Alsace-Lorraine

Presentation

Deux quartered provinces;
Strasbourg in cross, Metz with the dungeon;
Sedan, deserters of the frays,
Marquant France of a hot iron;

Victor Hugo Before the conclusion of the traité

Within the German Empire, the statute of this province is particular: it is not a State equal to the others but is governed directly by the Emperor then by the bodies of the Empire. The laws which relate to it must be voted by the Federal council. Theoretically it is about a common property of all the States German and certain sovereign do not fail to point out with the governor of Alsace-Lorraine that they regard it too as their representative with them; in the facts the influence of the princes is null and only the will of the Emperor counts.

In December 1871, Alsace-Lorraine counts 1 549 738 inhabitants for a surface of 14 511 km ².

This territory (in German Reichsland , ground of empire) recovers the current departments of the Alsace: the Haut-Rhin and the the Low-Rhine, plus that of the the Moselle. In fact from the point of view of the departments of 1870, it comprises that of the Low-Rhine, that of Haut-Rhin minus the district of Belfort which - remained French - became the Territoire of Belfort, that of the Moselle minus the Arrondissement of Briey which includes Longwy and of the parts of the Castle-Saline districts and of Sarrebourg pertaining to the Département of Meurthe of then. It included forever current departments of Meurthe-et-Moselle (resulting from the fusion of the not annexed parts of Meurthe and the Moselle), of the Meuse nor of the the Vosges (except the cantons of Schirmeck and Saales, annexed in 1870, and attached to the Low-Rhine at the time of their return to France in 1918). To avoid confusion with the Lorraine current, the contemporary French administrative texts, (especially when it is about the specific right inherited the period 1871 - 1918) speak about the the Alsace-Moselle; apart from the administrative or legal framework, this denomination is seldom evoked even if this one is more relevant.

The territory did not comprise only countries of language or Germanic Dialecte. Indeed the linguistic border passed to the north of the territorial border in a city that the ones called Thionville and other Diedenhofen. Cities like Metz (quoted native of the poet Verlaine), Castle-Saline, Vic-on-Pail (quoted native of the painter Georges of the Tower) and Dieuze (quoted native of the type-setter Gustave Carpenter, of the mathematician Charles Hermite, the painter Emile Friant and the art critic Edmond Butt) were completely Francophone S. the high valleys of Weiss (Orbey) and of Liepvrette (Holy-Marie-with-Mines) form the country welche of Alsace and are of old French-speaking tradition.

This article approaches more the Alsatian vision and native of the Moselle region of the annexation and its return, sometimes douleureux in the French national system, with an approach more sociological than historical. He seeks to show how the Alsatian ones and the Natives of the Moselle region crossed the last third of the nineteenth century as well as twentieth.

The " Reichsland" , ground of Empire

Administration of 1871 with 1918

Alsace-Lorraine is divided into 3 districts ( Bezirke ):

High-Alsace, chief town Colmar, corresponds to current the Haut-Rhin. The Territoire of Belfort which was not yielded to Germany by the Traité of Frankfurt was indicated like French department only in 1922.
Low-Alsace, chief town Strasbourg, corresponds to current the the Low-Rhine, with some villages of the cantons of Schirmeck and Saales taken at the old department of the the Vosges.
Lorraine, chief town Metz, corresponds to the current department of the the Moselle, formed starting from the old Moselle department (decreased of its western quarter) and of a part (approximately its north-eastern quarter), old department of the Meurthe. The parts not having been yielded to Germany were amalgamated thereafter in only one department: the Meurthe-et-Moselle

With the head of each district a president ( Bezirkspräsident ) is equivalent with a Préfet French.

After the law of the July 4th 1879 a governor ( Statthalter ) is named by the emperor. On its behalf, it controls and manages Alsace-Lorraine since its residence with Strasbourg.

Alsace-Lorraine sends 15 deputies to the Reichstag.

In 1874 is created the Délégation ( Landesausschuß ), a kind of provincial Parliament.

A new Constitution voted by the Reichstag the May 27th 1911 grants a greater autonomy to the territory.

The new administration undertakes a germanisation of Lorraine toponymies and Alsatian toponymies (see Anecdotes).

The spirit of French revenge

The emigration of choosing

A clause of the treaty of Frankfurt allows Alsatian-Lorraine the possibility of preserving French nationality if they leave the area before October 1st, 1872. They are approximately 100.000 with being able to profit from it and to choose for France. For all these migrants, it is a tearing to leave their ground, their house, their country. Much settles around Belfort, or close to Nancy in Lorraine remained French; others go in Algérie or Argentine. Alsace-Lorraine loses contractors, young people good formed like Alfred Dreyfus, but also of the academics brilliant and promised with a rich person future like Fustel de Coulanges, Hippolyte Bernheim or Albin Haller which leaves the University of Strasbourg: while the first goes to Paris, the two others join the Université of Nancy. In the same way, from the actors of the School of Nancy like Jacques Gruber, the brothers Daum, Emile Friant or Louis Hestaux (collaborator of Emile Galle) come from the lost territories; they insufflate in this city, a Art nouveau of a completely particular spirit. The town of Nancy sees its population increasing notably and its University to profit largely from these arrivals, sources of development and dynamism.

German immigration in Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace and the Moselle were not, after the historical period called the " Great invasions " in French (but Völkerwanderung in German i.e. " large migrations" !), of the grounds of immigration and mixture of the people, at least not more than of other French provinces. Admittedly after moments disturbed like the War Thirty Year old, of the newcomers could seek fortune where the population had decreased; still they were often men alone who found to marry on the spot, which indicates that they did not arrive in a desert and were intended to be assimilated in little time: in Alsace, the father come from in addition to-Vosges was called Gérardin, the son signed already Schirardin, written with the German alphabet old ( deutsche Schrift ), which does not have anything astonishing for people who could hardly read and who did not know the orthography of their patronym. In same time, in the Vosges the Waldner spelled their name Valdenaire . Once returned peace, a vigorous birthrate quickly filled the vacuums and, as of the 18th century, reappeared in the campaigns a strong demographic pressure. After the Napoleonean wars and the return of the demobilized soldiers the crisis became acute, worsened by bad harvests; 1817 is the year of the hunger (in Alsatian dialect the Hungersjohr , consequence with the planetary scales of the cataclysmic eruption of the volcano indonésien Tambora); the Alsatian ones flee, that it is towards America or Russia, where the tsars endeavor to attract German-speaking colonists to go to enlarge the rows of the German of the Volga. They must give the example to the mujiks, but especially Catherine II, itself of German origin, gives them the right to exert their religious liberties. A part will leave Russia when the tsars try to enlist them in the army and to Russianize them, while the others will be almost exterminated by Stalin. In 1827 new the forest Code restricted in a Draconian way the old rights of use and it is a new exodus of famished people who hope to find bread elsewhere. Another bleeding in 1846 with the disease of the potato.

In same time, immigrants, primarily German-speaking, came regularly to Alsace and one sees enough how the German massive immigration in Alsace-Lorraine after 1871 represents a complete upheaval. As much the French felt reluctant to settle in these areas, as much the Germans see there a land of plenty; when they are in Alsace, they are found in places where all seems to them German but decorated at the same time I do not know what , of a art of living , a key to the Frenchwoman . At the same time allured and anxious in front of the culture of Welsches, if different from their, they see in the Alsatian woman a happy medium between the tedious wife teutonne and the Parisian frivolous one (according to the stereotype of Offenbach), while the Lorraine woman escapes to them completely. The impression is obviously less clear at the beginning when they are in Metz, but the city knows then, because of an emigration towards France and of a massive German immigration, a complete upheaval of its settlement: quickly the German-speaking ones become majority there while a town planning of Beyond the rhine gives to the city a Prussian character which strikes still today. With the remainder, didn't one say that Guillaume II preferred Metz, where it felt well accommodated, in Strasbourg where it always felt the hostility of the population?

As before 1870, one does not see agricultural colonization: all the grounds are occupied. It is only towards the end of the First World War that the germanisateurs of the Western walk (in German Westmark ) will think of parcelling out the great agricultural properties to install peasants of Beyond the rhine there, without to have reflected besides that it would initially be necessary to expel the farmers and the sharecroppers who cultivated them. Workmen and civils servant break on the other hand on the annexed territory, at the same time to manage it and to get the labor to him which the industrialization claims which accelerates (because it had already started under the French mode) and which is characterized by its dissemination through the rural areas. The rural populations, that a too thin piece would not have managed to make live, thus find the complement essential which enables them not to give up the ground.

It is especially in German Lorraine (i.e. the northern part of annexed Lorraine) that immigration is massive and also that she sees herself. In Alsace, the son of immigrant badois was hardly distinguished from the indigenous one, and even Hansi recognized it in an album written towards the end of its life. On the contrary all the French-speaking area located between the coal of the the Saar and the iron of Briey sees multiplying the factories whereas the population is already mined by the fall in the birth rate; it is necessary to call upon immigration, they are Italians and of the Poles (selected because, like the local population, they were catholic and could be assimilated more easily). At the 20th century still, when in certain localities a discussion became a little sharp at the municipal council, the argumentation could continue in Italian.

Alsace-Lorraine of 1871 with 1914

The opposition to the Prussian mode was largely widespread, but rested on very different and sometimes contradictory reasons. The upper middle classes of businesses, mainly Protestant woman and liberal, saw of an evil eye this authoritative Empire where the influence of the Junker S (land aristocrats of Prussian origin) was still considerable; the catholic clergy, which held in hand its farming community, feared the bad example, the periculum perversionis , which the existence of a protesting sovereign could give to his faithful (one had not seen, at the beginning of the Guerre of 1870, of the priests badois making request for the success of the French Armies? ). On the whole the Prussian mode could count especially on the farming community of the homogeneous Protestant villages, as in the Kochersberg, the Alsace Bossue and in addition to-Forest, around Wissembourg.

A flood of German immigrants, often strong patriots towards their country of origin, was established in what they thought of being a country brother finally released. As opposed to what affirmed novels like Oberlé of Rene Bazin or Colette Baudoche of Maurice Barrès, the newcomers very easily found to marry, more especially as they were often civils servant occupying of the relatively high stations and thus interesting parties.

For as much this immigration did not have the assimilator effect discounted by the occupant: in spite of their patriotism, these Germans did not privilege of them less in the candidates with the marriage those which had a good French culture; they made bruyamment the praise of the Germanic solid Hausfrau , but it is with their friends that they recommended to marry this kind of woman. It resulted from it that in many mixed households the children spoke German with their father and French with their mother, so that it was difficult for them to hate the French culture and they would not have sung the famous Lied of the nationalist poet Ernst Moritz Arndt which includes/understands these worms:

Das STI of Deutschen Vaterland,
Wo Zorn vertilgt den welschen Tand,
Wo jeder Franzmann heißet Feind,
Wo jeder Deutsche heißet Freund.

the German fatherland,
It is where one gets rid of Romance futility,
It is where one gives the name of enemy to any French,
It is where one gives the name of friend to any German.

The French feeling still remained very strong, at least during the first fifteen years of annexation. At the time of the elections to the Reichstag, the 15 deputies of 1874,1881,1884 (except one) and 1887 were known as appointed protesters, because expressing at the Parliament their opposition to the annexation by the motion of 1874 " Likes the Reichstag to decide that the populations of Alsace-Lorraine which, without to be consulted, were annexed to the Germanic Empire by the Treaty of Frankfurt, have to come to a conclusion especially about this annexation."

The situation the day before the War and its evolution

When the war of 1914 bursts, the image of the German in the French public opinion is well far from what it will become at the end of a few months. In the colleges of boys, it is more half of the pupils who study the German language against hardly of more than 40% for English. After the disaster of 1870 qu' one allots to the incompetence generals, but also with the linguistic ignorance of French, it is from now on the language to be known for them. Speaking about the writers who had well German between 1871 and 1914, Paul Levy written: “ Si formerly some characters had painfully to be sought speaking German, from now on any enumeration becomes impossible because too much long and inevitably incomplete. ” And after having quoted of many writers it adds: “ But to know the true extent of German knowledge of the French scientists, it would be necessary to excavate the bibliographies of all the publications of the time, whatever is the branch. Lastly, it would also be necessary to name all those which translated into French German works. ”

With its courses sovereign and its princes, the German Empire and its neighbor the Empire Austro-Hungarian are reserves of good parties for the nobility of France or England and vice versa. To have wire which, in the event of war, will carry the Bavarian uniform, Austrian, Saxon, even Prussian, here are which frightens less one young girl of the aristocracy that the prospect to have to marry a commoner. Doesn't one say only the Reine Victoria, which married the prince Albert of Saxony-Cobourg-Gotha, is the grandmother of Europe? With the remainder the French language is so widespread in the castles which expatriation is quite light.

In Alsace the situation of the French language is paradoxical: officially it is fought and one pursues it in the public inscriptions but, victims of the romantic illusion, the leaders think that it is enough that the people remain faithful to the Germanic speech. French then becomes the smart language, that which speak between them all those which have the means of making it learn with their children, and even among them about the Germans. In 1908 a deputy with the Landesausschuss speaks German families about Audun-le-Tiche which send their children to the school in close Luxembourg so that they can learn French there.

More precisely, a law of March 1872 issues that the official commercial language is German. However in the sectors where the population is mainly French-speaking the public advertisements and decrees must provide a French translation. In another law of 1873, the use of French as commercial language was authorized for the administrations of Lorraine and the administrations of the districts partially or completely of French language. A law on the teaching of 1873, request so that in the German-speaking sectors teaching is made exclusively in German while in the French-speaking sectors, teaching is made in French.

It is that to know French is then essential to make figure in the world. For an young girl to be married, a good French education is the decisive asset; in many families one speaks German with his father and French with his mother: Robert Ernst, which was the last German mayor of Strasbourg and which was good Nazi tints, had received an education of this kind and denounced the dangers of them.

This attraction of French among Germans, this regard of German in France, moderate from a distrust of the Prussian, will be swept by the hatred which the war of 1914-18 will develop. These are four years of an interminable conflict which created a true ethnic hatred: failing to see the troops advancing, one tried to compensate for his frustration by a higher bid of verbal aggressiveness. The drama, it is that one introduced into the spirit of the people of the absurd ideas, of which it could not once demolish the weapons deposited.

In France, the German language saw the target of attacks. “ In the Revue alive language teaching of the years 1915 to 1918, written Paul Levy there were controversies impassioned for and against the teaching of German . ” Still it acts specialists who, even carried in the swirl, endeavor to keep a certain good sense and, generally, conclude by saying that German will be always necessary, even if they deny the least literary value to him. In the reviews intended for the general public one did not embarrass oneself of any serious reflection. In its number of May 1st, 1915, in full war, the Illustration goes until seeing in German “ the idiom of the brute force, excellently appropriate with the works cheap and degrading, the orders of murder, fire and plundering… ” One still reads: “ Under the beer which pasted it, the blood that she likes and for which she with thirst returned to tint it ”, and here is the beer itself become suspect. The conclusion was unambiguous: “ This language is not tolerable any more for us. To see written us insult and exasperates us. To hear and speak it are a cruel torment. Also the oath it was already pronounced by some to banish after the war the German language not only of the program of our studies, but of everywhere. How it is driven out of France, our brains and our mouths like the worst of the plagues! ”

During the Great War

At the beginning of the First World War, French and Germans multiplied as with pleasure awkwardnesses and vexations with regard to theLorraine ones, but the seconds, being on the spot, had on their rivals an irretrievable advance. The Alsatian ones living in France are transfered stopped and trailed in camps under spittles of the population; in the villages where the French penetrated one stopped besides wrongly and through, raflant sometimes of old combatants medal-holders of 1870. The Germans were to still make better: the Incident of Saverne had persuaded the High-Command which the very whole population in Germany and which was violently hostile had to be terrorized it to make it hold quiet during the time of the hostilities.

Charles Spindler tells that its nephew, Berlin inhabitant, were mobilized in a Prussian regiment; arrived at the station of Strasbourg he intended the adjudant to thus warn his soldiers: “Now you are in a country of S… , act consequently! ” To Bergheim one led to foot simple spirit originating in a French-speaking valley and which had not been able to be explained in German; one forced it to dig his tomb then one shot it in front of a revolted population and impuissante.

Because of proximity of the face, one was brought to place the army at the inhabitant, under conditions which were connected with Dragonnade S. Évidemment all those which had a bad reputation, i.e. which was suspect of francophilia, were best been useful under this report/ratio. Prohibition to speak French in public still increased the aggravation of the autochtones, for a long time accustomed to interfere French the conversation; however only one word, was it as innocent as “Hello”, a fine was worth The immigrant Germans believed to show patriotism while taking part in the tracking: they had the ear with the aguets to denounce with the police force all that they heard in the cursed language. The population was found thus divided between a all-powerful minority and a majority which could only keep its fist in its pocket and wait the hour of revenge

Regarded as suspect, the Alsatian or Lorraine soldier was obviously sent on the Russian face where waited the most dangerous missions. The permissions were granted to him with difficulty than the other soldiers In any event, even if it obtained its permission, the Alsatian-Lorraine soldier was to wait three weeks so that the local gendarmerie made an investigation into its family. In June 1918 the Boehle deputy protested against the way in which one was caught there: “In Strasbourg, it was a long time an unspecified policeman which was indicated to make this investigation. This last took account of all the contentions that the interested party could have had in the past with the police force, and all was interpreted in a political direction. ” If he lived too much close to the Swiss border, it was feared too much that he tried to desert and he was to remain with the Pays of Bade, where one liberally gave to his family the right to come to see it ( Mülhäuser Volkszeitung of June 8th, 1918).

The interval wars

The policy of assimilation

The return of the departments in the bosom of France was not made without pain nor awkwardness on behalf of the French administration.

Charles Spindler evokes these words which would have said in 1918 to Alsatian expressing much enthusiasm, a French “of the interior”: “You up to now were badly controlled and managed well, wait you from now on to be badly controlled and even more badly managed.” Reality was to exceed the forecast if possible, strongly degrading the image of France within the population. It is besides about an idea that all theLorraine ones heard, in a form or another. Here, in Memories of Formerly and At one time , which Robert Heitz reports to us, large patriotic French which was condemned to died by the Nazis:

A few days after the entry of the troops, a distance cousin by alliance visited us. It was Auguste Spinner who, having been, in 1909, the promoter of the French monument of Wissembourg, whose inauguration had given place to violent demonstrations of patriotism anti-German, had had to leave his small town to take refuge in Nancy, and who returned as French officer. Knowing, him, French realities, anxious of our excessive enthusiasm, he wanted to make us hear reason. “ You will be very well with the French, but one should not let to you make. Show the teeth, if it is needed: it will be essential, believe me ' ”.

Amazed, made indignant, we had quickly made judge this importunate: “Spinner is, him also, become Boche . ”

One of the first measurements was to divide the population into four according to its origin: those which without the annexation of 1871 would have been French accepted a chart marked the tricolor one, those whose relative was German, or joint German theLorraine ones, was provided with a chart B, the foreigners were entitled to a chart C and the Germans finally accepted chart D. This sorting, only founded on the origins, thus did not hold any account of the feeling of the individual, his patriotism which can be completely independent of its origins. Somebody had the idea to place a chart B in the hand of the statue of Jean Baptiste Kléber, the large Alsatian hero: he would not have indeed deserved more.

In spite of the sharp decline of the German currency the holders of chart has could at the time it change currency receive the French money at the old rate: 1,25 F for 1 Mark; those which did not have that the chart D only accepted a little more than 0,80 F for the same amount, which was not a rate of spoliation, contrary to what was known as, but simply the normal course.

As of the armistice, Alsace-Lorraine lives to settle “the ghosts”, of the wire the Alsatian ones or the Lorraine ones which, in 1871, had chosen for France. Their parents had transmitted to them Heimat (fatherland, native soil) lost a mythical idea which did not correspond to reality. Returned in force with the country, they less did not claim to be the purest representatives about it, considering sometimes as traitors those which had preferred to remain. Concurrently to “the Last Class”, it is necessary to read in the Tales of Monday the tale “the vision of the judge of Colmar”. In Alsace during the War Charles Spindler even lets see the mental ditch which separates it after four years from war from his/her friend Laugel, an Alsatian refugee in France as of August 1914.

It is without the least hesitation than Laugel, “returned of invested Paris of rather wide capacities” entrusts to the second “the principle that the French administration intends to apply in Alsace-Lorraine”: “All the Germans will have to evacuate the country, except many exceptions; all Alsatian and Lorraine ones will be able to remain except rare exceptions”.

As of the entry of the French troops, the plundering of the German stores started, looked of an eye débonnaire by the new authorities: Spindler shows us a rabble lends to plunder the house of the German notary of Obernai that the simple sight of a orderly put in faction in front of the door is enough to disperse crowd.

Lastly, a certain number of Germans were brutally expelled, constrained to pass the bridge of the the Rhine to foot with the only luggage which they could carry personally, while a “committee of good-bye”, composed hooligans, molestait them in the passing. How much had to leave Alsace and Lorraine under these conditions? It is quite difficult to know it, more especially as single testimonys were those of spectators or people there having taken part, the no expelled not having taken feather to comment on this humiliation.
At all events, these images remained engraved not only in imaginary German, but especially in the imaginary one of the public, more especially as Hansi, popular draftsman thereafter, immortalisa these scenes. These unhappy passing the bridge of the Rhine was not, at most, that a few hundreds (what is already inadmissible), but they became in the unconscious collective of the interminable troops and one finds of it an echo in the Alsatian ones or both Mathilde, televised series presenting the recent history of Alsace. These expulsions proceeded in way much more dramatic and brutal that the departures of 1871. In the same way the Bishop of Metz, Willibrord Benzler, although very respected by his flocks and who had never made act of francophobia, was driven out of his diocese when his predecessor of 1871, Dupont of the Cabins, however openly patriotic francophile, at the time, had preserved his episcopal see (see below).

Much however relativized these humiliations by stressing that they immediately took place after a war where the German troops had acted in the areas occupied with force brutality. It will be also observed that, if one reads the expelled German testimony, one never sees that they found Outre-Rhin difficulties of placing itself whereas the French cities of the North-East were in ruins.

To be itself last in general under less dramatic conditions, the expulsion of the Germans proceeded in a mixture of injustice and anarchy. Whereas in 1871 the new authorities had left in place the prelates named by the French government, Mgr Willibrord Benzler, bishop German of Metz, which was however interfered very little policy, was brutally driven out. The bishop of Strasbourg, Mgr Fritzen, already sick, could at least withdraw himself with the convent of All Saints' day when he died the following year. One replaced it by Mgr Ruch, of Alsatian father (and protesting!), but which knew neither German nor the dialect, while however promising to inform itself of best than it could.

In its newspaper Philippe Husser note on December 17th, 1918: “… Approximately two thousand Old man-Germans, policemen, civils servant, are expelled and led in the car on other side of the Rhine. Among them, the Schillinger colleague with his family. It appears that it denounced people. Other convoys will follow. One proceeded to excavations. It is allowed to carry only one trunk and a sum of 300 marks.”

One estimates that until the Traité of Versailles 200 000 Germans were returned Outre-Rhin; half of them could return thereafter thanks to the pressure exerted by the the United States. This rehabilitation was denounced by francophile the Hansi and Emile Hinzelin which described as “French of expelled Wilson” these sunken to the country and them allotted the responsibility for the disorders separatists, for which the historians agree today to reject the responsibility on the errors of the French government. In fact only those returned which were decided “to play the game” and they were proof of greatest discretion.

It is that in fact, in a company as closed as the Alsatian company, where the foreigner (the hergeloffener , that which came besides) is badly accepted, the minority ones easily tend to seek support near the central government.

Much more virulent on the other hand was authentic Alsaciens which often had been opposed to Germany and had defended the double culture, and that the French government had expelled in 1918 or 1919 because they were opposed to brutal measurements of assimilation, it was the case of Eugene Ricklin, former president of the landtag, or the baron Zorn de Bulach pertaining to one of the more Alsatian big families.

The Francization of teaching

The purification of the teaching body appeared with controlling French like a need and even like an urgency. Day at the following day one asked the Masters to make French course; those which were unable saw, according to the mood of the inspection and protections of which they profited, driven out of their pulpit or envoys in training course “inside”, without one hesitating to be caught some with the Alsatian ones. Let us return to Philippe Husser, he writes at February 1st: “Were raised of their functions as from aujourd' today, Misters Roell, Schmitz father and wire, then sisters Neurohr, Miss Gard, etc the direction of the central school returns henceforth to Mr. Guignot, a Master soldier. Mr. Kühlmann has just been revoked, seems he. It appears that it was compromised in some unpleasant business. But I am unaware of all. Mrs. Schlienger also is raised of her functions and waits the day of her expulsion”, and with the 26: “Today still a long list of revoked colleagues appears. ”

Itself waits philosophically that the chopper falls down on him, former editor association of very pro-allemande Schulzeitung , but paradoxically it remains in place; his/her daughter is even sent in training course inside, which is regarded as a favor which makes to enrager the chauvinistic patriots. Like as well of others, however, it must temporarily undergo the presence of a lecturer, younger and much less experienced as him, but which enjoys the advantage of speaking French.

To replace the revoked personnel, one called upon teachers “of the Interior”, who often knew neither Lorraine, neither the Lorraine ones, neither the Alsatian one, nor Alsace. To place a Master in front of stupefied pupils who did not include/understand a word of what it said then seemed the end of the end of pedagogy: it was the direct method whose Paris awaited wonders. If they had still been experienced Masters! But after the hecatomb of the war one was tiny room to take what one found. One quotes unhappy a normalienne fresh eighteen years émoulue, originating in the protesting South, which was projected thus in a village particularly isolated from Alsace of north where only Pasteur and his wife knew French; it was reduced by it to going to cry near them every evening until, at the end of one year, one returned it to it.

More serious still, in a country where the religious convictions appeared with each one like inseparable from its identity, was teacher sending which were proclaimed highly laic, even atheistic. Philippe Husser reports that one of them was found in front of an empty class, the parents having refused to entrust their children to him. And with this personnel of fortune, much able than that, German, than it was brought to replace, one proposed to attract it premiums whose Masters autochtones were private. He resulted from it from the tensions between the national framework and the local framework, tensions which persisted even after these distortions of wages had ended. An old professor reported that in his college, about the years 1930, the room of the professors was divided into two clans between whom, it tried to play the good officess.

The first victims were obviously the pupils, and as it should be weakest. In the easy mediums one had preserved the use of French, and even if during the war one were satisfied to avoid it in public. In any medium a little cultivated or aspiring to the culture, one endeavoured to give to the children the opportunity of speaking French. The change of language made there less damage than one imagines. A girl of Pasteur tells how his parents, alive in rural environment, spoke only French until to him it was in age of going to school, after which they turned over to the dialect.

But in the schools of countryside one curled the catastrophe quickly: the majority of the Masters, who spoke strong evil, were unable to teach a language which they hardly knew with pupils who were unaware of it completely. And if the pupils drew some best the result could be worse because they made fun openly of their teacher. “I prohibit to you of rier! ( sic )” unhappy with its unchained class howled, to which it thus provided the most powerful reason for laughing. At the end of the Twenties one was obliged to question in Francique, the apprentices candidates for professional examinations: incompetents from now on to express itself in German, they still did not arrive at speaking French.

This offensive against the dialect is not specific to Alsace nor in German-speaking Lorraine, at the same time the small Breton ones or small Occitans is punished if they speak their language. Elsewhere, as in Romance Lorraine the patois regressed so much that such a fight is not necessary.

The last laic offensive

The laic offensive of 1924 had done nothing but unnecessarily disturb Alsace-Lorraine and Painlevé, which had succeeded Herriot in 1925, had immediately put its projects out of night light. Returned with the capacity in 1932, Herriot had preferred to continue the policy of appeasing which was outlined since the departure of Poincaré. But after the victory of the Popular front, in 1936, Blum at the proper time believed to return to the policy of assimilation.

It started by prolonging the compulsory schooling up to fourteen years by the laws of the August 9th and 11th 1936. This measurement was rather accommodated favorably in Alsace-Lorraine because since 1871 it was the lawful age of exit of the school system; one extended simply same measurement to the girls, which the Protestants had as of the beginning requested, and that gave to all the children the possibility of presenting to the Certificat Studies, examination which had a real value then.

But the October 22nd 1936 the decrees on enforcement of a law envisaged in the case of Alsace-Lorraine an extension by one year for the boys, prolongation which simply led to keep one year more of the children already provided with the Certificate with Studies and which were not intended to go further. The elected officials protested near the government by representing to him the fatal consequences of a similar measurement, particularly in the Moselle where the barrier of the Vosges did not exist: small Nancy fourteen years could thus enter in training to Metz, while the small Resident of Metz of the same age should wait one year more and would find the place taken at the conclusion of its schooling.

In its letter of the January 30th 1937 with the senator Eugene Muller, Blum recognized with half-word that it was about a blackmail: as the Alsatian-Lorraine pupils had German courses and courses of religion which weighed down their program, it was normal to impose one year additional to them so that they could all assimilate: there was risk of overwork! That one renonçât with these courses and the compulsory schooling would be brought back to fourteen years. It thus reconciled in the same hostility towards its policy the germanophiles and the clerical ones.

The June 21st 1937, Blum resigned and Chautemps put out of night light the decrees disputed while waiting for the verdict of the Council of State which cancelled them with the end of the year. The offensive, there still, had been only one blow of sword in water, but the credibility of France was reached once again in Alsace-Lorraine.

The failure of resistance to Francization

The problem, it is that this common banner did not exist. Each Alsatian or Native of the Moselle region could know very well what he wanted, but they were far from wanting all the same thing. Among the adversaries of France, the Communists were among most virulent and they did not hesitate to claim the secession; but their leaders who, of Paris, reflected the orders of Moscow, prohibited alliances of classes against-nature to them, i.e. with the catholics. During a time Charles Hueber succeeds in passing in addition to, thanks to the protection of Marcel Cachin, and he did not hesitate to conclude with them from the specific agreements; however, when thanks to the voices of clerical it succeeds in 1929 conquering the town hall of Strasbourg, its Parisian chiefs were ironical against the Herz-Jesu-Kommunisten and excluded it from the Party. It did not remain any more with the dissidents but to evolve little by little to the Nazisme after the takeover by Adolf Hitler.

The drama of the autonomism, it is that the upper middle classes, francophile and French-speaking person before 1914, had remained it after the war. It is besides a point which makes reflect, that the world commercial and industry did not test no nostalgia for Germany in spite of its industrial advance. As for the average and with small the bourgeoisies, they looked above it and cultivated their French character in their desire to progress socially. The germanophiles, moreover, did not have enough contempt when they spoke about the middle-class which they reproached for having betrayed its origins: the reproach is recurring at Pierri Zind and one still constantly finds it in what it remains today of press separatist.

That there existed a middle-class germanophile all the same, even minority, the fact is undeniable, but Pierri Zind and the administrative reports/ratios that it quotes grant to show that it constituted doctors, pharmacists, notaries, pastors, teachers… some could be at ease but they did not remain about it less only local notabilities and who missed prestige singularly. In the protesting village of Voeglinshoffen, the heart still beat for Germany: during the inauguration of the war memorial one refused to sing the Marseillaise since it was not the anthem under which one had fought, and one entonna “Ich hatt' einen Kameraden”; there was all in all in the commune one francophile, passably chauvinistic… but it was the Mayor. The peasants rejected its ideas in vain, they did not think voter for someone else and being made represent by a ridiculous lout.

Lastly, with the advent of Hitler, the cultural prestige of Germany took a new blow. It was not any more question of resting about the great writers whose books fed the bûchers. At the edge of the Mediterranean, Sanary-on-Sea became a small capital of the German intellectual world in exile (one will find, in German, an interesting article of Spiegel). In Hunebourg of which he wanted to make a center of radiation of the germanism, Fritz Spieser inculcated to the young people whom their parents entrusted to him of the songs and the folk dances with high amount, but he could nothing propose to them to nourish their spirit.

The Second world war

The exodus

The Second world war struck Alsace-Lorraine cruelly as the remainder of France in particular by the Bombardement S undergone by all the layers of the population. The tests had started as of September 1939: the French government had provided well that in the event of war the populations living between the Ligne Maginot and the German border should be evacuated to be put at the shelter, but nothing had really been planned for the evacuation. At the beginning of September, one obliged the majority to gain, sometimes with foot, the railway stations where one was to embark them to forward them to the south or the west of France, carrying with them only what they could carry to the hand or trail in carriers of fortune. Certain Alsatian had even to cross the collars and to gain some stations of the the Vosges. Happy those which had a car and which, having sufficient money, had been able to buy a house in the south-west of France.

So Natives of the Moselle region - among whom as well pure French-speaking people were as the German-speaking ones - were dispatched in the valley of the Rhone or in Périgord, well of these Alsatian found themselves in the the Limousin where not more than elsewhere, nothing had been designed to accommodate such refugees. The local population looked of a bad eye these new arrivals which spoke a strange language, a kind of German; it called them “yaya”, since one intended them to say “Ja” for “Yes”, or straightforwardly " boches". Many of these refugees, often accustomed to a certain comfort in Alsace, had sometimes to settle in barns in ruins or hovels unhealthy. Regarded as proud by autochtones which did not include/understand why they made the fine mouth taking into consideration condition of lodging, they were quickly unpopular with the difference of other refugees, French-speaking people and perhaps less demanding than them. Obviously young people managed better and, at the end of a few weeks, many Alsatian children spoke the the Limousin with their new comrades.

It followed a difference between the generations which distorted the points of view when, after fifty years, one decided to make speak the survivors. Oldest had died and those which testified then in front of the journalists, evoked with emotion their childhood. Some had tied real friendships there and there returned regularly on vacation. Unfortunately, those which at the time had suffered the most were not there any more to testify. And as one does not like to remind the bad memories, these had never made a subject for conversation of it. It remains then to evoke all these dramas only some yellowed letters, insofar as one were able to express his pain on paper.

One once includes/understands why, under these conditions, so much the Alsatian ones and Natives of the Moselle region wanted to return on their premises, the signed armistice, even if none among them were done too much illusion on the intentions of Germany with respect to Alsace-Lorraine. Some of oldest imagined than they would find Germany of before 1914. Much had suffered from what " people of the intérieur" did not regard them as true French. Some even heard: “You have chance, you them people of the East, you are always as regards winner”! These contacts forced with French of deep France had unfortunately led many Alsaciens and of Lorraine German-speaking to wonder whether they were really among compatriots. This situation was perhaps different in the case of the Lorraine French-speaking people.

But the worst was to be come for those which decided to return to the country, to find the house or what could remain about it after several weeks of conflict, destruction or plundering. The occupant was there as in the remainder of occupied France, but one hoped not from it to suffer more than elsewhere. Déchanter was needed quickly: in the total disrespect of legality, one assisted, as of the summer 1940, with the annexation de facto by the State Nazi, of the Alsatian territories and natives of the Moselle region. Two Gauleiter, Wagner in Strasbourg, Bürkel in Metz kinds of prefects, were named there. A third, Simon, being charged with Luxembourg, annexed to him-also. One imposed various measurements on it aiming at " germaniser" people and countries. The speech of the German language was imposed on all, and that of French prohibited under penalty of door amends. Cities and villages lost their name too sounding " français" , for another more " allemand". Some of those which lived there were, for various reasons, judged unworthy to remain. One expelled them towards the territories remained under French administration. The post office like the other public services and thus of course the police force, passed under German authority.

But those which had to suffer more of the consequences from this annexation, the main victims, were initially the young enlisted boys and the young girls of force in the youth movements Nazis. As from August 1942, the mobilization against their liking in the German armed forces occurred, of the young men. Some had already made their military service within the Armies or of the Navy Frenchwomen and had fought Germany between September 1939 and June 1940. These " mobilisés" , had to undergo wretched blackmails: the refractories or the deserters exposed their falilles to repression or the deportation in Silesia. Germany Nazi E needed them to fight the Red Army primarily with the Soviet Union on the face with the east. They were called the In spite of us. In spite of the efforts carried out by their services of propaganda, the Germans did not manage to cause masses of voluntary engagements among the Alsatian ones and the Natives of the Moselle region. Those which were shown in example were often young people come from the country of Bade, neighbor, but in truth of German installed in Alsace since the armistice. If the majority of the In spite of us had to fight in conventional military forces, others were enlisted in Waffen S. Those which could desert the German troops to join the allied forces (Soviet, British or American) had many difficulties of making admit their French nationality and had sometimes to spend long years in prison camps like that of Tambov in Soviet Union before recovering a legitimate freedom. A dozen Alsaciens young people who had been enlisted in Division S Das Reich, had to appear before French Justice, to answer of the crimes achieved Tulle and Oradour-on-Glane. This appearance in justice made great noise at the time and the amnesty pronounced in favor of the condemned young people remains still badly included/understood certain populations of France " intérieur".

An integral part of IIIe Reich

When was signed the Armistice of June 22nd, 1940 the case of the Alsace-Lorraine was not evoked. This territory thus remained juridically French, although it belonged to the zone militarily occupied by Germany. The Nazi regime annexed it in fact without making the official proclamation of it and, as the Vichy government was limited to secret protests each time a new violation of the right was made, the noise was spread that a secret clause had delivered Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. It is only of return on their premises that the Alsatian ones and the Natives of the Moselle region realized that all had changed. The German government did not hesitate to proclaim its admiration for the policy of assimilation which France had carried out after 1918 and he declared himself ready to implement it in opposite direction; i.e. it was on the point of starting again same measurements, but with a deutsche Gründlichkeit (a German meticulousness) which would make them irremediable. The German troops had released those which one called the Nanziger ( Nancéiens ), of the Alsatian partisans of Germany and who had been a long moment interned with Nancy; put aside Karl Roos, it acted partially of soft dreamers, who thought at the same time German and democratic Alsace, hoping naively that one would put them at the head of their “released” ground. They were drawn aside and one placed in high place of the sure men, i.e. German Nazi S which did not know anything Alsace. Thus the main street of Mulhouse which is called the street of the Savage was renamed a few days Adolf-Hitler-Straße . Colmar had to be called Kolmar .

In any case it should be noticed that, as of the beginning, the Alsatian population, like the population native of the Moselle region, adopted an attitude reserved compared to the Germans. Marie-Joseph Bopp could have under the eyes a secret report/ratio of Hilfsdienst, Alsatian organization to the service of the Nazis, and in made a summary. One felt sorry for there that, when the Alsatian ones discuss between them policy, they are keep silent immediately as soon as approaches a known member the Hilfsdienst. The annexed facetious ones replaced the sentence of hello that one imposed to them less by that meaning of “Ein Liter” (what means “one liter”).

In the annexed departments, a local armed resistance develops independently of the French interior Résistance in the remainder of France.

Heritage

Nowadays still, the Alsace and the the Moselle preserve a special statute related to the conservation of assets former to 1914. Let us recall that the Vote of the women, which was established in Germany only in 1919, did not relate to the three departments, and living them of the known as departments had to wait, with the other Frenchwomen, 1945 to express itself politically is an additional generation.

A consequence of the last war is the left-wing policy weakness in the area. In spite of its engagements, the USSR retained a long time upon the camp of Tambov under abominable conditions, the In spite of us Alsatian and natives of the Moselle region, incorporated of force in the Wehrmacht and who often had voluntarily gone; it is resulted from it a collapse from the French Communist party which, within the framework of a uninominal system, deprived the French Socialist party of the reinforcement of voices necessary to the second round. The traditional opposition between catholic electorate and Protestant electorate thus referred on an opposition centrists-gaullistes, which tends to be erased with the profit of a right and right extreme opposition democratic. The Région Alsace is in 2006, one of the two only French areas controlled by an executive of right-hand side. Concerning the the Moselle, let us note however that the left remains established in certain industrial cities with " tradition rouge" , but is prone to a crumbling, following the great reorganizations.

Some sources

Traditionally, with those which wanted to be informed on the Alsatian heart, one advised Psychanalyse of Alsace , of Frederic Hoffet. The work aged much today: incompetent to explain Alsace of today, very different from that which it does describe (the dialect almost completely disappeared in the young people, who moreover do not know almost any more German), it does not explain that of yesterday better because it passes (voluntarily?) under silence an essential point: opposition between catholics and Protestants.

This opposition, on the contrary, hitherto taboo, is in the middle of the thesis of the professor Alfred Wahl, Confession and behavior in the campaigns of Alsace and Bade, 1871-1939 (1980) which created sensation at the time of its publication. A sentence made date: “The Protestants and the catholics set up finally two geographically associated groups having however preserved their own identity. The confession, the lived history formed the vector of solidarity quasi-main road and social cohesion”. The general public, for which this work is difficult to reach, will find a presentation more accessible in Petites ordinary hatreds: history of the conflicts between catholics and Protestants in Alsace (2004), of the same author, who entrusts his personal experience in the foreword. In collaboration with Jean-Claude Richez, specialist in the cultural history and mentalities in Alsace, it wrote the daily life in Alsace between France and Germany, 1850-1950 (1993), very clear and very complete work.

Without disputing such an interpretation for the remainder of Alsace, Bernard Klein leant in the political life in Alsace Bossue and in the country of Small Pierre on the particular case of Alsace Bossue, this piece of Lorraine which the Revolution attached to the Low-Rhine, and it showed persistence between the two wars of a feeling anti-French and one attachment in Germany which transcended the confessions. It shows also the brutal attitude of the French administration, with administrative pressures and removals of newspapers. Although the author is presented in the form of a “researcher-militant”, which worries for its objectivity, the work is well documented and constitutes a solid monograph. It is only in one appendix which the militant perhaps carries it on the researcher when it considers the fact that, in this small area very anti-Frenchwoman, Jean-Marie Le Pen came at the head to the presidential election from 1988 with more of the quarter of the voices, while Alsatian the Antoine Waechter which represented the ecologists bordered 10%; it sees there a persistence of the faintness of formerly which would have led the least intelligent voters to vote the Le Pen and wisest to vote ecologist. It should not be forgotten that the generations are not any more the same ones, that the women did not vote before the war and that there N “is not always an Alsatian candidate with the presidential election.

The religious, linguistic or national oppositions are relativized in Alsace of notable the by François Igersheim who insists on the oppositions of classes and watch the middle-class anxious to preserve his privileges under all the modes. This Marxist design will not allure everyone, but the author is a recognized historian and it book is solid. One will find at the end of the work, in the form of index, of the small biographies which, in spite of their brevity, do not omit anything essence.

Alfred Wahl enriched by a foreword and notes the Journal of an Alsatian Teacher held between 1914 and 1951 by Philippe Husser. The reading in is essential with which would wish to explore more before lived of the population during this period.

During the war of 1914-18, Charles Spindler held a very detailed newspaper. Its intellectual honesty is undeniable and, on June 2nd, 1926, Husser recognizes with some jealousy that the author having had more extended relations wrote a book more interesting than it his. He adds (what is false) that the work is not total frankness, the author having written it for his publication: in fact it is the insistence of his/her friend André Hallays who initially made publish some extracts in the Revue Two-Worlds then, in independent book, the part going of 1914 to 1919. The remainder is always new and between the hands of its family.

At the first days of the occupation Nazi in Alsace, Marie-Joseph Bopp began him also to write a newspaper of war, which was published only in 2004, to the Editions of the Blue Cloud, under the title My city per hour Nazi . He also reports what he hears without always being able to guarantee it. October 14th, 1940 he writes as follows: “My Chenet pupil returned to Colmar. In Rouffach, one examined last once the files: since his/her father, French of the Interior, died, one allowed the Alsatian widow to return with his to Colmar. It is claimed that the Germans require that if the Alsatian part of a couple divorces, then it could remain. The divorced Alsatian woman would then owe at the end of a year remarier with a Deutschstämmig , a German, if it has less than forty years. It is incredibly diabolic, one cannot believe it, but it would be well in the manner Nazi. ”

In its Memories Prince Alexandre de Hohenlohe, who was high-civil servant in Alsace left pages which show deep intuitions. One will draw little, on the contrary, of the Denkwürdigkeiten written by his father.

Faintness Alsatian 1919-1924 , of Genevieve Baath, published in 1972, is an honest work of diploma of higher learning. One will find there especially reproductions of articles of newspapers and books at the time written.

Quite to the contrary, Jean Haubenestel, a particularly stubborn researcher, succeeded in being made give of old documents of family to which it published booklets which show us the way of feeling and to think of the population. Them In spite of us of Ernolsheim contains poignant letters, but one will not neglect the Uncle of America which evokes the reports/ratios of the emigrants of On the other side of the Atlantic with their family remained with the country, nor Active, clean, honest , on the good Alsatian ones of Paris.

The separatist point of view of, and even separatist, are defended with passion by Pierri Zind in Elsass-Lothringen, nation prohibited . Published in 1979, this book is especially interesting to make feel the centuries which were passed in a few years, to take again the expression of Michelet. The ignited speeches that it reproduced there and who between the two wars could agitate all Alsace and, here thirty years, still woke up a certain echo, would not assemble today ten people to Strasbourg.

The reading of the albums of Hansi offers a certain lighting on the question, in particular the Professor Knatschke , whose influence was considerable on the ideas that the French forged themselves of Alsace-Lorraine.

If one has the editions in hand, one will compare the Contes and Légendes of Alsace , Emile Hinzelin, such as they appeared in 1913, and what they became as of 1915.
The same one, Alsace, Lorraine and Peace ; for this author, assimilationnist convinced, all the problems come from the intrigues of Germany; if there were some errors, he says, they are already repaired. Not a word on the crisis separatist of 1924, resulting from the laic offensive of Herriot; it is true that the author, at the same time freemason and friend of many priests, is not delayed in the awkward questions. This book, published in 1929, the year when Strasbourg and Colmar carried at their head of the separatists municipalities, and which however endeavors to paint reality pink, shows the abyss of incomprehension which separated Alsace-Lorraine and France.

One will interrogate the memories, which make it possible to penetrate in mentalities:

Hans-Otto Meissner : Straßburg, O Straßburg
Elly Heuss-Knapp: Ausblick vom Muensterturm: Erlebtes aus D. Elsass U. D. Reich
Jean Egen: Limes of Lautenbach
Jean Schlumberger: Awakenings
Pierre Durand: While passing by Lorraine , s.d. (1945), brings back interesting details.
Friedrich Lienhard : Westmark , us shows in a fictionalized form the frame of mind of the Germans and Alsatian germanophiles at last times of the First World War. Published at the origin in characters Fraktur, the work was recently reprinted in Roman characters.

the black Wolves , of Bernard Fischbach and Roland Oberlé (1990), show us a survival of separatism in the Seventies, with the fallen through attempt at a terrorism campaign. The second part of the book, “Aspects of the Alsatian autonomism” contains the many ones and interesting documents.

Alsace de Bismarck 1870-1918 , Muller Editions, (2007), of Raymond Fischer, us makes live with force this one half-century annexation thanks to the three great movements of the text, which present a historical vision, the life of the alasacians of a hamlet annexed and the gerre by the engagement of Alsatian on the Russian face.

On the question of In spite of us, the essential work is:
Eugene Riedweg, Them In spite of us , Editions of the Rhine, 1995
Them In spite of us and the drama of Oradour, the lawsuit of Bordeaux , Editions of the Rhine, Strasbourg, 2003, of Jean-Laurent Vonau is more particularly devoted to the lawsuit of built-in of force of 1953, which is regarded in Alsace as a legal monstrosity.

The two books of Paul Levy, linguistic History of Alsace and Lorraine and the German language in France are filled of anecdotes and extremely well selected documents.

Other books describing and/or illustrating the history of Alsace-Lorraine:

French Alsace and Lorraine, grounds , Editions of Christian Testimony, (1943), explains the annexation " very clearly; of fait" from Alsace-Lorraine between 1940 and 1945.
the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France , (1923), of Alexandre Millerand, described with precision the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.
Alsace in the war 1939-1945 , Horvath Edition, allows returns account of integration " of fait" from Alsace-Lorraine within IIIe Reich.
Alsace-Lorraine, the chart with bordered green , (1918), of Georges Delahache
beginnings of the French administration in Alsace and Lorraine , (1921), Bookstore Hatchet
Testimony for Alsatian-Lorraine the , (1925), Bookstore Plon

Finally one will unceasingly resort to the Nouveau Dictionary of Alsatian Biographies , whose each article is written by the best specialists. It advantageously replaces the Dictionnaire of biography of the famous men of Alsace , of Edouard Sitzmann, published in 1909 and who was the subject of a republication in 1973.

External bonds

On the question of the transborder marriages between Alsatian and Germans in Strasbourg between 1871 and 1914, one will consult, on the site of the University of Marburg (here), the pages which Mr. François Uberfill devotes to him, professor at the Marc-Bloch University of Strasbourg. Contrary to the impressions which could leave us of the memories like Straßburg, O Straßburg of Hans-Otto Meissner, the marriages between civils servant German and Alsatian were extremely rare, and it was exceptional that a teacher married on the spot during the first twenty years at least.

Anecdotes

Concerning the adaptation of the patronyms, one tells the following history: a certain family Lagarde had to change her name into 1871. The Prussians, very correct, translated into Wache . In 1918, the French administration, which was not concerned with linguistics applied, transformed Wache into Vache . In 1940, the Germans returned and translated Vache as it is necessary in Kuh . Since 1945, the poor people are called " Cul" …

a district of Munich is called in German " Franzosenviertel" ( district of the French ) not because its first inhabitants were of French origin but because the names of the streets commemorate battles of the Guerre of 1870: Gravelotte straße, Bazeilles straße, Belfort straße, Lothringerstraße, Weißenburgerstraße and Weißenburgerplatz, Sedan straße, Breisacherstraße, Metz straße, Elsässerstraße like Orleansstraße, Pariserstraße and Pariserplatz.

the example of Marie Adeline Jeandarme (1879 +1949) resident with Bacourt, French-speaking village of the old department of the Meurthe, annexed in 1871 by Germany, and forming part since " Lorraine Allemande" then department of the the Moselle, is remarkable. It Marie in 1904 and has three children into 1905,1906 and 1908. She is widowed in 1909. During the war, it must place Bavarian soldiers. It has a girl in 1916 of it. It remarie shortly after with an Italian immigrant. It has of them three children into 1918,1920 and 1922. Her husband dies shortly after. Expelled in Vienna in 1940, it will return in its village only in 1945 to die in 1949. About his/her children, the elder ones usually speak German, which will be useful to them during the war whereas the juniors are only French-speaking. It will have changed three times of nationality without really leaving its village.

Catalog of films

the Alsatian ones or Both Mathilde , film carried out by Michel Favart, 1996: telefilm which tells in a fictitious way the adventures of several Alsatian families confronted with the change of nationality caused by the Franco-German Guerre of 1870, the First World War and the Second world war

References

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