Alsace and Lorraine

[major disaster 74]

Gwyn

It is to the south of saarbrucken, I find the history of war in Lorraine so interesting because of my ties to the area, my great father fought for Germany , I had family on both sides during the first war. I will now be researching the war time history

Regards Richard

[seaforths]

Hi Richard you might find this link of some use in your research:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=publisher%3A%22Michelin%22

In amongst these books all of which make fascinating reading, are two volumes for L'Alsace et les Combats des Vosges. The books are free to read online or to download as PDFs or onto other reading devices. Hope this helps

[healdav]

Of course, after WW1 those who were to become French again were, in many ways, not happy at all.

During the years when they had been German a thing called social security had been invented. The German medical insurance and the old age pensions were considerably better than what the French had introduced.

The result was that Alsace/Lorraine kept the German system and does to this day.

In addition to the straightforward swap was that the 'Lorraine' handed over to the Germans was not the 'Lorraine' in total. The frontier of the now German area was some way to the east of the old frontier (all to do with the rivers and defensible borders). So, when the 'Lorraine' was handed back, the French couldn't reinstate the old border as that would have meant a lot of people getting German style benefits when they hadn't paid in for them. The result was the creation of the Meurth-et-Moselle Département which is the Lorraine not handed over to the Germans in 1871.

All this has had knock on effects that last to this day. Have a look at any French story of WW2 and you will find that it says that there was only one concentration camp in occupied France - Natzweiler-Struthof and that is in the Vosges, German from 1871 to 1918 and therefore once again incorporated into Germany after 1940.

But this isn't true. Not far from where I live and just in France is the village of Thill. There was a small concentration and work camp there (they made V1s later in the war). French history has tried desperately to write this out as it lies just into that part of France which was not German after 1871. Fortunately, the local commune had a communist council from about 1920 onwards and has fought tooth and nail to keep the story of the place alive. They have a strange website under the village name, and most of the documents are in German as Paris refuses to admit that the place ever existed! Presumably most of the documents they had have been destroyed.

You can visit the site (although the only thing to see are a few posts from the wire around it). If a group you can contact the mairie and go there to visit the small museum. On the hill above the museum is a cross and the village believes that in that area, now mostly under fir trees, there are mass graves. The Prefecture refuses (presumably under orders from Paris) to allow any investigation, we must presume because they would find it embarrassing to discover a concentration camp on 'real' French soil.

[major disaster 74]

I have already started reading more of about the history of Alsace Lorraine in depth.thank you all for your information.

Healdav I am familiar with some of the places you mentioned especially natzweiler as I think the camp my great uncle was imprisoned for being in the resistance in the second world war.

I never researched the war in Alsace Lorraine only the second world war there so am now reading what I can and there seems to much to learn.