Rhineland-Palatinate
On 10 July 1945 the occupation authority on the soil of the present-day Rhineland-Palatinate transferred from the Americans to the French. To begin with, the French divided the region provisionally into two "upper presidiums" ("Oberpräsidien"), Rhineland-Hesse-Nassau (for the hitherto Prussian government districts and regions of Koblenz, Trier, and Montabaur) and Hesse-Palatinate (for the hitherto Bavarian Palatinate and old Hessian-Darmstadt province of Rhenish Hesse). The formation of the state was ordained on 30 August 1946, the last state in the Western Zone of Occupation to be established, by Regulation No. 57 of the French military government under General Marie-Pierre Kœnig. It was initially called Rhenish-Palatinate ("Rheinpfälzisches Land" or "Land Rheinpfalz"); the name Rhineland-Palatinate ("Rheinland-Pfalz") was first confirmed in the constitution of 18 May 1947.
Wolfstein, Rhineland-Palatinate
After the new post-Napoleonic order imposed by the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Wolfsteiners became Bavarian nationals, which until 1918 meant the Bavarian king’s subjects; after monarchy was overthrown in 1918, they belonged to the Free State of Bavaria in the days of the Weimar Republic. Only in 1947, after the Second World War, did the Palatinate formally cease to be a Bavarian exclave, whereupon it was incorporated into the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The break with Bavaria was confirmed by referendum on 22 April 1956.