Charles Roos

Karl-Philipp Roos (in French Charles-Philippe Roos ) (Surbourg 1878 - 1940 Champigneulles) Alsatian Politician is a .

Its youth

Karl-Philippe Roos is born the September 7th 1878 with Surbourg, beside Wissembourg, of a father, Nikolaus, teacher (just like his grandfather) and of a mother, Marie Anna Duckert, resulting from a family of Durrenbach, beside Wœrth.

He attends the elementary school of Nordhouse, the average school of Sélestat and finally the episcopal college of Strasbourg. Brilliance raises, it continues its studies at the University of Freiburg-in-Brisgau after its vat before joining the University Kaiser-Wilhelm of Strasbourg.

It is there that it receives the title of doctor, after a thesis in linguistics.

Its career

Roos teaches then with Strasbourg, Mulhouse and Bochum, then with Cologne.

It is mobilized in 1914 and passes most of the war as station master, following medical problems as a Kompagnieführer (lieutenant). It is decorated with the Eiserne Kreuz (Iron Cross) of 1st class.

After the war, it opens the " College Roos " with Strasbourg, commercial school, that the French administration will condemn to closing because employing teachers revoked by the Commissions of Sorting. They are besides these Commissions of Sorting and the forced assimilation which push then Karl Roos with the fight separatist. Leon Strauss, former professor of modern history at the Institute of Political Studies of Strasbourg, differently presents the thing in the NDBA while writing: “In 1919, it bought with the sequestration a business school deprived in Strasbourg-Neudorf, which périclita at the end of a few years. ” The sequestration was charged to manage and resell the goods confiscated with the Germans after the disannexation.

In 1924, it is then named by the French administration inspector of the Domanial École des Mines of the Saar , but resigns in 1926 and obtains its retirement.

The political action

In February 1927, Doctor Karl Roos is named general secretary of the Heimatbund, succeeding Jean Keppi.

In November 1927, it creates the Unabhängige Landespartei , which resolutely adopts a program separatist and attache with the social progress.

But the problems start quickly at the time of the Procès of Colmar, sham trial aiming at condemning the separatists.

He is condemned by contumacy to 15 years of fortress, having fled in Basle before the lawsuit. One year later the November 8th 1928, it is constituted captive and is discharged at the time of a new lawsuit in revision with Besancon of the 10 to the June 22nd 1929. Before his release and during his seven months of preventive detention Doctor Karl Roos is elected at the municipal council of Strasbourg. In 1931 it enters to the General advice of which he becomes vice-president.

The arrival with the capacity of Hitler, of which he is an admiror, marks a turning in its destiny. It then loses the support of the moderate separatists who do not renew it in his functions of vice-president and, if it is re-elected at the municipal council of Strasbourg in 1935, it loses in 1937 his seat of general adviser to the profit of the Naegelen Socialist. Meanwhile, in 1936, it could not be made elect appointed in Strasbourg.

End

The Becker police chief, intrigued by his frequent voyages in Germany, is persuaded that it is about a spy and wants with any force to uncover it so that, the February 4th 1939, Karl Roos again is stopped and imprisoned under the charge of espionage to the military prison of Nancy. The lawsuit begins the October 23rd, the charge was entitled: “espionage with the profit of the enemy “. Incontestably the effective evidence of culpability missed; one produced a photograph which represented it covered uniform Nazi and making safety hitlérien; he claimed that had been only one play. Its sympathies to the Nazism were not a doubt, but one could have asserted in front of a true court which it was at the beginning by no means hostile in France and had been thorough with end by the little of comprehension of the government of Paris towards Alsace; but would it have accepted a similar means of defense? The October 26th it was condemned to death, but one awaited the February 7th 1940 to carry out it with Champigneulles.

Incomes triumphing in Alsace, in June 1940, the Germans made a point of making of him a national hero, symbol of Alsatian resistance to French oppression. June 19th, 1941, its remainders were solemnly transported to the Hunebourg, whose Friedrich Spieser had made a high place of the germanism, and Kléber places it at Strasbourg was débaptisée to become Karl-Roos-Platz. It was the worst service which one could render to his memory because, that it was guilty or innocent charges of espionage carried against him, it became on a purely posthumous basis one of the persons in charge of the horrors which Alsace knew during the annexation.

When the French returned, it is known that its coffin was thrown to the bottom of the tower of Hunebourg and one forever known as what became the body.