional arrangements were partly based on the French law:1
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the West of the Rhineland had been a part of France
with the region of Aachen (see maps 1 and 2) forming the Département de la Roer. After the
French defeat in 1814, the Rhineland was integrated as the Rhineprovince into the Prussian
State, but with very few exceptions the French legal system continued. The French code de
commerce rather than the Prussian civil law constructed the norms of business and commercial
activities2 and institutional arrangements that had emerged in the ‘French period’ continued
to influence regional economic development. Not only property rights and civil rights, also
other institutions of French origin like chambers of trade and commerce, commercial courts, or
collective institutions for the settlement of work related conflicts shaped economic behaviour.
3 New Prussian laws did not dramatically influence regional economic development; only
the Railroad Law (1838) and the Prussian Joint Stock Companies Law (Preußisches Aktiengesetz)
of 1843 had a certain impact. Just like the General German Trade Law (Allgemeines
deutsches Handelsgesetzbuch) of 1861, the Joint Stock Company Law was based on French
ideas and aimed at modernizing the Prussian economy. It perhaps helped developing the eastern
parts of Prussia towards a more capitalistic economy; for the region of Aachen it mainly
introduced more oversight from the Prussian State. The Prussian integration of the Rhineland
did, of course, also induce some economically relevant change; this regards e.g. the introduction
of the Prussian currency or the Prussian trade union. These aspects will be discussed later
