What does the 1905 Bavarian royal decree ordering Friedrich Trump's expulsion actually say, and where is it archived?
Executive summary
A royal Bavarian decree from February 1905 ordered “the American citizen and pensioner Friedrich Trump” to leave the Kingdom of Bavaria — specifying he must depart by 1 May or face deportation — on the grounds that he had emigrated to North America without fulfilling mandatory military service and without formally deregistering with Bavarian authorities [1] [2] [3]. The document and related correspondence were discovered by a historian in regional German archives and have been published or summarized by multiple outlets; reporting identifies the record as held in Rhineland-Palatinate regional archives (often referenced as the Landesarchiv in Speyer or local Rhineland-Palatinate archives), though descriptions of the precise shelfmark or file vary across reports [4] [5] [6].
1. What the decree actually says, in plain language
Contemporary reporting reproduces the decree’s central instruction: it notifies Friedrich (Frederick) Trump that, because he had left Bavaria in 1885 without completing compulsory military service and without notifying authorities, he was to be stripped of his Bavarian status and required to quit the realm by 1 May “at the very latest,” otherwise he should “expect to be deported” — language quoted or paraphrased in German newspapers and later English accounts [1] [7] [2].
2. The legal basis named in reporting
Scholarly and popular summaries identify the statutory basis for the decree as a Bavarian resolution aimed at people who emigrated to North America to avoid conscription — often cited as Resolution of the Royal Ministry of the Interior No. 9916 (an 1886 rule) — which provided for loss of Bavarian citizenship for such departures and supported the 1905 expulsion order [3] [8].
3. The contemporaneous back-and-forth — Trump’s appeal
The archival trove also contained Friedrich Trump’s handwritten petition to Prince Regent Luitpold in which he implored the ruler — calling him “well-loved, noble, wise and just” in translations — to revoke the expulsion; multiple outlets republished that plea and reported the prince rejected it, after which the Trumps left Germany and sailed for New York in mid‑1905 (departing 1 July 1905, according to passenger reporting reproduced in contemporary articles) [9] [1] [10] [2].
4. Where the decree is archived and how it was publicized
The decree and related documents were uncovered by historian Roland Paul (reported by several outlets) in regional archives of the Rhineland-Palatinate area; reporting alternately names the Landesarchiv Speyer or “local archives in the Rhineland-Palatinate region” as the holding repository and notes that the material was first publicized in the German tabloid Bild before being summarized by news agencies [5] [11] [4] [1]. The Associated Press and a Rhineland-Palatinate archive spokeswoman confirmed that the archive holds Friedrich Trump’s birth certificate and the correspondence, reinforcing that the records reside in Rhineland-Palatinate state archival holdings, though public stories do not reproduce a formal archive reference number [6].
5. What reporting agrees on — and what remains unspecified
Reporting across The Guardian, AP, Harper’s (which published a translated letter), Irish Times, History News Network and others converges on the decree’s gist (order to leave by 1 May, reason: evasion of military duty, legal basis in an anti‑emigration resolution) and on the presence of the documents in regional German archives; however, none of the cited news reports published a full diplomatic transcription of the original decree with a permanent archive shelfmark or image link in press coverage, leaving precise archival citation details (file number, series, or direct digital scan) unlisted in the sources provided [1] [9] [6] [7].
6. How to confirm the primary source now
To obtain the decree’s exact text and its archival citation, the credible next step is a direct query to the Landesarchiv Speyer or the Rhineland-Palatinate state archives referencing the 1905 expulsion of Friedrich/Frederick Trump; news sources identify the documents’ presence in those regional holdings but do not publish a formal shelfmark in the coverage reviewed here, so archival staff or published finding aids would be needed to confirm the precise file and provide authoritative scans [4] [6].