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The Malgré-Elles of MoselleSteven A. (Steven Alexander) Lovasz

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE MALGRÉ-ELLES OF MOSELLE

By

STEVEN A. LOVASZ

A dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2012

ii

Steven A. Lovasz defended this dissertation on September 21, 2012.

The members of the supervisory committee were:

Alec Hargreaves

Professor Directing Dissertation

Eric C. Walker

University Representative

William Cloonan

Committee Member

Aimée Boutin

Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members,

and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university

requirements.

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For my father

Oliver Lovasz

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is with great pride and appreciation that I acknowledge those who contributed to the

completion of this dissertation.

First and foremost, to my research Professor Alec Hargreaves without whose invaluable

help this dissertation would not have been completed.

A very special thanks to the elderly family friend who helped start the project that

culminated in this dissertation, in which she appears under the pseudonym of Jacqueline, and

who contributed valuable time and bittersweet memories of the Second World War in Moselle.

Sincere thanks to all of the malgré-elles who agreed to be interviewed in the course of my

research, and who in many cases provided additional documents, some of which are reproduced

with their permission in Appendix C.

A heartfelt thanks to Philippe Wilmouth of ASCOMEMO for providing over several

years the research support in France necessary to the progress of this dissertation and permission

to reproduce many of the documents included in Appendix C.

A “grand merci” to my brothers in law, Roland Streit, for his superb interpretation skills

in various Germanic dialects spoken in Moselle, Alsace and Germany and to Christian Mayot

who devoted time and his Clio Renault to drive me around when I did not have any

transportation.

Finally, to my wife, Marie-Francoise Lovasz, for her unyielding support and tolerance for

the long hours involved in the preparation of this dissertation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables………………………………………...……………….…………………………viii List of Figures……………………...……………………………….………………………….... ix Abstract………………………………………………………………....…………………...…..xiii

1. CHAPTER ONE- INTRODUCTION………………………...……………………..………1

1.1 Research Objectives…………….……...…….....….………………………………….1

1.2 Research Context…...……………………………………………….………………...4

1.2.1 Lorraine and Moselle prior to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870……………. 5

1.2.2 The First Annexation of 1871…………………………………………… …...5

1.2.3 The Second World War………………………………………………… …...6

1.3 Methodology………………………………………………………………………...10

1.4 Dissertation Structure………………………………………………………………..14

2. CHAPTER TWO- HISTORICAL CONTEXT…………………………………………… …17

2. 1 From Antiquity to the Franco-Prussian War…………………………………………17

2.2 From the Franco-Prussian War to World War One…………………………….……21

2.3 World War One………………………………………………………………………27

2.4 The Inter-War Period………………………………………………………………...29

2.5 German Annexation in World War Two…………………………………………….33

2.6 The Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD and other forms of forced services……………..…47

2.7 Resistance and Liberation…………………………………………………………....50

2.8 Returnees, Reconstruction and Compensation……………………………………....62

3. CHAPTER THREE- METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………..71

3.1 Discovery of Subject…………………………………………………………………71

3.2 Planning and Research for Interviews……………………………………………….73

3.3 Field Research and Interviews……………………………………………………….76

3.4 Transcribing Interviews……………………………………………………………...80

3.5 A Hypothesis on Cultural Influences………………………………………………..80

3.6 Factors Affecting the Reliability of Interview Data…………………..……………..81

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4. CHAPTER FOUR- EXPERIENCES OF A TYPICAL MALGRÉ-ELLE ……………………84

4.1 The Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Kriegshilfsdienst…………………………………..84

4.2 A malgré-elle drafted in the RAD…………………………………………………..88

4.3 Continued Service in the KHD……………………………………………………...97

4.4 Escape……………………………………………………………………………...101

4.5 Liberation and Reconstruction……………………………………………………..103

4.6 Associations of malgré-elles……………………………………………………….105

5. CHAPTER FIVE- ATTITUDINAL VARIATIONS………………………………………..107

5.1 Construction of Matrices…………………………………………………………..107

5.2 Linguistic Background…………………………………………………………….107

5.3 Reactions to German Take-Over……………………………………………..…...109

5.4 Reaction to Draft…………………………………………………………….…….111

5.5 Reactions to Experiences in Germany……………………………………….. …..112

5.6 Oath of Loyalty to Hitler…………………………………………………………..114

5.7 Synthesis…………………………………………………………………………..114

6. CHAPTER SIX- GENERAL CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………..118

APPENDIX A- GLOSSARY…………………………………………………………………..125

APPENDIX B- TABLES……………………………………………………………………….130

APPENDIX C- FIGURES …………………………………………………………………….134

APPENDIX D- ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………....136

APPENDIX E- INTERVIEW GUIDE…………………………………………………………160

APPENDIX F- APPROVAL AND CONSENT FORMS……………………………………...186

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………172

Unpublished Sources……………………………………………………………………...172

Published Sources………………………………………………………………………...176

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………………...190

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1- Linguistic Background……………………………………………………………......130 Table 2- Reactions to German Take-Over…………………………………………...................131 Table 3- Reaction to Draft…………………………………………………………………… ..131 Table 4- Reactions to Experiences in Germany…………………………………...…………. ..132 Table 5- Oath of Loyalty to Hitler…………………………………………………..…….… ...133

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Maps

Wartime Map of France……………………………………………………………………......146

Map of Moselle…………………………………………….…………...……………………...147

Illustrations

All illustrations are reproduced with the permission of the sources acknowledged in the captions.

1. Document from the German Military Archives located in Freiburg translated into French

which provides a concise resume of what the RAD/KHD was, laws and regulations which

pertained to it and their application to the young women from Alsace-Moselle

(Source: ASCOMEMO) ………………………………………………………………….134

2. 1941 German document sent to city mayors informing them of the RAD requirement for

women in Moselle and requesting a list of names of those affected by the call-up. (Source:

ASCOMEMO)……………………………………………………………………………136

3. 1942 German official notification of the civic duty requirement for the RAD of men born

in 1922, 1923 and 1924 as well as women born in 1923 and 1924.

(Source: ASCOMEMO……………………….………………………………………… 137

4. 1942 German official notification requesting identification of all young women born in

1924 able to serve in the RAD.

(Source: ASCOMEMO)… ………………………………………...……………………..138

5. 1942 German document call-up for the RAD of all young women of Moselle born in 1924.

(Source: ASCOMEMO)…………………………………………………………………..139

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6. 1942 German document containing a form to be returned notifying whether those men and

women who had been called up for the RAD have reported for the Müsterung, i.e. draft

call-up and medical examination. Below this is found a form used to inform of any reason

why potential draftee cannot report as ordered. (Source: ASCOMEMO)…………….…140

7. 1943 German official notification of the call-up for the RAD of all young women of

Moselle born in 1926. (Source: ASCOMEMO)…………………………………………141

8. 1944 German document with French translation informing Maria Bardot that, given that

she had refused to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler during her RAD service, her request for

a work permit in Moselle has been denied. (Source: ASCOMEMO)……………………142

9. RAD identity card belonging to Hélène Wiesen from Metz. It contains on the right the

dates covering her RAD service. (Source: Denise Weiland)…………………………….143

10. 1943 Photo of Hélène Wiesen (fifth from the right) at the RAD camp with some of her co-

draftees. (Source: Denise Weiland) ……………………………………………………..144

11. 1993 photo of ex-RAD Arbeitsmaiden with some of the German ex-camp cadre. Gathering

was to mark the fiftieth anniversary of their camp service. The photo contains three ex-

Führerinen (the second and the third from the left; the fourth from the left was the

Haupführerin or camp commander). Hélène Wiesen is the seventh from the right. (Source:

Denise Weiland)..................................................................................................................145

12. Four photos of the reunion of ex-Arbeitsmaiden with ex-camp cadre. Hélène Wiesen w/

sign indicating that fifty years ago she had been an RAD Arbeitsmaid. (Source: Denise

Weiland) ………………………………………………………………………………….146

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13. Photo of Pierrette P. (anonymized identity of one of the malgré-elles interviewed during

dissertation field work) in RAD dress uniform with RAD brooch on blouse collar. (Source:

Pierrette P.)…………………………………………. …………………………..……….147

14. Certificate of employment of Camilla Lang in a steel mill in Germany during her KHD

service after her RAD service. (Source: Camilla Lang) ………………………...………148

15. Health insurance card issued to Camilla Lang during her KHD service in Germany. (Source:

Camilla Lang)……………………………………………………………….…….……...149

16. Repatriation card issued by the French Ministry of Prisoners, Deported Persons and

Refugees to Camilla Lang intended to act as a temporary identity card. (Source: Camilla

Lang)……………………………………………………………………………………...150

17. Drawing by Camilla Lang of RAD camp building and surroundings. (Source: Camilla

Lang)……………………………………………………………………….……………..151

18. Drawing by Camilla Lang of water hauling duty during RAD service during winter in the

snow. (Source: Camilla Lang)…………………………………………………………..151

19. Drawing by Camilla Lang of Room 5 of dormitory for RAD Arbeitsmaiden with wooden

bunk beds and wall lockers. (Source: Camilla Lang ……………………………..............152

20. Drawing by Camilla Lang of sports (top) and cleaning (bottom) RAD activities. (Source:

Camilla Lang)……….........................................................................................................153

21. Drawing by Camilla Lang of morning wake-up call, sport and washing up. (Source:

Camilla Lang)………………………………………………………………………...…..154

22. Drawing by Camilla Lang of the end of day. (Source: Camilla Lang)………………….155

xi

23. 1942 document showing provisional decision intending to draft Cecile Rauch into the RAD

and giving her Müsterung reporting place and date of 18 June 1942. (Source:

ASCOMEMO )……………………………………………………….………………..…156

24. 1942 German registration certificate identifying Cecilia Rauch as candidate for call-up for

the RAD. (Source: ASCOMEMO )……..………………………………………….……157

25. Three unidentified RAD Arbeitsmaiden in RAD dress uniform wearing the bronze RAD

brooch on blouse. (Source: ASCOMEMO)……………………………………………...158

26. Group of unidentified women of the KHD surrounding what seems to be a work supervisor.

Note the distinctive KHD brooch worn by the two women seated. (Source:

ASCOMEMO)……….......................................................................................................159

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ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the experiences of young Frenchwomen from the northeastern

département of Moselle who, following the surrender of France to the invading Germans in 1940

and the de facto annexation of Moselle into the Third Reich, were forcibly conscripted into

German labor organizations devoted to the wartime support of the Nazi State. Their experiences,

part of France’s Second World War history has been largely forgotten if not occulted altogether.

Research into the malgré-elles, as they refer to themselves, led me to recognize that their

story is intimately tied to the history of Moselle and its occupation by Germany twice in a

hundred years; one occupation having lasted almost fifty years. My research in the field

included the interviewing of fifteen malgré-elles dispersed over most of north and central

Moselle.

An initial analysis of the interview data permitted the identification of experiences typical

of young malgré-elles, illustrated by the personal itinerary of one of my most informative

interviewees. On further analysis, a hypothesis was formulated concerning the possible influence

of cultural and especially linguistic backgrounds on the attitudes of malgré-elles towards their

experiences. While the interview data are somewhat mixed, it appears that malgré-elles from

German-speaking backgrounds were slightly less negative in regards to their experiences than

their Francophone peers, while the common experiences of the members of both groups, forced

to function in a coercive environment in Germany, tended to narrow this gap.

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Objectives

Between 1940 and 1945, some 15,000 women in three départements of the Alsace-

Lorraine region of northeastern France annexed by Nazi Germany were forcibly enrolled into a

program requiring them to work in support of the German war effort. Simultaneously, about

130,000 of their men folk were forcibly enlisted in the German armed forces and many were sent

to fight on the eastern front against the Soviet Union. Those who survived were greeted with

considerable suspicion on their return to a newly liberated France infused with the Gaullist myth

of a nation that had been united in resistance to the Nazi occupation. The ambiguous status of

the men conscripted as warriors, which has been documented in a considerable body of historical

research (Riedweg, Le Mares, Wolfganger, Patel, Soc. D’Hist. et d’Archeo. du Ried Nord,

Fischbach, etc…), became rationalized by labeling them as malgré-nous (literally, “against our

will”), indicating that they had served Nazi Germany against their will, and on this basis they

eventually received financial compensation. By contrast, the women from Alsace-Lorraine who

had been forced to don German uniforms and perform civilian and sometimes more quasi-

military work in support of the German war effort, and who were treated with considerable

suspicion on their return home, disappeared almost completely from public view, attracted

practically no scholarly research, and until recently received no financial compensation. These

women, known as malgré-elles (“against their will”), are the subject of this dissertation.

I first became aware of these women in the summer of 2007. Like every summer since

my marriage in 1972, I spent that summer with my wife in her hometown of Pange located about

15 kilometers southeast of Metz in the département of Moselle, part of the region of Lorraine.

Having grown-up in Pange, my wife had an extensive network of relatives and friends in that

village where her father had been mayor since the end of the Second World War before being

succeeded as mayor by her younger brother in 1982.

2

During a Sunday mid-day family meal typically lasting several hours, which included

discussions of a myriad of subjects, the subject of the Second World War was broached. The

subject of this war always seems to be lurking just barely under the surface of social life in this

northeastern département of France. Often it involves heated debates as to who did what and

why during this conflict. It is apparent that the French in general do not share a clear and

common perception of the Occupation of France and of the annexation of Moselle in particular.

There were various interpretations of what conditions were like during the war and how each

person behaved under the German annexation. While some participated in heroic acts of

resistance, it appeared that most Frenchmen kept their head down and concentrated on physical

survival. The question of collaboration with the Nazi authorities was not always clearly defined

or understood, resulting in a lingering sense of uneasiness and perhaps some residual guilt.

During the discussion around the table, it was mentioned that the number of veterans of

that war still living in the village was extremely limited and that only three malgré-nous were

still living, among whom could be counted the village priest, my wife’s uncle and another

villager. An elderly lady present interjected that she was always curious why the malgré-elles

were never mentioned when the subject of the involuntary draft into the German war effort was

discussed. This was the first time that I had heard this term. The lady added that she was herself

a malgré-elle and that there were still a number of such women alive despite their advanced age.

She stated that she always felt insulted that the women who had been obliged to don a German

military-style uniform were consistently forgotten and never mentioned. It was explained that

this omission was due to the fact that there were so few of them left and anyway most were never

considered as combatants. That the lady became extremely agitated and indignant is a very mild

description of her state to say nothing of the vigorous signs of disagreement from most of the

older women present. Apparently, this was an extremely sensitive subject for some women.

I met later with the lady who called herself a malgré-elle to talk some more about women

like her who had been obliged to serve in a German uniform during the Second World War. She

mentioned that there existed an association of malgré-elles within each of the three northeastern

French départements annexed by the Germans following their victory over France in 1940. She

volunteered to help me contact each département association president if I was interested in

researching this subject further. After telling her that I was interested and would contact her later,

I started to inquire among acquaintances in Moselle to see if they were aware of the existence of

3

these malgré-elles. I was amazed that practically no one under 50 years of age in the

département had ever heard of them. After travelling through southern France, I was surprised at

the near total lack of knowledge about the malgré-elles outside of Alsace and Lorraine. Often I

was asked if I was not referring to STOs (French civilians conscripted by the Vichy government,

in the portions of France which it administered, to work in armament factories in Nazi

Germany). By contrast with the situation in the territories under the civil jurisdiction of Vichy

France, where conscripted workers remained French citizens, the annexation of Bas-Rhin, Haut-

Rhin and Moselle meant that the inhabitants of these formerly French départements became

subjects of the German Reich, to which they were required to show allegiance and shoulder all

the duties and responsibilities of German citizens. Research at the main library in Metz revealed

that only one book on the malgré-elles had ever been published and only recently. This was Nina

Barbier’s Malgré-Elles in which she recounted her mother’s experiences as a malgré-elle. I was

astonished at the seemingly widespread lack of knowledge of a historical experience that had

affected some 15,000 French women of northeastern France, including some 3,500 from

Moselle. This surprise was further exacerbated by the fact that although only 60 years had

passed since the war, their experience was almost forgotten within their département and was

beyond even the awareness of their grandchildren.

It was interesting to note that French people who were not from Alsace or Lorraine most

often mistook malgré-elles for STO’s. Such a mistake can be readily made when one has only

superficial knowledge of French Second World War history. STO or Service du Travail

Obligatoire (Compulsory Labor Service) was a system initiated in 1943 by the Vichy

government in a law that established labor service in Germany as an alternative to military

service. This law imposed labor service on young men of military age, born between 1920 and

1922, which was intended to provide workers to industries in Germany hard hit by manpower

shortages. One of the most notorious examples of Franco-German collaboration, Vichy’s STO

program is estimated to have provided more than one million conscripted workers to Nazi

Germany. In contrast with the situation in the rest of France, where men - but not women - were

required by Vichy to perform civilian work in Nazi Germany, the inhabitants of the three

départements annexed by Germany were deemed to have lost French citizenship and become

subjects of the Reich and as a result of this the young men who were to become known as the

malgré-nous were drafted by Germany into military, and not merely civilian, service and young

4

women - unlike those of Vichy France - were required to perform auxiliary work within Nazi

Germany in support of the war effort there, where they were required to wear German uniforms

and subjected to military-style discipline.

Intrigued by the historical omission upon which I had stumbled, I decided to dig further

to ascertain if the coercion of young women from Moselle was only a local phenomenon or if

was part of a wider episode in the history of France’s turbulent past. Through my local malgré-

elle contact, I met with all three of the presidents of the malgré-elles associations located in the

northeastern départements of Moselle, Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin. My interviews with those

ladies confirmed that a vast Nazi program of compulsory service involving not only thousands of

young men conscripted into the German armed forces but also the uniformed war support service

of several thousands of young women of all annexed départements had occurred. In addition, a

pervasive sense of injustice and indignation seemed to be shared by all the malgré-elles with

whom I was able to speak. They all felt that the French government was purposely ignoring their

case. At the end of the summer, I returned to FSU with the conviction that there was a very

compelling story to be told and the realization that time was of the essence given the advanced

age of the surviving malgré-elles. After my return to FSU and discussion of my newfound

interest with my research professor, it was decided that I should research further the story of the

malgré-elles with a view to writing a dissertation on the subject, the main aims of which would

be the collection and the analysis of oral testimony by women from Moselle concerning their

experiences when conscripted to work in Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

1.2 Research Context

It has been my belief all along as I researched the story of the malgré-elles that their

experiences could only be understood in the wider context of the history of the Moselle

département with special emphasis to the forty-seven years of German Imperial annexation

(1871-1918) and the four years of a second annexation by Germany during the Second World

War. Although the amount of published works in French on the history of Moselle of the

periods referred to is rather limited due to the emphasis placed on Alsace and only one book has

been published about the plight of the malgré-elles during the Second World War, it is worth

mentioning some works which, directly or indirectly, cast light on the history of a strategic

5

region of France and on the war experiences of a small segment of its now aging female

population which has been largely ignored.

1.2.1 Lorraine and Moselle prior to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870

It is important to understand that Moselle as part of the larger territorial entity of Lorraine

did not become a département until after the French Revolution and as such its identity was

submerged in that of the province of which it is now part. Much of the province’s importance is

due to its strategic location in northeastern France bordering Germany. The Moselle River,

which flows north along almost all of the département’s length, has provided through history

easy passage for large groups of travelers or invaders. Repeatedly invaded from the east, the

populations of the province of Lorraine, especially Moselle, have been singularly marked by

their proximity to Germany and the historical rivalry between French and German political

entities. Professor François Roth’s Histoire de la Lorraine et des Lorrains places emphasis on

the geographical and geopolitical realities structuring the history of Lorraine with supporting

information on significant military events to provide a clearer view of the history of a very

complex territory and population. This work is a splendid precursor to other books by Roth on

the history of Lorraine and Moselle dealing with what happened to the region on the eve of

German unification and the end of the French third empire.

1.2.2 The First Annexation of 1871

Roth has written much about Franco-German political and social relations during the 19th

and 20th centuries and is probably the best-known historian in France on the subject of Lorraine

and Moselle. His most valuable work for for my own study has been La Lorraine Annexée 1871-

1918. This book was the most valuable due to the great amount of information and statistical

details on the historical period lacking in the works of other authors. Another of Roth’s books

titled Alsace-Lorraine: Histoire d’un “pays perdu”, is very useful for its regional as well as

national perspectives. In particular, valuable information is provided on the appreciation of the

German legal, cultural, religious and civic heritage that has persisted in Moselle up to today. A

third book by Roth, Histoire de la Lorraine et des Lorrains, is useful as it provides a wider

historical view of the socio-political make-up of the province within which Moselle is one of

four départements.

6

Jacques Gandebeuf’s Le Silence rompu provides a unique vision of what the population

of Moselle was like after the First World War. Surprisingly for someone neither from Moselle

nor from Lorraine, he was able to grasp the essentials of the character of the men and women of

Moselle and reveal it to not only to those of Moselle but also to their fellow Frenchmen from the

“Interior”. Like Roth, Gandebeuf emphasizes the influence of Germany and of Germans upon

Moselle as a result of the forty-eight-year second annexation. He has captured the complexity of

the “Lorrains” who are characterized by a certain reserve and discretion where family histories

are concerned. Some of their compatriots consider the “Lorrains” to be somewhat cold but it is

nothing more than an important cultural reserve stemming from the manner in which history has

generally mistreated them.

Gandebeuf’s second book, La Parole retrouvée, sheds further light on the phenomenon of

extreme cultural reserve which seems to be a social characteristic of most of the people of

Moselle. It includes coverage of men who were forced to serve directly in the German armed

forces and women who served as civilian auxiliaries in support of the Nazi war effort. The

theme of this book is that with time, the people now willing to relaye their wartime stories have

finally overcome their complex of silence on the subject. Although many individual wartime

stories can be found in local magazines and newspapers, Gandebeuf’s two books on Moselle are

valuable in that they allow the story of wartime Moselle to be accessible by the French

population at large.

1.2.3 The Second World War

The finest book on the Nazi regime and its attempts at making Germans out of the

population of Moselle during the Second World War is without a doubt Dieter Wolfganger’s

Nazification de la Lorraine mosellane. The contents of Wolfanger’s book describe in great detail

the systematic attempt by the Nazi party to turn the French men and women of Moselle into

“good” Germans during the occupation of Moselle after the French defeat and the de facto

annexation of the département by the Germans. He describes the moral and physical pressures

exerted on the population in order to mold it into a contributing element of the greater German-

speaking community and loyal to the Nazi Party. The author, with official statistics, is able to

clearly put in relief the physical and moral suffering, the confusion, the revolt and the resistance

of a people who believed themselves abandoned by France. What is in some ways surprising

7

about this book is that the author is a German national who was able to relate the period of

German occupation in such an unbiased manner and in particular only thirty seven years after the

events he described while the majority of Germans and many Frenchmen were trying to forget

all about this terrible experience.

Les Années noires by Bernard and Gérard Le Marec is a very valuable book on the years

of Nazi occupation of Moselle during the Second World War. Its value resides mainly on the

fact that it is devoted entirely to the history of the previously stated period specifically in

Moselle. Many books have been written about the war years in France’s northeastern provinces

that include the département of Moselle. However, the emphasis seems to be mostly placed on

Alsace, and Moselle is often confused with the province of Lorraine in which it is found. The

study by Bernard and Gérard Le Marec treats only what happened in Moselle and that is what

makes it so valuable in addition to the carefully researched information by the authors. This

book provides a detailed look at events in Moselle supported by numerous copies of documents

and photos. The authors also used an abundance of information and privately held documents

never published before. This is the best general overview of the war years in Moselle.

Another valuable book has been Les Malgré Nous of Eugène Riedweg. This book is one

of the best studies of the male draftees of Moselle obliged to don the German grey uniform

during the Second World War and forced to fight for Germany, mainly on the Russian Front.

Supported by numerous photos and documents, the book describes one the most tragic events in

the history of the département. Its value for my own study is of a contextual nature because it is

very difficult to understand the story of the malgré-elles without being aware of the larger

tragedy encountered by their male counterparts. The description of the return of those who

survived the war and their struggle for decades to obtain recognition and reparation for their

suffering is of particular interest because it was so similar to that of their female counterparts.

The great value of Les Malgré Elles by Nina Barbier is that it is the only book ever

published devoted to the experiences of the thousands of young French women from Alsace and

Moselle who were obliged to wear a German uniform and serve as civilian auxiliaries of the

German war machine during the Second World War. Nina Barbier, the daughter of a malgré-elle

from Alsace, uses the personal stories of some of the women, who like her mother were forced to

serve in Germany, to illustrate in a very poignant manner the mental and physical suffering of

these women and their struggle after the war to obtain, like their male counterparts, recognition

8

and reparation despite the bias of numerous government officials and the resistance of private

and official organizations. The author describes their long and torturous struggle, which finally

culminated in 2008 in the French government’s recognition that the malgré-elles were officially

war victims and owed financial reparation. This is a very interesting and moving book due to its

uniqueness but which unfortunately like so many books written by someone from Alsace and

claiming to address also the stories of those from Moselle places most of the emphasis on Alsace

and very little on Moselle.

As one of the most prolific writers on the subject of the Second World War in France,

journalist Henri Amouroux, after spending the war years mostly in Bordeaux and having

participated in that struggle as a member of a local Resistance group, wrote between 1976 and

1995 a number of books on the war, especially the ten volume La Grande Histoire des Français

sous l’Occupation. His ten books on the occupation of France, written more as a journalist than

as an historian, represent a phenomenal amount of work and research. Their contents are useful

mainly from an anecdotal point of view. His stories, presented often from an individual’s

perspective, lack a broader viewpoint so useful to a history researcher. Moreover, Amouroux

does not really cover the war period of the annexed départements. This diminishes the value of

his works in the context of my own research. Nevertheless, a certain number of Amouroux’s

books were useful in that they provided information on wartime events that occurred in the

Vichy zone and which had a direct impact upon the lives of the refugees from Moselle expelled

from their homes by the Germans.

Father Antoine Sutter’s biography of Mgr. Joseph Heintz, bishop of Metz during the

annexation of Moselle, is one of the most valuable books on the history of the Catholic Church

of Moselle during the war years. Sutter’s Pèlerin de l’Espérance describes after meticulous

research the role played by the Church in maintaining the spiritual and moral cohesion of a

people faced with the defeat and occupation of their country and their expulsion from their

homes to the interior of France amid a population which largely did not share its cultural and

religious traditions to say nothing of the same languages in many cases.

Robert Gildea’s Marianne in Chains, which describes daily life in the heart of France

during the German occupation of the western part of the Loire River valley, helped this

researcher in better understanding the plight of everyday Frenchmen located at one opposite end

of France from Moselle by comparing somewhat the experiences of the populations of these two

9

locations distant from each other and living somewhat similar experiences. Gildea’s major

contribution to historical reportage is that he managed to draw from those he interviewed a great

deal of truth about the prevalent existence of collaboration.

Francois Rouquet’s Une épuration ordinaire tells the story of the many French

collaborators working for the French wartime administration in Vichy and in occupied France.

Its merit for present purposes is that it also covers French government workers working under

the Nazi administrations in the annexed départements of Alsace and Moselle. Using a wealth of

unpublished sources, Rouquet brings alive the experiences of government functionaries such as

teachers, mailmen, teachers as well as government ministers and heads of agencies as the war

ends and accounts begin to be settled. His story of the settling of accounts, legal and illegal,

offers a gripping image of the convulsions that agitated French society at the end of the Second

World War. For purposes of this study, his coverage of Moselle and the two départements of

Alsace is of particular value because relatively little has been published on the Épuration due to

the extreme sensitivities attached to the subject of collaboration with the Nazis during the war

Michael H. Kater’s Hitler Youth, although covering the indoctrination of German youth

into the Nazi system, was valuable during my research in that it provided a very clear and

understandable view of the Nazi efforts to politically indoctrinate all the young men and women

considered to be German nationals, which included those of Moselle and the two départements

of Alsace. The book enables the reader to better understand the all-pervasive pressures the

Nazis managed to apply to the lives of the young men and women of Moselle in order to make

them comply with and integrate into the Nazi wartime system.

I found of great value all the various small booklets published by the Office National des

Anciens Combattants de la Moselle (Office of Veterans of Moselle) and by the the Association

Thanks GI’s on the subject of the war years in Moselle and the story of the men and women

forced to serve the German war effort either as military combatants or as civilian auxiliaries.

They provided details that were missing in books covering a larger scope.

Soldiers of Labor by Kiran Klaus Patel, which relates the experiences of labor service in

Nazi Germany and New Deal America from 1933 to 1945, is a systematic comparison of the

labor policies of Nazi Germany and that of the United States during the years indicated. This

book was very valuable because of its emphasis on Nazi Germany’s Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD -

Reich Labor Service. The author relates how this organization was created, evolved and matured

10

as consequences of the requirements placed upon it by the war. It was the best book n English to

be found on the subject of the RAD as an organization.

Many of the books in French cited in the bibliography can be found in the extensive

library of the Association pour la Conservation de la Mémoire de la Moselle (ASCOMEMO),

located in Hagondange, Moselle. Under the impressive leadership and management of its

president, P. Wilmouth, this organization has over several decades of existence collected

thousands of documents, photos, decorations and uniforms relating to the Second World War. It

holds one of the most extensive collections of books in French, German and English on the war

in Moselle and makes them available with great generosity to researchers the world over. It is

also the recipient of war souvenirs such as letters, photos and personal documents of veterans of

the war period. All in all, this organization holds some of the most original and unexploited

documents preserved by individuals of Moselle having lived in the département during the war

years.

Finally, the Archives Départementales de la Moselle (ADM) possesses important German

language documents for the period 1939-1945. They are classified under the series 1W and 2W.

These documents are mainly of an administrative nature and include items relating to the RAD

call-up. The subjects covered are very general but can be used to verify information provided in

other sources.

1.3 Methodology

Soon after deciding to embark on my research, I contacted the FSU’s Oral History

department for guidance on how to conduct oral interviews. After receiving guidance from a

subject matter expert from that department and a list of books on Oral History to consult, I

started to develop a better idea on how to go about preparing for oral interviews. Drawing on

printed articles and books about the Second World War in France in addition to information

obtained from informal interviews the preceding summer, I also developed a schedule of

interview questions that was submitted to the FSU Human Subjects Committee requesting that it

recognize that my research fell within the context of oral history. This was granted and armed

with a digital recorder and renewed interest, I returned to France during summer 2008 to begin

my targeted research.

11

In preparation for conducting interviews with malgré-elles, my consultation of published

research mentioned above provided me with contextual information and understanding with

which I was able to construct an interview guide listing questions which proved to be of great

assistance in helping move along the interview when the interviewee lost her concentration or

when the interviewee’s monologue became sidetracked in areas not pertinent to the research

topic. The interview guide was constructed in such a way that the semi-directive questions

followed a chronological pattern, which most interviewees tended to follow in describing their

experiences as malgré-elles. This permitted me to keep in mind and return to points not covered

by the interviewee when she had given her initial account of events. In addition to enabling me

to aim for a more complete interview, having the interview guide to hand also enabled me to

keep written notes as backup to the digital sound recordings made during the interviews.

In drafting the schedule of questions and conducting the interviews, I refrained from

structuring my approach around a specific hypothesis regarding the experiences of the malgré-

elles. Rather than projecting onto my informants a pre-determined interpretative grid, my core

purpose was to find out more about what they saw as their most marking experiences both at the

time and in retrospect. With this in mind, my interview plan contained open-ended questions

designed to permit interviewees to speak as freely as possible and in their own terms. I wanted

to hear each interviewee’s story as she remembered that period of her youth and focus on those

experiences of her service in Nazi Germany she considered had been important to her or that had

had a strong impact upon her.

Immediately upon my return to Moselle in 2008, I began to look around to identify

people and organizations capable of providing aid for my research. I was advised to visit the

offices of ASCOMEMO, dedicated to perpetuating the wartime memories of the population of

the Moselle department, and received enthusiastic help from members of this organization that

was invaluable in furthering my research.

Meanwhile through the initial malgré-elle whom I had met in Pange, I managed to obtain

a first round of interview commitments from a handful of ladies personally known by my

contact. All of the interviews were conducted at domicile in a cheerful and cooperative manner

often in the presence of a family member. From these initial interviews, I became aware that the

age and various degrees of infirmities of these ladies had an important impact upon their ability

to focus and remember. In this context, my schedule of interview questions could be used as an

12

indispensible tool, after the initial uninterrupted telling of the interviewee’s experiences, to fill in

any gaps in the story of a malgré-elle. I also realized that I needed more help in obtaining

additional interviewees.

The finding of women to interview proved to be not as easy as I had imagined. My first

five formal interviews with malgré-elles, conducted with my initial malgré-elle contact and four

of her close friends, took place in the first week of my return to Moselle. Feeling a certain sense

of responsibility for facilitating these contacts, she accompanied me at the five interviews and

proved to be of great help in the rapport-building phase of the interviews. Unfortunately, I ran

into a dry spell after these first five interviews, unable to find any more malgré-elles through my

various contacts. Sharing my concerns with the president of ASCOMEMO about my lack of

malgré-elles to interview, he explained that the small number of responses should not surprise

anyone given the advanced age of the women in question, their various physical and mental

infirmities due to the ravages of age and finally, reluctance on the part of a potential interviewee

as well as that of family members to broach with a stranger a subject considered by many in most

families to be extremely sensitive given that the experiences of the malgré-elles conflicted with

the prevalent official French post-war myth of the collective resistance of the French population

during the war.

The assessment by the ASCOMEMO president related above proved itself in the

following weeks of my stay in Moselle. A general feeling of discouragement seemed to be

shared by most of the women I interviewed. A frequently repeated comment by an interviewee

was that she knew a good number of malgré-elles with whom she had tried to keep in touch but

unfortunately they had all died or had lost interest as they aged. This fact was confirmed when I

consulted the membership lists of the three departmental associations of malgré-elles and noted

that their numbers, already small to start with, had been dwindling rapidly in the last five years.

It was explained to me by two of the three association presidents that another factor in the

rapidly decreasing memberships seemed to be a general loss of confidence that after all this time

the government would finally recognize and compensate them. There seemed to be a general

belief among the interviewees that the possibility also existed that the government was waiting

for most to die so as to have to pay less if and when some form of compensation did finally take

place.

13

Against this backdrop, the president of ASCOMEMO produced a breakthrough for my

research by placing an advertisement in the local newspaper informing readers that a retired US

military officer (myself) was interested in interviewing women who had been conscripted into

wartime service in Germany. About fifteen women responded and provided contact information.

Of the fifteen, I managed to obtain interviews with eleven. Four eventually excused themselves

citing either health reasons or having been talked out of participating in an interview by a close

family member. One declined to see me after learning that there was no money involved. The

interview of one of the eleven though fascinating could not be used because the woman had not

been conscripted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) program but had been a member of the

Bund Deutscher Mädel or BDM and though coerced into the BDM program had not been a

malgré-elle because she was too young to be conscripted. In addition, I conducted an interview

with a male high school teacher who declared having been one of 500 High School students in

Moselle obliged to serve in a German Air Force antiaircraft battery as a Luftwaffenhelfer.

Needless to say, he had never been a malgré-elle or a malgré-nous. All the people I spoke with

in Moselle seemed fascinated by the fact that an American was aware of the story of the malgré-

elles when it was largely forgotten in their country and all wanted to know what led me to

become interested in this wartime drama.

Although all of the malgré-elles whom I interviewed, already in their mid-eighties, were

enthusiastic and very helpful in furthering my research, I was still disappointed, with all the

interviews completed, by the relatively small number of women who had volunteered to speak

with me. It was clear that I was facing obstacles such as age, infirmities and a certain sense of

embarrassment, to say nothing of the fact that many malgré-elles had already passed away.

Meeting with a published author in Metz who was locally known for his perceptive insight into

the special character of those of Moselle in particular and of the French in general, I was made

aware that most people of Moselle preferred not to talk about their wartime experiences, in some

cases not even among family members, because of the daily hardships and unavoidable

compromises forced on them during the war but most of all because as a stranger to Moselle, it

was felt that I could not begin to understand the special drama of the annexation of that

département and its impact on the young men and women who had been forcibly conscripted to

serve in Germany to support that country’s war effort.

14

Upon my return from France at the end of the summer of 2008, I began to transcribe all

the interviews. The transcription, undertaken on a part-time basis, took almost a year; given the

many problems I encountered trying to transcribe in French each interviewee’s story, often told

with a local accent and a peppering of grammatical errors. After the transcription of a good two

third of the interviews, a number of commonalities and recurring experiences in the tales of the

women became apparent. It seemed clear that these commonalities arose from shared

experiences affected by the coercive environment the women found themselves in while in

Germany. I also began to formulate a possible hypothesis based on the women’s cultural origins

and the influence this origin may have had on their ability to adapt to the demands of the new

coercive conditions regulating their lives while obliged to serve in German uniform during the

Second World War.

In order to test the hypothesis mentioned above, I developed a matrix system consisting

of five matrices. For each interviewee, the information contained in each matrix was awarded a

numeral value to facilitate the interpretation of the results. The first matrix was used to identify

the linguistic background of the women and to help in organizing them in two linguistic groups.

The second matrix was used to compare reactions to the effects of the German military presence

in Moselle prior to the women’s departure for Germany. The third matrix explored their

reactions on being ordered to serve in the RAD in wartime Germany. The fourth matrix sheds

light on reactions to shared experiences while in service in Germany. The fifth and final matrix

explores one of the most emotive moments during their experiences in Germany, the obligation

to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Comparison of the numerical aggregate of the results for

each interviewee was used to test the hypothesis that in their varied reponses to their shared

experiences the women may have fallen into two fairly distinct groups, depending on their

linguistic background.

1.4 Dissertation Structure

The dissertation structure consists of six chapters plus two maps, four appendices and a

bibliography.

In this, the first chapter, I have explained how I discovered the story of the malgré-elles

and how I became interested in conducting further research on the subject. I also provide

information on what research was conducted both before and during the subsequent interviews

15

which provided the core information for the development of this dissertation, describe the

methodologies used in my fieldwork and analysis, and note problems encountered in obtaining

volunteers to interview.

The second chapter presents the historical, cultural and political context which had

significant influences upon the interviewees prior to and during the Second World War. The

history of the département of Moselle and of the French province of Lorraine of which Moselle

has been part since the French Revolution is covered from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to

the end of the Second World War. In that period of time, the two German annexations of

Moselle had a significant impact on that département, thus influencing the cultural, linguistic and

political attitudes of the population. The Nazi conscription of the département’s youth first into

the RAD and later into the military for the men is described in detail. The problems of national

recognition and financial compensation encountered after the war by the men and women who

had been conscripted are also considered.

The third chapter presents the methodology used in my fieldwork, including the

contacting of interviewees and the design of the interview schedule so as to make ample use of

open-ended questions taking into consideration the age of the subjects and the 60 or so years

which separated the latter from their wartime experiences during which memories tend to decay

and fade away.

Drawing on a qualitative analysis of the interviews conducted during my fieldwork, the

fourth chapter presents the wartime experiences of a typical malgré-elle highlighting core

experiences undergone by all the interviewees even though individual responses differed

sometimes. The main focus is on shared experiences told through the story of one of the

interviewees supplemented with additional pertinent information gleaned from other sources.

The fifth chapter shifts the focus from broadly shared experiences to variations in

individual responses and considers an explanatory hypothesis derived from analysis of the

testimony of my interviewees. Quantitative matrices are used to explore the wartime attitudes

and memories of fifteen malgré-elles interviewees with reference to their linguistic backgrounds.

Granted the small number of interviewees, caution needs to be exercised in the interpretation of

these matrices, which reveal only modest variations between the two linguistically defined

groups. There does, however, appear to be some evidence to suggest that such varitations in

attitude as did exist when the interview subjects were first conscripted into the service of the

16

Reich tended to decline during their time in the RAD in the course of the common challenges

which they faced in a foreign and coercive environment.

The final chapter is the conclusion of this dissertation. It recaps what is currently known

about the malgré-elles and explores areas of their story within the context of the Second World

War which could be further explored in order to provide future researchers and historians with a

clearer picture of a coercive political youth program too often imposed by totalitarian regimes.

Individual and group experiences of such programs tend often to be occulted by the population

itself because of individual fear, unavoidable compromise with the coercive regime or occupier

and the perceived inability to incorporate the individual or group into the eventual nationalistic

myth which often ensues from successful overthrow of the coercive regime.

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CHAPTER TWO

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

2.1 From Antiquity to the Franco-Prussian War

To understand the experiences of Moselle women forcibly enrolled in the wartime service

of Nazi Germany, considerable knowledge is required of the historical context in which these

experiences arose. Contextualization of this nature spanning geography, politics and culture, is

the main purpose of this chapter. Part of Christian Europe since Roman times, Lorraine, of

which Moselle will eventually become a part after the French Revolution, has found itself

claimed and owned alternatively by French or German political entities. Part of the French

kingdom of Louis XIV from 1766 onwards, the province is located in northeastern France

between its sister province Alsace on its eastern border and Champagne to its west. It shares its

northern borders with Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Its geographical space is limited in

the south by the province of Franche-Comté (Cuny 1990: 8).

Its geography has always been an important factor in its history. The province is

primarily a plateau that slopes down northward from the Vosges Mountains that are the source of

some of its major waterways. These waterways have had a major influence on the movements of

people and armies. Except for the Saone, which flows southward, most of its large rivers flow

northward. Its most important river is the Moselle River whose source is found in the Vosges

Mountains of Lorraine, whence it flows north toward German Trier and finally merges with the

Rhine River at Coblenz. The river also acts as a de facto western border for the département of

Moselle. The Moselle valley created by its wide and slow flowing river has played an important

role as a major invasion route throughout the history of Western Europe (Weyland 2010: 14).

Two other rivers need to be mentioned. First, there is the Sarre River which acts as the

eastern border of the plateau of Lorraine which encompasses the département of Moselle.

Second, the Meurthe River that flows from the Vosges Mountains and becomes a major

tributary of the Moselle River as it merges with that river near Nancy (Weyland 2010: 23).

The Moselle River had a major impact on the development of the province’s largest

urban centers such as its capital Nancy in the south, the latter’s rival Metz to its north and the

18

northernmost city of Thionville. It is not by chance that all three of the afore-mentioned cities

are to be found along the Moselle River valley.

The four or five centuries of Roman domination over the territory of Gaul resulted in

many changes which had an enduring impact. Latin became the language of the territorial

administration, of trade and culture. Christianity spread throughout the land replacing the ancient

gods. The Pax Romana led to important progress in the development of the various means of

transportation. Two important strategic and political axes crossed at ancient Metz: the Lyon-

Trier road and the Reims-Strasburg road. Urban development followed quickly, aided by the

rise of commercial activity facilitated by the availability of good roads and navigable waterways

in Lorraine (Le Moigne 1991: 20).

Toward the beginning of the fourth century, an increasing number of Barbarian invasions

originating from the east shattered the Pax Romana in Roman Gaul. After the last major

Barbarian invasion by the Huns and their departure from Gaul in the middle of the fifth century,

Francs moved south from their Germanic homeland and settled in the northern parts of Lorraine.

At the same time, the Alamans occupied the area of the Sarre valley. A more or less straight line

separated the two newly settled Barbarian zones. This line ran from Thionville in the west to

Donon passing by Dieuze in the east. Interestingly, this same line divides the Roman dialect

zone in the south from the Germanic Platt zone in the north today (Cuny 1990: 11).

With the passing of the Roman Empire of the West, the province of Lorraine was shaken

by the troubles brought by various succeeding dynasties that reigned over the territory. It was

with the arrival of the kings of the Carolingian dynasty who governed a vast territory located

between Metz in France and Aachen in Germany that a modicum of stability was reestablished.

With the death of the son of Charlemagne, the Carolingian Holy Roman Empire was divided

among his three sons among whom one was named Lothaire. With the treaty of Verdun in 842,

Lothaire, the eldest, inherited Francia-Media, a vast territory forming a band 3000 kilometers

long which extended from Rome to the North Sea encompassing Lorraine (Roth 2010: 23).

This new territory was called Lotharingia after the reigning king. The current name of

Lorraine is also derived from the name of the same king who reigned over the newly created

realm of Francia-Media. Initially, its Latin name was “Lotharii Regnum” or realm of Lothaire.

In the franc dialect, it was “Lotharing” which became “Lothringen” in German. In the Roman

dialect it was “Loherrègne” which evolved into today’s French word “Lorraine” (Cuny 1990:15).

19

In less than two generations after the Treaty of Verdun, the realm of Lotharing slowly fell

apart until it was reduced to the size of a duchy. This duchy was absorbed at the end of the first

millennium into the Germanic Empire of Othon the First and remained an independent duchy for

the next seven centuries claimed by the kingdom of France and the German-Austrian Empire. It

found itself squeezed between those two political entities and was able to maintain a form of

independence only due to the persistent weaknesses of those two states. The rivalry of those two

states exacted a heavy price from the province paid for in particular during the period of the

Wars of Religion and in the devastations of the Thirty Yeats War. However, the gradual

reinforcement of the French monarchy led to its eventual integration into the French realm (Roth

2010:34). It was not until 1766 and the death of the Duke of Lorraine, Stanislas Leszczinski, ex-

king of Poland and Louis XV’s father-in-law, that the duchy was finally reunited with the

kingdom of France (Cuny 1990: 57).

The province was not spared the Revolution that gripped France near the end of the 18th

century. The changes and effects of the Revolution spared neither the cities nor the countryside.

The recent stability of the region was replaced by general instability if not outright destruction of

the existing social, political and economic fabric of the region. Unnumbered were the

incarcerations, the murders and massacres of civil and religious persons, the pillages and

destructions of public and religious edifices. The attacks on the Catholic Church in the province

were especially numerous because of the Church’s historic and institutional presence and the

desire of the revolutionaries to abolish this institution closely linked to the monarchy (Cuny

1990: 58).

For Lorraine, the French Revolution resulted in significant territorial upheaval,

administrative as well as judicial, leading to the permanent disappearance of territorial structures,

customs and practices of which many were almost a thousand years of age (Roth 2010: 61). One

of these structural changes led to the creation by the Constitutional Assembly of the French

départements. Thus, Moselle was created as one of Lorraine’s four départements.

The territory of the newly created département of Moselle with its capital at Metz

covered much of the northeastern part of the old province with its territory stretched east west

along a part of the country’s northern border. Linguistic considerations played an important role

in establishing its unusual and elongated boundaries. Part of the old province was divided into

Platt-speaking Moselle in the north and Romane-speaking Meurthe in the south. Thus, the new

20

département’s boundaries consisted of the Belgian/ Luxemburg/German border in the north, of

the borders of the two départements of Alsace in the east, of the borders of the Meuse

département in the west and of the département of the Meurthe in the south (Roth 2010: 62).

For the next eighty years or so, the département witnessed several foreign invasions from

the east and lived through the political turmoil resulting from the effects of the French

Revolution and the aftermaths of Napoleon’s rise and fall from power. The département’s

population located in mostly agricultural areas remained largely conservative, still attached to the

First Empire and regretting its past glories. Only the bourgeoisie, found mainly in the cities,

participated in the political strife that eventually led to the establishment of the Second Empire

and its subsequent defeat (Cuny 1990: 72).

This eighty-year period after the French Revolution did not bring only turmoil to the

département. An increasing degree of prosperity occurred with the significant increase in the

military build-up of the département which acted as a principal logistical support base for

revolutionary offensives toward the north and for defensive operations of the national territory at

the time of Napoleon’s retreat back to France before he was obliged to abdicate for the first time.

Industrial activity increased substantially with the creation of the first rail lines that facilitated

logistical movements to the northern départemental and national borders. In addition, steel and

coal industrial activity located primarily in the north and northeastern parts of the département

developed and flourished under the management of the industrious de Wendel family. The

département became one of the country’s principal producers of rail and railroad engine wheels

(Le Moigne 1991: 47).

Despite the prosperity originating from the industrial expansion occurring within the

département and throughout Lorraine, a sense of uneasiness over Prussia’s Pan Germanic

ambitions was spreading not only through the département of Moselle but also throughout

France’s other eastern départements as Prussia claimed more and more openly the historic limits

of the Holy German Empire and specifically all the German speaking territories (Cuny 1990:

75). In a still divided Germany, many Germanic patriots dreamt of a future national German

State whose western borders would consist of the Meuse River (Roth 2010:11). With the rapid

defeat of Austria in July 1866 in the Prussian-Austrian War, Bismarck’s Prussia came to be

increasingly perceived by the French as a potential enemy. This led to a significant military

modernization of Metz’s fortifications and military presence by Napoleon III (Roth 2006: 67).

21

2.2 From the Franco-Prussian War to World War One

The news of France’s declaration of war on Prussia on 18 July 1870 was received with

stupefaction in Lorraine and more specifically in Moselle. The département’s proximity to and

shared borders with the growing German state engendered in the département’s population a

different appreciation of the dangers of the coming war than what was perceived in the French

capital. The rapid and enthusiastic French military built-up along the northeastern borders of

Lorraine reassured temporarily but this did not last. Rapid Prussian advances along a wide front

and continued French defeat on Lorraine’s soil resulted in the fall of Napoleon III after the

disastrous defeat of Sedan. Continued German successes obliged the newly installed French

government in early 1871 to sue for an armistice on 12 March 1871 which led to the peace treaty

of Frankfurt on 10 May 1871 (Cuny 1990: 76).

By the Treaty of Frankfurt, defeated France relinquished to Prussia its two départements

of Alsace as well as the département of Moselle and these were quickly annexed into the newly

declared German Empire. The newly annexed territories became part of the Germanic

Reichsland; a denomination that imposed to the territories a perceived state of administrative

inferiority compared to the German states referred to as Staat. For the Germans, the annexation

was a justified return of territories to the Volksgemeinschaft or community of German-speaking

people from which they had been separated by the vagaries of history. For the majority of the

French and this included the populations of the annexed territories, most people greeted the

forcible separation from France with bitterness as an unjustified amputation of their national

territory perpetrated against the will of the people (Roth 2010: 25). For the Moselle

département, the Treaty of Frankfurt meant the annexation of most of its territory including the

strategic strong point of Metz and all of the mineral-rich basin in the north of the département.

With the loss of most of Moselle, it meant for vanquished and humiliated France that a territorial

reorganization in Lorraine was necessary. As a result, what had not been annexed of Moselle by

Germany was integrated with the Meurthe département to create a new département called

Meurthe and Moselle with Nancy as its capital. Meanwhile, Moselle and its two sister

départements of Alsace were unified by the German Imperial administration into the Reichsland

or imperial territory of Alsas-Lothringen with its capital in Strasbourg (Cuny 1990: 77). It was

this German appellation of the newly annexed territories which influenced the French to refer to

22

their lost départements as Alsace-Lorraine even though it was not all of the province of Lorraine

which was lost but only half of it, the département of Moselle (Grandhomme 2008:16). It is

possible that referring to Moselle as Lorraine made the territorial loss seems greater thus

resulting in a greater sense of patriotic injustice.

The annexation and the efforts of Germanization by the victors resulted in significant

demographic changes in the annexed territories. The loss to France of its three northeastern

départements represented a total of about 1,597000 people of which 490,000 were in the Moselle

département. It is estimated that between 1871 and 1910 about 192,000 refused to lose their

French nationality or to be drafted in the Imperial Army and in consequence emigrated to such

diverse destinations as France itself, newly colonized Algeria and even the distant United States

(Grandhomme 2008: 49). While the emigration of a part of the French population of the newly

annexed territories was going on, the département experience the arrival in Moselle of significant

numbers of German immigrants. Specifically the new arrivals consisted at the beginning mostly

of German functionaries, businessmen and later of skilled industrial workers. Most settled down

in the cities of Moselle and near the large industrial complexes in the north and northeast. In

some areas the German immigrants outnumbered the locals to such an extent that fifteen years

after the annexation, the population of German origin in Metz was larger than the original French

community (Roth 2010: 30).

The German imperial administration, more liberal than expected, committed itself to a

process of Germanization involving the education system aimed in particular at the new

generations. This process was greatly facilitated by the significant exodus of the social and

cultural elites of the département who would have provided the most resistance to the changes.

The process involved multiple channels such as making schooling in the German language

mandatory, obtaining the support of the religious institutions, the industrial integration of the

département into the larger imperial economy, accustoming workers to new methods and labor

conditions found in the recently established German enterprises of the département, mandatory

military service and the effects of urbanization under the impetus of a significant German

military build-up especially in the area surrounding Metz (Roth 2010: 74).

In the eyes of the German imperial authorities, the process of Germanization of the newly

annexed territories was viewed rather optimistically. After all, from a historical point of view,

had not the people of these territories lived longer under German rule than under French rule?

23

Given that three quarters of the inhabitants of Moselle and Alsace spoke a variety of German

dialects, imposing the German language as the official language in the administration and in the

schools of the annexed territories was expected to lead to the authorities’ desired goals in which

the German language and culture would reacquire their historic place within the annexed

territories (Roth 2010: 35). Thus, a lot of emphasis was placed on the instruction of the German

language as the German authorities considered it as the principal vector of Germanization in

Alsace-Moselle (Roth 2010: 50).

The German administration employed two means to further the Germanization process

through the spread of German language instruction in the schools. First, it conducted a linguistic

survey in 1872 to identify those areas of the département where Germanic dialects were the

maternal language of the majority. The survey results indicated that a significant number of the

population of the département, mainly the northern half, spoke a Germanic dialect as their

mother tongue. Thus, it was determined that the German language would be exclusively used in

the schools and in the départemental administration. Second, the Bismarck-Bohlen ordinance,

which made school attendance mandatory, was instituted for boys until age fourteen and thirteen

for girls. One of the difficulties in the application of this program was the severe shortage of

teachers because many had decided to leave the département after the annexation. This problem

was resolved with the importation of many teachers from Luxemburg and to a lesser extent from

Germany. In areas such as the southern part of the département, where the French language was

used exclusively except for official purposes, all instruction was bilingual. It was at the high

school level that all courses were given in German but taught only by teachers brought in from

Germany. The end of secondary education was signaled by the Abitur exam where success

opened the door to university attendance (Roth 2010: 36).

Gaining the support of the clergy in order to counter any institutional resistance to the

new order was considered of importance by the imperial administration. The authorities were

aware of the Catholic Church’s moral authority and, at the beginning of the annexation, of its

outright anti-German attitude. With the departure of the département’s civil elites, the Catholic

Church gained greater political influence through its newspapers and local organizations, which

it used to sustain resistance to the occupier. The Concordat of 1801 remained in force in the

annexed départements. It included elements that provided public subsidies for all members of

the clergy (Ambrosi 1976: 76) and the Falloux Law of 1850 which gave all religious

24

denominations within the département the right to run their own schools as well as provide

religious education in the various faiths within the département’s public schools, relieved the

anxieties of Church leaders who, as a result, softened their institutions’ anti-German attitude and

reoriented their efforts toward maintaining the specificity of the département’s original

linguistic, cultural and religious character (Cuny 1990: 80). An extensive building program of

public edifices, which included churches, also helped to soften the Catholic Church’s public anti-

German stance (Roth 2010: 49)

The integration of the département’s industrial activity within the greater German

Imperial economy was not easy but the industrial potential of the newly annexed département

soon proved itself. This potential was largely due to the estimated two billion tons of iron ore

obtained by Germany as a result of the Treaty of Frankfurt along with Moselle’s iron smelters

(Berglund 1919: 531). Adapting to the German way of doing things took some time. In addition,

the recession of 1873-1879 impacted the iron mines, the steel mills and the local textile industry,

which employed the majority of non-agricultural workers in the département. Eventually,

German investments in the steel-making industry and the adoption of a new method of

manufacturing steel while using the heavy phosphorus-laden Moselle iron ore allowed the local

steel industry to develop and flourish with the construction of additional steel mills. This

industrial success led to the successful and highly productive meshing of the coal and coke from

Germany’s Ruhr region with the iron ore and its processed steel products from Moselle (Roth

2010: 49).

In order to expand industrial activity, a public works construction program was started

and the Moselle transportation network, which had become government- owned, was

significantly expanded. As a result of government ownership, salaries and benefits of public

sector workers became vastly superior to those provided to their counterparts by the French

government. Further, the German imperial administration, in its desire to develop the newly

annexed territories, committed itself to a program of public works which included the

construction, in addition to new churches, of government buildings, bridges and improved

navigation on the Rhine River while expanding the capabilities of the port of Strasburg (Roth

2010: 49).

With the annexation, mandatory military service was established in Moselle targeting all

able-bodied young men 18 years or older. The promulgation of this law initially resulted in the

25

precipitated departure for France of numerous young males. Although much of the resistance to

the draft came from mostly urban youth, Dan Silverman in his very detailed study of the French

peasant and soldier from Lorraine, found that “Recruits from rural areas not only filled their

quotas but exceeded them by providing numerous volunteers” (Hopkin 2003: 351). Thus,

German military manning requirements from Moselle were met and supplied mostly by the

département’s rural population. Over time, this mandatory service became, if not totally

accepted, at least tolerated out of civic necessity. Most of the new recruits from Alsace-Moselle

ended up assigned to distant locations near the eastern borders of Germany (Hopkin 2003: 45).

Such an assignment policy may be indicative of a lack of total confidence by the authorities in

the success of their Germanization program and some doubts concerning the political reliability

and assimilation of the young men originating from the annexed territories.

The immediate surroundings of Metz as well as select localities along the new Franco-

German border were the subject of an intense and extremely expensive military construction

effort fed by German fears of an eventual French attempt to regain their lost territories. The

massive defensive construction effort of fortified locations in Moselle and of Metz itself made

this city the most fortified place in Europe at the start of the twentieth century (Roth 2010: 74).

To emphasize the military importance of Moselle to the defense of the German Empire, Emperor

Wilhelm II visited regularly the fortified places of Moselle and attended the frequent military

maneuvers held in the département (Riethmuller 1999: 31)

The département of Moselle under the German Imperil administration experienced

between 1871 and 1914 an unexpected economic development and prosperity heavily funded by

German industrialists and their government. This was partly due to a period of economic growth

in Western Europe starting around 1895, which brought a rapid rise in the standard of living for

the département’s inhabitants. Most of this prosperity in Moselle was due to a large-scale

program of exploitation of its mineral-rich soil containing abundant deposits of iron ore and

quantities of coal. The purchase of the Thomas and Gilchrist iron ore refining process by the De

Wendel family in 1890 made the production of steel from Lorraine’s impurity-laden iron ore

very cost effective (Mayeur 1984: 49). In consequence, German enterprises built a significant

number of steel mills in the northwestern part of the département. A symbiotic relationship was

established between Germany’s Ruhr region, which furnished Moselle with quality coal and

coke for Moselle’s steel mills, which in turn exported their finished metallic products to

26

Germany (Berglund 1919: 535-537). Some statistics can be provided to support this claim of

increased industrial activity. In 1914, Moselle produced twenty times iron ore than in than in

1871 (Roth 2010: 116) and coal production more than quadrupled in that same period of time (Le

Moigne 1991: 50). The manpower needs of this industrialization led to a surge in the urban

development of localities near the steel mills and associated coalmines. Immigrants from

adjacent regions such as Luxembourg and Saar provided much of the blue-collar manpower

while others came from relatively distant lands such as Poland and Italy. By 1910, 655,000

people lived in the département of which 180,000 were of German origin and an additional

50,000 foreigners of which 72 percent were Italian (Le Moigne 1991: 52). In addition to a surge

in urban development near industrial centers, the capital city of the département, Metz, was

significantly changed and beautified with the building of many imposing public edifices such as

the massive Railroad Station and the Post Office in the German neighborhood of the city which

is referred as Imperial and is still admired today (Roth 2010: 74).

By 1914, the program of Germanization had progressed but the depth of cultural and

political incorporation of the département into the larger German sphere was still doubtful. The

economic development and prosperity at the end of the nineteenth century certainly facilitated

the process of Germanization but signs of persistent resistance to the process still existed. Most

of the local press was still being published in French in spite of the fact that more than half of the

urban populations spoke German due to the spread of the German language in the schools and its

use in the world of business and in the administration. This press, aware that its existence was

subject to the tolerance of the German authorities, carefully kept the flame of French patriotism

alive by their patriotic slant in their articles. Public demonstrations organized by French patriotic

associations such as the Souvenir Français in 1908 drew large numbers in the vicinity of Metz

for the commemoration of monuments to the French soldiers fallen during the Franco-Prussian

War. While the majority of the département’s urban population spoke German, the countryside

still largely retained its attachment to its local dialect. To speak German did not mean that the

speaker felt German; rather, he had a tendency to identify himself as Lorrain. This rather

widespread identification with the province was a form of cultural resistance less dangerous than

declaring oneself as French. To identify oneself as Lorrain was also a way to distinguish a

person from Moselle from someone from Alsace (Roth 2010:78). The refusal to serve in the

German military was also seen as a form of resistance. From 1871 to 1910, some 192,000

27

refused to report for the draft and opted to leave the département (Le Moigne 1991: 50).

Incidents such as one in Saverne in 1913 in which the insulting remarks of a young Prussian

officer regarding local recruits resulted in accusations of provocations were reported in the press

of Alsace-Lorraine. This incident greatly excited the populations of the annexed territories and

even led a senior German military officer to declare in a letter to the German chancellor that the

local reaction to the Saverne incident proved that the population of Alsace-Lorraine in its

majority could still be swayed by nationalistic influences (Roth 2010: 126).

In spite of residual resistance to the Germanization program at the start of the First World

War, peace and prosperity reigned in the département as the population made the best of a

situation it could not do anything about by itself. The annexation had brought numerous benefits

to Moselle: an efficient administration, a rise in the standard of living, religious calm and social

protection (Gandebeuf 1996: 14). But in spite of all these benefits, the majority of the population

of Moselle still did not feel German and still looked westward to France and kept up the hope

that the “Revanche” would lead to reunification with the mother country (Roth 2010: 126). This

spirit of revanchism was provided support and fomented by the French government with much of

this support originating from Nancy through the various forms of French media and numerous

cultural demonstrations to keep the memory of France alive in their annexed neighbors (Roth

2006: 76)

2.3 World War One

With the start of the First World War, the bulk of the population of Moselle was aware

that this was a war of liberation for them. While most young men of the département served in

the German army, others served in the French army. It is estimated that around 380,000 men

from Alsace-Lorraine of which around a third came from Moselle were drafted into the German

army. Around 50,000 were killed, 150,000 seriously wounded and 29,000 made prisoners

(Riedweg 2008: 12). By 1918, some 20,000 young men who had either fled or immigrated from

Alsace-Lorraine had served in the French army (Grandhomme 2008: 30). The preceding

statistics must be carefully interpreted if one is to attempt to understand the human cost of the

war to the département’s population. Although precise casualty numbers for Moselle alone were

not found, it is reasonable to assume that these represented roughly a third (some 60,000 or

more) of the 200,000 men from Alsace-Lorraine who were killed or seriously injured while

28

serving in the German army. As about half of Moselle’s population of 600,000 were women,

military casualties represented around twenty percent of the département’s male population, a

significantly higher rate of losses than that suffered by US forces, among whom there were

approximately 200,000 casualties in the same war out of over a million American men under

arms at the time (Winter 1990: 206). It must be noted that several thousand deserted and

surrendered to the French and to the Russians. This resulted in severe distrust within the German

military that was not forgotten during the Second World War by the German High Command

(Riedweg 2008: 12). Not all the département’s young men fought on the German side. A French

government statistic provided in a book by a LTC Carré thought to be tinted with overtones of

propaganda cited the number of 17, 650 men from Alsace-Lorraine as having fled the

département to join the French army (Grandhomme 2008: 352). It is impossible to estimate the

number of those who stayed home and refused to answer the German draft call. A few of the

latter were shot as an example. Most of the evaders from the German draft in Moselle were

urban recruits while those from rural areas answered massively the call to arms under the

German Imperial Flag (Silverman 1972: 71). The majority of the recruits from the annexed

territories viewed with mounting suspicion by the German High Command were sent to fight in

the east to avoid any potential fraternization with French soldiers.

From the start of the war in 1914 to the victory of the Allies over Germany in 1918, parts

of the province became one large battlefield. The German invasion and subsequent occupation

of northeastern France resulted in devastating material destruction and loss of life. Some of the

most intense battles such as at Verdun, only forty miles due west of Metz, and at the Argonne

Forest, even closer to Metz, took place in the northwestern half of Lorraine. Many towns along

the western border of the département were either destroyed or forcibly evacuated by their

populations (Fortescue 2000:126). Interestingly, the industrial centers of the Wendel family on

both sides of the northwest border were untouched during the war (Cuny 1991:88) and as a result

were available for the resumption of industrial activity in Moselle after the war, thus playing a

crucial role in the economic life of the département.

Despite the fact that most of the combats took place well west of the département, life for

the civilian population of the département during the war became increasingly difficult. Already

an important military center, the city of Metz became an immense garrison town primarily

providing logistics support to the German combatants to the west in the Marne (Grandhomme

29

2008: 139). The new military government suspended civil liberties. The German authorities, now

solely military, also intensified their program of Germanization of the département during the

conflict. German became the only language spoken in primary schools. Speaking French was

forbidden in public. Only news of German successes appeared in the media, which now was

forced to use only the German language. Over time, shortages of basic necessities increased and

eventually led to rationing. The availability of products such as soap, coffee, oil and gasoline

became severely restricted and led to a ferocious increase in price inflation and a very active

black market. Material requirements for the war necessitated the melting down of numerous

church bells for their metal and walnut trees were cut down for their wood needed in the

fabrication of rifle crosses. Things did not improve during the two succeeding rigorous winters

of 1916-1918 (Roth 2010: 141).

By 1917, the hostility to the German occupiers had reached new heights due to the

harshness of everyday life in the département. It appears that it was around that time that the

Germans saw themselves referred to by the French as “Boches”, a singularly derogatory

designation that was taken up again during the Second World War (Grandhomme 2008: 224).

Despite this increased sentiment of hostility there were no significant signs of resistance to the

occupiers apart from a few acts of individual demonstration such as defacement of certain

German statues (Grandhomme 2008: 226). What was detested about the Germans was the

emperor, the military leaders, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Prussian militarism, the military

dictatorship, the questionable measures ordered and the corruption of the police (225). The

eventual defeat of Germany and the return of Moselle to France was received with relief and joy

by the majority of the département’s population.

2.4 The Inter-War Period

With the Armistice of 1918 and the defeat of the German Army on the Western Front,

French troops quickly entered the previously annexed territories. The Allied military victory led

to the imposition of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 which stipulated in Article 51 that the

territories of Alsace-Lorraine were to be restored to France (Fortescue 2000: 144). Through the

allied victory, the populations of the annexed territories regained French nationality although not

automatically (Martino 2009:176). This included those of the département of Moselle because it

30

must not be forgotten that the word Lorraine in the designation of Alsace-Lorraine stood in

practice for Moselle.

With French control over Moselle restored, the département was subjected to a severe

program of social and cultural cleansing from the effects of forty-eight years of German

presence. This began with the expulsion of the département’s German population. A rapid

evacuation of Moselle by the German military took place followed by the forced departure

initially of an estimated 20,000 German civilians (Cuny 1991: 87). This number increased to a

total of 100,000 by 1920. Of that total about 30,000 German were from Metz (Le Moigne 1991:

53). Each departing person was allowed to take only 30 Kg of baggage, two days of food and

200 marks in currency while abandoning his home, friends and property. In fact, German-owned

property was sold to French buyers with the proceeds going to the French département as war

reparations (Soutou 1989: 801-806). The expulsions accompanied by brutalities and humiliations

engendered bitter resentment against the French, which was not forgotten and used by the Nazis

in 1940 to justify their expulsions of Frenchmen from the once again annexed French territories

(Roth 2010: 153).

French replaced German as the language used in public and in the administration. This

was not accomplished immediately but took an effort, which covered many years especially in

the predominantly German-speaking zone of the département. Although most teachers in

primary schools were locals, French teachers imported from France replaced secondary school

teachers, who were all German. This near total Gallicization also applied to the universities. It is

estimated that some 1500 French teachers from the “interior”(Gandebeuf 1996: 20), colloquially

referred to as the Black Hussars of the Republic, filled teaching posts in the département and

began their secular colonization of a population thought to have been led astray for the last forty

years (Gandebeuf 1996: 14).

The reintroduction of French law met with some resistance. The realities of the Treaty of

Frankfurt, which had lasted some forty years, could not be erased totally or easily with the

establishment of a new administration. Most of the population of Moselle resented having to

give up social and legal benefits which they had acquired under the previous German

administration and which were lacking in the recently imposed French legislation. Religious

benefits, derived from the absence of the separation of church and state, giving the clergy the

right to teach religion in public schools as well as in their religious schools and the payment of

31

the clergy’s salaries by the government were naturally prized. In addition, German law provided

for better social coverage than the French. There was also the decentralization to the local level

of regulations such as those governing the conduct of hunting, the organization of societies and

associations involving people grouped together due to shared special interests such as in the

distilling of alcohol, in veterans’ groups, in religious groups and in sports activities. Over time,

those benefits were incorporated into French legislation as it applied in the newly reunited

territories (Roth 2011: 671). Those benefits, derived from local law and unique to the three

départements of Moselle, Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, still exist today despite various attempts by

the French government to rescind them.

In 1921, French veterans who had served under the German flag united to form veteran

associations for their mutual benefits (Riedweg 2008: 13). Already in 1920 at Metz, some

members of a veteran group who had served in the German Army had chosen to refer to

themselves for the first time publicly as malgré-nous to underline that they had been compelled

and had been reluctant to serve in a foreign army against their wishes (Eichenlaub 2003: 30).

The département’s drastic demographic losses due both to the direct effects of the war

and to the expulsions of those of German origin were eventually compensated during the thirties

by new arrivals from outside the département. Newcomers arrived in the département to take

jobs mainly left vacant by the absence of qualified personnel. The most immediate arrivals were

from the interior of France and employed mainly in the newly established départemental

administration and schools. Most settled in the larger urban centers of the département. To restart

industrial activity in Moselle, manpower was sought and found in Italy, Poland and Yugoslavia

(Le Moigne 1991: 53). These industrial workers moved into the département’s northwest where

the steel mills and mines were located thus engendering a spurt of growth in the surrounding

towns.

The period between the two wars was for the département a time of rebuilding in an

economic environment severely affected by a worldwide financial and economic crisis. In

addition to having to rebuild the local infrastructure after the effects of the war, Moselle became

almost the epicenter of a massive national defense-building program. The département was

recognized as a defensive glacis against the ever-growing menace of a resurgent Germany

(Riedweg 2008: 16). The French government committed itself to build a string of defensive

concrete fortifications running practically the length of the département’s border with Germany.

32

This defensive line called the Maginot Line was named after the French Minister of War André

Maginot. This phenomenal and hugely expensive engineering project was started in 1930 and

was not finished until 1937 (Fortescue 2000: 217-18). Some older residents of Thionville still

remember the work on the fortified sector to the south of the city and the uplift it brought to the

local economy.

The département of Moselle was not impervious to the social strife running through

French society at large. The twenty years after the end of the first Great War were witness to a

catastrophic global economic depression, which affected everyone in the département. This

dramatic economic downturn exacerbated the social divisions in French society and led to

extremely elevated levels of long-term unemployment, numerous strikes and political conflicts

(Cuny 1990: 88). The industrial northwest of the département with its steel mills and mines was

hit especially hard. The rise of the Communist party especially strong in the industrial sector of

the economy and represented by its powerful worker union, the CGT, led to severe social unrest

in its struggles with numerous divided right-wing conservative parties and with the government

itself (Fortescue 2000: 177). All this socio-political conflict amid several devaluations of the

franc and high unemployment resulted in continued political, economic and social instability in

addition to the rise of a brand of French fascism embodied by the extreme right Croix de Feu

party (Goodfellow 1999: 6). Those in the agricultural sector of the département were less

severely affected by these perturbations than those of the industrial and urban sectors.

Despite the passage of twenty years after the First World War and the efforts of

reintegration many of the inhabitants of the département had the impression of being different

from and misunderstood by their fellow Frenchmen of the interior. The recent annexation, the

dialect, the accent and the social traditions of Moselle tended to emphasize the differences.

These perceptual differences provided some bitter experiences to those populations of Moselle

who were evacuated by order of the French government before the start of hostilities in 1939

(Roth 2010: 161).

The drama of the second annexation had its roots in the political changes that shook the

Weimar Republic in 1933. During that year, Adolph Hitler came to power and the rapid

establishment of the Nazi regime took place. The new chancellor’s intentions regarding the

losses Germany suffered as a result of the Treaty of Versailles became quickly known through

his speeches, writings (Wolfanger 1982: 13) and rearmament of the German State. The world

33

war, which followed, and its impact on the population of Moselle, affected directly the lives of

the young men and women of the newly annexed territories.

On the eve of the war and conjointly with the general mobilization order, the populations

living in front of and around the Maginot line were ordered to evacuate at the beginning of

September 1939. Thousands of families, mostly farmers, abandoned their homes and with

minimum baggage were transported toward the center of France. Most of the evacuees from

Moselle lived out their evacuation in the départements of Vienne, Charente and Charente-

Inférieur (Amouroux 1976: 158). 302,732 persons or forty five percent of the population of the

département were evacuated. Of those, the first wave of about 200,000 living in front of the

Maginot Line, a zone in some cases twenty kilometers deep called Zone Red, was evacuated in a

matter of three days in September 1939. A second wave of some 100,000 located behind the

defensive line of fortifications departed for the interior of France in May 1940 with the start of

hostilities (Hiegel 1982: 57-70).

2.5 German Annexation in World War Two

The experiences of the evacuees in their reception areas in the interior of France were

often difficult, laden with mistrust and misunderstanding. Much of the mistrust by the locals

stemmed from ignorance and of the linguistic, cultural and religious particularities of those from

Moselle. Many locals perceived the new arrivals as some form of Germans and referred to them

as “Boches de l’Est” (Roth A p.168). This reaction originated in the fact that many of the adult

evacuees over the age of 35 barely spoke French and the Germanic dialect they spoke was

perceived locally as German (Vinen 2006: 39). It must be remembered that a half-century of

German occupation had prevented most of the adults from becoming familiar with the French

language. In addition, the great majority of the border families spoke Francique or Platt, a

Germanic dialect, at home. Even in grammar school in the northern part of Moselle, this dialect

was the means of communication mainly because of the extremely limited usage of the French

language in the area (Dauendorffer 1982: 55). The language barrier caused many

misunderstandings and mistrust. The misery of many of the evacuees lodged in deplorable

conditions also resulted in resentment which when verbalized did not endear them to the locals

(Vinen 2006: 39). The publicly practiced Catholic customs of most of the evacuees from

Moselle also set them apart from the less zealous locals (Le Marec 2005: 28). The locals’

34

mistrust and misunderstanding in addition to severe material deprivations left many of those

from Moselle with bitter memories of their stay with their fellow citizens from the interior,

memories, which would influence many later in their decision to leave or stay in the département

under the new Nazi rule.

Once the German offensive in the West started, the people of Moselle still residing there

or evacuated elsewhere observed in stupor the German Blitzkrieg which propelled the German

armies through Holland and Belgium down through the northern part of France, by-passing the

Maginot Line. This led to the rapid occupation of Moselle with the Germans entering Metz on

17 June 1940 (Le Marec 2005: 65). On that same day, faced with the rapid collapse of the French

army, the French government asked for an armistice that stopped the advance of the German

army and recognized de facto that France was defeated and half of its territory occupied

(Ambrosi 1976: 214). June 22 was witness to the final humiliation of the French Government as

the Armistice was signed in Compiègne in the same railroad car where the Germans in 1918 had

been forced to acknowledge their defeat (Gilbert 1989: 101). For those allowed to remain in

Moselle, this meant another occupation and for those evacuated to the interior of France, a relief

that the war was over and that they would probably be allowed to return home (Cuny 1991: 92).

Territorial dismemberment was the result of the armistice. The southern part of France

initially remained free of German occupation with a French government under Maréchal Petain

at Vichy. The northern part, occupied by the Germans, consisted of territory north of a

demarcation line that ran along the Atlantic coast from the Pyrenees north to the borders of the

Moselle département. While a French armistice delegation deliberated with its German

counterpart in Wiesbaden, the German government occupied and annexed de facto the three

northeastern départements referred to by Germans as Elsass-Lothringen, which included Moselle

under the appellation of Lorraine (Gillingham 1985: 141). Thus the western frontiers of Germany

of 1871 were reestablished.

All efforts by the French delegation to discuss and protest the status of the three

northeast départements were stymied by the Germans who it appears had been ordered by Hitler

to refuse to treat that issue until a later time when a peace treaty would be concluded

(Wolfganger 1982: 21). Thus there was no mention of the three départements in the armistice

document (Amouroux 1977: 540-43). In consequence under international law, the annexation of

35

the three French départements was illegal and the populations of the three occupied

départements remained legally French (Riedweg 2008: 18).

Despite the protestations of the French armistice delegation, German authorities quickly

established their civil administrative organization to reinforce their control over the three de

facto annexed northeastern French départements. Already within a few days after the request for

an armistice, Joseph Bürckel, Gauleiter of Sarre-Palatinat, was named head of civil

administration in Moselle but overall control of the département remained in military hands until

7 August 1940. Quickly thereafter, Moselle was integrated into a new administrative

organization called Reichgau Westmarck, commonly referred to as Gau Westmark, consisting of

Moselle and Sarre-Palatinat with administrative headquarters in Sarrebruck (Wolfganger 1982:

58). With this nomination, French sovereignty over the département disappeared although it was

not until 30 November 1940 that the département was officially declared annexed to Germany

(Wolfganger 1982: 11). However, even before the annexation was officially declared, important

changes by the occupying Germans were already being undertaken. Either Germans or ethnic

Germans residing already in the département replaced all officials of the French government.

The railroads were incorporated into the German R&R system. Control of the PTT or French

national communication system in Moselle was taken over by Germans who slowly began

substituting their personnel for incumbent Frenchmen (Amouroux 1977: 137). All these actions

resulted in repeated protestations by the French government’s armistice liaison team in Baden-

Baden but to no avail. The integration of Moselle and that of the two départements of the Rhine

into the German national administrative organization continued (Riedweg 2008: 22).

The legislative and administrative assimilation of the département was finally completed

with the promulgation of the German civil code in January 1943. The administrative system

imposed on the département was dual: on one side, there was the civil administration, on the

other, the Party. At the summit, there was the Gauleiter who was the head of the civil

administration and of the Party. Down at the district or département level, the two organizations

were separated; one kept the eye on the other. The secret state security police or Sipo made up of

the Gestapo and of the Kriminalpolizei watched both and the Sipo was spied upon by the secret

police, the Sicherheitsdienst (Gillingham 1985: 156).

With the end of combat and the installation of a German administration in Moselle, a

carefully selected number of evacuees were finally allowed to return home after almost a year’s

36

absence (Gildea 2002: 144). Some 180,000 vetted German-speakers were authorized by the new

Gauleiter to come home (Gandebeuf 1996: 31). To some, this meant finding, upon their return,

houses damaged or destroyed due to the fighting. Many suffered various degrees of outrage at

realizing that their furniture and appliances had been destroyed or damaged and even in some

cases stolen by French soldiers who had occupied their homes while waiting for the coming

German invasion (Wolfanger 1982: 19).

From day one of the occupation, the new occupiers slowly but steadily took control of all

of the elements of production and commerce of the département’s economy. The large

companies of the German steel industry which had operated in Moselle between 1871 and 1918

quickly regained possession of their steel mills and the “Hermann Goering Werke” group took

over the mines and mills of the de Wendel family as well as those of the older Thyssen mills of

Hagondange (Appel 1996: 22). Eventually, the steel industry of Moselle consisting of steel mills

and iron ore mines were integrated into the industries of Germany’s Ruhr region within the

“Economic Group of the Steel Industries” organization (Bleicher 1942: 293)

With the addition of some 1270 businesses added to the many banks and savings

institutions confiscated by the Germans, the German authorities effectively controlled the

economy and finances of the département. Starting 1 March 1941, this control was reinforced by

the substitution in all financial transactions of the Reich Mark for the French Franc (Wolfanger

1982: 153).

Despite Nazi intent to purify the demographics of the département by selective screening

of the population, a large number of foreign workers were imported and employed in Moselle

due to their importance to the local war industries. Their exact number was never determined

but it is estimated that this slave labor force represented several tens of thousands. It has been

noted that the camp of Ban-St. Jean, by itself, was reported to hold about 30,000 (ONAC

Moselle Annexée: 17). In 1942, foreigners made up 38% of the labor force and this increased to

50% in 1943 (Wolfanger 1982: 155). They were employed in steel mills, coal and iron ore

mines, construction, agriculture, armament factories, and quarries (ONAC Lieux de détention:

35). Much of this manpower was made up of people, civilians or POWS, from the German

conquered territories, especially those from Eastern Europe (Denis 1997: 21). This manpower

was not only masculine but feminine also. Ukrainian and Polish women were overrepresented

among the foreign female workforce (Eichenbaum 2003: 198). The East European civilians were

37

part of a vast Nazi program of transplantation and exploitation in the West of captive populations

(Gilligham 1985: 112). The Nazi slave labor program also known as the foreign labor

conscription program included abundant numbers of Russian POWs made available by the early

victories of the Wehrmacht in Russia (Gilligham 1985: 124-125).

Significant numbers of Russian POWs were also employed in heavy labor activities such

as infrastructure works and the mines often located in the northern zone of the département near

the border with Germany (ONAC Lieux de détention: 35). Whereas some East European

civilians lived within the community where they were employed, most if not all Russian POWs

were kept in special camps where they were barely fed, lacked all medical care and suffered the

harshest physical punishment for the most minor infractions (ONAC Lieux de détention: 126).

Any contact with the French population was strictly forbidden. According to Christine Leclercq,

there were 136 POW camps in the département incarcerating mostly Russian prisoners of war

but also some Italians, Yugoslavs and some Poles. (Leclercq 2011: 31). Three work sites are

signaled by Leclercq as examples of the types and sizes of work sites where POWs were forced

to work: the coal mine complex of Creutzwald with 300 permanent POW workers (Leclercq

2011: 47), the iron ore mine of Valleroy with 250 permanent POW workers (Leclercq 2011: 53)

and the important industrial complex of Wittring where in 1944, 1500 Italians and hundreds of

Russians were employed in the underground factory producing liquid oxygen for V1 and V2

rockets. There were also 500 Italian female workers working in the quarry of the complex

(Leclercq 2011: 239). While female workers were lodged in barracks, the POWs were sheltered

in tents. In fact there were 112 camps of civilian forced laborers from the East holding mostly

females from Ukraine and Poland (Leclercq 2011: 31). Nationalities were separated and the

Russians experienced the harshest treatment under appalling living conditions that often resulted

in the death of the POW from either hunger or exhaustion (ONAC Lieux de détention: 41).

Losses were high among this slave labor force. It is estimated that around twenty

thousand died in the camps, infirmaries and on work sites in the département (ONAC Lieux de

détention: 43). Thousands died from exhaustion, maltreatment, hunger, sickness or executions.

Much of this information was obtained from a few eyewitness accounts and from the discovery

of innumerable mass graves located next to work sites and the few hospitals known to care for

prisoners (ONAC Lieux de détention: 42) In general, the dearth of information is due to the lack

of eyewitness reports because the local population had been evacuated from the border zones and

38

did not come back until after the end of the war (Leclercq 2011: 245). Some of the information

was obtained from Ukrainian and Polish women who managed to avoid being repatriated to their

home country at the end of hostilities and who married locals, in particular in agricultural areas

of the département. The seeming lack of interest in the fate of the Russian POWs was also due to

the developing Cold War animosity in the West regarding the evolving Soviet menace (Leclercq

2011: 222).

The control of the economy extended to the industries dependent on agriculture. such as

the food industry. Due to the demands of the war, there was severe food rationing for the

population of the département. This rationing was necessary because the occupied territories had

to feed the occupying troops and provide foodstuff to Germany while unable to import food from

the outside. A rationing system was established with the issue of colored rationing cards to each

family based on the number and age of each family member. At the start of 1943, an adult was

authorized to receive 350 grams of bread per day, 120 grams of meat and 50 grams of cheese per

week, one quart of wine for ten days, 310 grams of fat of which 150 grams was butter per month,

500 grams of sugar per month. An allotment of 50 kilograms of potatoes was provided for the

period November to May. Products such as milk, chocolate and rice became items of memory.

Needless to say, an intense parallel economy established itself between farmers and urban

dwellers especially for dairy products and potatoes (Dauendorffer 1982: 114). Clothing was

also rationed, made subject to a card system obtained from the city or village city hall. For

example, a person was limited to an annual acquisition of a skirt or suit, one summer and one

winter coat and a pair of leather shoes. Locally produced items of clothing could be had without

any controls, such as shoes with wooden soles. A barter system soon appeared to alleviate the

shortages caused by the official rationing system. Prudence had to be observed when obtaining

products from the parallel economy lest one be accused of black market activities by the

occupying authorities or accused by the French of favoritism for collaborating with the Germans

(Jacqueline, J. Malgré-elle: interview).

Starting in the summer of 1940, the département was subjected to a brutal and methodic

program of Germanization and politico/linguistic cleansing. Gauleiter Bürckel’s grand goal for

the Germanization of Moselle can be summed up in his own words translated into French as

follows “ nettoyons d’abord le pays, remettons-le en ordre, ensuite on pourra commencer à

l’éduquer” (Wolfanger 1982: 71) (“let’s clean up the country first, restore order and later we

39

will be able to begin educating it”). His vision for the Germanization of the département

consisted of two phases which covered his goals of cleansing, establishing order and education.

The first endeavored to efface the French language and everything that touched on its culture,

French traditions and customs, thus absorbing the population into the community of German-

speaking people. The second stage consisted of the introduction, parallel to the German civil

administration, of all of the structure of the Nazi system and the awarding of German nationality

(Appel 1996: 21).

The cleansing began with a program of expulsions. This program started with four waves

of expulsions from Moselle to the interior of France, which began in mid-July and lasted until

the end of 1940 with the last wave being the largest with some 60,000 expelled (Le Marec 2005:

110). In total, more than 80,000 inhabitants of Moselle were exiled in order to accelerate the

linguistic and political purification of the population and to facilitate the agrarian colonization of

the land by bringing in 2,500 families of German farm workers called Siedlers (Le Marec 2005:

134). Among those expelled, members of the clergy and civil servants found themselves rubbing

shoulders with communists and members of patriotic associations. Without any warning,

populations of entire villages and urban neighborhoods, mainly in the Francophone zone,

selected by the authorities from prepared lists (Wolfanger 1982: 83), were evicted from their

homes and farms, allowed to take with them no more than 2,000 francs and 50 kilograms of

baggage per person in a process reminiscent of the forced departure of Germans living in the

département twenty two years earlier (Le Marec 2005: 111). A map found in the archives of the

ASCOMEMO center in Hagondange clearly shows pictorially that the expulsions divided the

département along linguistic lines. A census by the Vichy government performed in May 1943

can give an idea as to the magnitude of the diaspora from Moselle in that some 280,000 persons

from the département were counted, dispersed over fifty interior départements of France (Le

Moigne 1991: 56). It is no wonder that those expelled felt that their government had abandoned

them as was explained to the head of the Vichy government by the mayor of Metz (Tournoux

1964: 289).

The Jewish community of Moselle was included in almost its entirety in the ethnic

cleansing of the département. The community had seen a significant increase in the numbers of

its members before the start of the war with the addition of East European refugees notably from

Germany and Poland. A census in 1936 revealed that the size of the community stood at 8513

40

members of which 4200 resided in Metz (Le Marec 2005: 96). These numbers probably

increased significantly up to the start of the war because according to Pierre Roos the Germans

deported some 2344 Jews from the département after the annexation to concentration camps

within Germany (Roos 2006: 111). Prior to the start of hostilities, the great majority of the

Jewish community of Moselle joined the French government-ordered evacuation toward the

southern parts of the country. The police ordered those who remained in the département to

wear the yellow Star of David and forbade them any change of domicile (Roos 2006: 97). The

majority of their synagogues and cemeteries were destroyed or profaned. As mentioned above,

2344 were rounded up and deported to camps in Germany. The very few who survived the war

in place witnessed the insults, arrests and deportations to Germany of those unlucky enough to

have attracted the attention of the local authorities. As to those of the community evacuated to

the interior of France, most were eventually arrested and incarcerated in camps such as Pithiviers

and Drancy before being sent to final destinations within the Reich from which very few

survived (Le Marec 2005: 97).

As part of the Nazi intent of linguistic cleansing, German was designated as the official

language of the département. In order to impose the use of the German language, the use of the

French language in the public arena was expressly forbidden. The use of spoken French in the

street was officially frowned upon if not actively discouraged. The Nazi administration even

attempted to force members of the clergy to no longer use French while preaching. The French

names of all cities and villages were changed to German. The names of streets took on a

Germanic flavor. The official first name of everyone was given its German equivalent. Except

for boats whose name was in Latin, the names of all boats were changed to German. The French

inscriptions on public buildings, monuments and means of transportation were changed to

German (Wolfanger 1983: 83-86). All French language newspapers were banned and only two

German language newspapers were to be found published in Moselle for the duration of the war

(Le Marec 2005: 87). The Metzer Zeitung am Abend and the NSZ Westmark , both published in

Metz but with the second covering all of the Gau or administrative region, were the two German

language départemental newspapers (Le Marec 2005: 161).

The Nazi struggle for the imposition of the German culture and Nazi Party control was

intense and nearly all pervasive. Although the greatest of efforts were directed at the education

system, customs and traditions such as the wearing of the Basque Beret were not ignored. The

41

Nazis felt that this popular headgear was too symbolic of France and therefore could be worn as

a show of ill-advised patriotism. This German attitude was not mollified when De Gaulle’s

supporters among the Free French made the beret a symbol of their resistance to the German

occupation. In their continued sensitivity to the influence of symbols, the Nazi administration

ordered all French patriotic symbols appearing on public edifices and monuments taken off and

replaced by Nazi symbols (Le Marec 2005: 86-87). Some cities such as Metz had many of their

patriotic statues, recalling the French period, dismantled and removed from public squares and

stored away from the public eye (Le Marec 2005: 83).

As stated in the previous paragraph, The Nazi administration’s greatest efforts in its

program of Germanization was directed at the educational system. By a decree in June 1940, the

goal of the Nazi administration was to install a unified Nazi educational system similar to that

found in the Reich (Wolfanger 1982: 95). It was the public schools that had to bear the brunt of

the process of integration. This necessitated the closing of all private, as well as, of all religious

schools. The latter became public schools administered by the communes. Schooling was

declared mandatory for all children and all young people of German ancestry or for those of

Lorraine origins with German blood. All instruction and all books were to be in the German

language and all instructors had to be either German or certified competent in the German

language. The Nazi salute became mandatory for school children when meeting a teacher or

German official. The German Abitur replaced the French Baccalaureate certification at the end of

secondary school (Wolfanger 1982: 96-7).

The Catholic Church in Moselle also suffered greatly from the Nazis’ application of the

process of Germanization of the département. The Nazis were aware of the hostility of the

Catholic clergy to their occupation and of its influence on the members of the Church, which

included the majority of the département’s population. In consequence, the Nazi administration

enacted new laws intended to govern and restrict the activities of the Church. These laws,

however, spared the Protestant Church (Wolfanger 1982: 103). The process started when the

Minister of Churches of the Reich informed Gauleiter Bürckel in a letter in July 1940 that the

provisions of the Concordat of 1801 as well as the organic articles of 1802 were abrogated

(Sutter 1987: 28). This was followed by an ordinance in September 1940 that made the

separation of the Church and State official (Wolfanger 1982: 108).

42

The attacks on the Catholic Church of Moselle targeted mostly members of the clergy.

Select priests who had publicly demonstrated pro-French sentiments were the first to be expelled,

beginning with the expulsion manu militari on 16 August 1940 of Mgr. Heintz, bishop of Metz.

His departure was soon followed by the expulsion of about half of the département’s Catholic

clergy or about 418 priests and brothers (Le Marec 2005: 101) and some 900 sisters (Sutter 1987:

62). Some 18 priests were reported deported to concentration camps (Anneser 1948: 94) and

about nine others were exiled to the far eastern reaches of the Reich (Wolfanger 1982: 112). The

salaries of the remaining clergy were at first reduced until they were no longer paid by the Nazi

administration (Wolfhanger 1982: 109).

The properties of the Catholic Church were seized and placed at the disposal of Nazi

organizations. The two seminaries in the Metz area were transformed into a prison and a student

center. Most of the schools were closed and some were transformed into schools for Nazi cadres

or other Nazi youth organizations. Some convents and monasteries were emptied of their

religious occupants and the latter taken to the local train station for expulsion. Finally, even

most churches had their bells confiscated for their bronze (Wilmouth 2004: 69).

Despite the forced absence of half of its clergy, the Church continued to administer to the

spiritual needs of its adherents. If anything, it appears as if attendance at religious services at

churches still open was observed to have increased. Now that religious services were in short

supply due to the shortage of priests, many of the churches were used for choir or musical

recitals; parishioners made it a habit to pack the churches during these musical presentations as a

gesture of solidarity with the Church. Parents found imaginative ways to provide some form of

religious education to their children by enrolling them in altar boys organizations, which as a

result, saw a significant increase in their membership (Sutter 1987: 64).

After the massive expulsions of 1940 and 1941 to the “interior”, a new wave of

deportations took place in Moselle. Between September 1942 and March 1943, some 9,250

inhabitants of the département, in some cases entire families, were forcibly transported without

warning to camps located in provinces of the eastern regions of the Reich such as Silesia, Poland

and the Sudetenland (Appel 1996: 9). Called PRO’s or Patriots Resisting the Occupation, most of

the deported were considered by Gauleiter Bürckel to be undesirables because perceived as

obstacles to his Germanization program. In the camps, all men and women were forced to work

without pay six days per week, 12 hours per day for the men and 10 hours for the women (Le

43

Marec 2005: 131). Forced to live in over-crowded, vermin-ridden camp barracks, lacking

adequate sanitary facilities and having to do with insufficient food, the inmates had to survive the

next two years before being freed by Allied forces and finding themselves back in Moselle to

learn to their stupefaction that all their property, considered enemy property, had been sold by

the Germans (Wolfanger 1982: 125).

With most of the “undesirables”, who were considered by the Nazi administration to be

potential obstacles to its programs of integration, evicted from the Gau, efforts were increased to

further indoctrinate the département youth by forcing them to join Nazi youth organizations.

Although adhesion in the youth organizations was initially voluntary, even if greatly encouraged

through a system of official pressure and material advantages, it did not become mandatory until

4 August 1942 (Le Marec 2005: 167) because of an initial poor showing. Adhesion consisted of

membership in the following youth organizations:

-----Boys aged 10 to 14 years of age in the Jungvolk Deutsches (DJ) or German Youth.

-----Male youth aged 14 to 18 years of age in the Hitler-Jugend (HJ) or Hitler Youth.

-----Girls aged 10 to 14 years of age in the Jungmadel (JM) or Young Maiden.

-----Girls aged 14 to 18 years in the Bund Deutscher Madel (BDM) or German Maiden League.

Membership in the Nazi youth organizations progressed rather rapidly. Already by March

1941, the Nazi leadership claimed that 75% of the youth in the Gau were adherents. By 1942,

the Nazi administration considered that most young men and women of the Gau had been

integrated in the various Nazi youth organizations (Wolfanger 1982: 73). Most of the resistance

to this adhesion seems to have come from girls who resisted joining their respective

organizations for reasons of morale associated with their parents’ fears that they would be given

the wrong kind of advice or example while a member (Le Marec 2005: 169).

Activities in the Nazi youth organizations involved usually community service and

sports. However, political indoctrination and sporting activities of a quasi-military character

predominated. Participation in Nazi-led public demonstrations such as parades was frequent.

Nazi influence pervaded all levels of daily life. According to Henri Hiegel in his article

“L’enseignement en Moselle sous l’Occupation allemande de 1940 à 1944”, relentless attempts

were made by German teachers to enlist the département’s youth in surveillance and

denunciation of their parents for actions or opinions contrary to Nazi order (Rouquet 2011: 420).

44

With time, the pervasive influence of these organizations tended to influence the département

youth to accept and fear the new political order instituted in the Gau.

Some of the HJ were trained in the later war years in manning and operating anti-aircraft

guns. In order to replace the 12,000 air-defense soldiers who were needed on the Eastern Front,

Hitler decided in January 1943 that they were to be replaced by secondary school juniors and

seniors from year groups 1926, 1927 and 1928 (Le Marec 2005: 197). Thus about 500 young

men from Moselle were mobilized, after August 1943, and obliged to serve as German Air Force

auxiliaries, Luftwaffenhelfer (LwH), assigned to the manning and operation of 88 mm air defense

artillery pieces against allied fighters and bombers (ONAC L’Incorporation de Force: 16).

Some were only 16 years old when they were forced to participate in the defense of the steel

mills of Moselle and of Sarre (Willmouth 2004: 81). Their status was somewhat ambiguous

because while the German authorities wanted public opinion to believe that these boys were

auxiliaries, they were actually used as uniformed combatants. To support this ambiguity, the

LwH’s wore mostly their HJ uniforms but with the eagle insignia of the Luftwaffe embroidered

on their chest (Le Marec 2005: 198).

Male adults who favored the new regime could adhere to the Sturmabteilung (S.A.) or the

SS. Its members formed the infamous assault sections, which distinguished themselves during

the “Crystal Night” in Germany in 1938. In their distinctive brown uniforms and boots, they had

the mission of ensuring the imposition of the program of Germanization by showing their

strength, order, and discipline and tracking down the use of the French language in public which

continued to be used in the street, in the stores and businesses and other public places despite

expulsion measures. They demanded the Hitlerian salute in their presence and seemed to be

everywhere when not participating in some parade or public display of Nazi fervor. As a result of

an appeal for volunteers for the SS in autumn 1940, 68 joined initially and more in the following

years thanks to intense Nazi propaganda but the number of SS volunteers from Moselle never

went much beyond 250 (Le Marec 2005: 166).

Gauleiter Bürckel was convinced of the necessity of taming the population of Moselle

and then training it in an organized political movement like the Nazi Party before awarding it

German nationality. Around the end of August 1940, the Gauleiter created the Deutsches

Volksgemeinschaft (D.V.G.), which became the entry way to the Nazi Party. Participation in

this political organization was mandatory in order to receive the necessary training that would

45

make of recruits convinced German National-Socialists before being granted German nationality

(Appel 1996: 24). The Gauleiter then proposed that all adults of the département sign the

following declaration: “I declare my faith in the Führer and in the People. I desire to be

admitted into the German community” (Appel 1996: 24). All who refused were considered to be

resisting the new order and subject to expulsion. Adherence to the D.V.G. was almost a

guarantee of rapid promotion within most professional labor-related organizations.

Within the framework of the D.V.G., each district became a local group of that

organization, divided into cells and blocks, whose leaders were the local collaborators with the

German authorities. The block political leaders, German-speaking locals, were called

Blockleiters. Very often, they were French but of German descent and members of families who

had not returned to Germany after the defeat of 1918. They answered to the neighborhood cell

leader called the Zellenleiter who in turn was responsible to a group leader, often the mayor of

the city or village, called the Burgermeister or Ortsgruppenleiter. This official was directly

under the orders of the head of the district called the Kreisleiter, who was German (ONAC La

Moselle Annexée: 7). These officials were responsible for the political good political behavior of

the populations within their area of responsibility. Local perceptions of these Nazi officials as

political spies and collaborators can best be illustrated by the words of a Frenchman who

described them as follows “ Ils avaient comme mission de surveiller tous les faits et gestes,

paroles, attitudes de leur voisinage et de la population, et de surveiller spécialement les

indésirables politiques, les gens dont ils connaissaient les sentiments français. Ils rédigeaient

des rapports circonstanciés sur tout le monde. Ils étaient encore plus zélés que les Allemands.

C’était la peste brune.” (Appel 1996: 25). (“Their mission was to keep an eye out for all doings,

attitudes of those around them and that of the population in general and to watch specifically the

political undesirables, those whom they knew possessed pro-French feelings. They wrote

detailed reports on everyone. They were more zealous than the Germans themselves. They were

a brown plague”.) They were thus considered informers in the pay of the occupiers and shunned

by their fellow Frenchmen as being dangerous. Any suspicious behavior was reported by the

local Nazis and followed up by the Gestapo.

Members of the German security apparatus including the Gestapo provided internal

départemental security, which was thus securely in ethnic German hands. The latter

organization was the ultimate police authority within the département and was principally

46

involved when any anti-German activity, such as espionage, sabotage, treason and any criminal

acts were suspected of having been perpetrated against the Nazi Party and Germany. The

Gestapo was feared because of its misuse of Schutzhaft (“protective custody”) stemming from its

near total freedom from any oversight, and was hated for its common use of brutality to obtain

confessions (Gellately 1990: 28). It prided itself as the most efficient police organization in

rooting out any resistance to the Nazi regime. The Gestapo was assisted in its security duties by

other Nazi security and police agencies such as the SS Sicherheitsdienst or SD, which had only

an intelligence collection responsibility, the Abwehr or Military Intelligence with a counter-

intelligence responsibility and various police organizations such as the Schutzpolizei (national

and municipal police) and the Feldgendarmerie (rural police) in addition to a number of smaller

subordinate security organizations (Gellately 1990: 42). German nationals primarily manned all

the security agencies as well as the police force.

Conscious of the passive resistance of the population of Moselle to his Germanization

program and doubtful of its effectiveness, Gauleiter Bürckel granted the population of Moselle

in April 1941 the option of voluntarily departing the département for unoccupied France. His

doubts were quickly confirmed when as an immediate consequence of this decision the

authorities were deluged by emigration requests. The requests were so numerous that the

Gauleiter saw himself obliged to put an abrupt stop to this program of voluntary departures due

to fears of its detrimental impact upon the Gau’s war production. Close to 8,000 persons who

had chosen voluntarily to leave the département managed to reach the Interior. They considered

themselves as volunteers and derived a certain amount of pride for having refused to live under

the Nazis (Gandebeuf 1998: 105).

Despite the halt in the program, authorization to emigrate to France was later granted to a

small number of people in December 1942 and January 1943. According to Theodor

Berkelmann, a native of Metz and high Nazi official charged by the Gauleiter with the

Germanization project of the Gau, one fourth to one third of the Gau’s remaining population had

indicated its attachment to France by requesting to emigrate (Wolfanger 1982: 131). This did not

mean that the remaining three fourths or two thirds of the population who did not opt for

emigration supported the Nazi regime in place. Rather, a number of the women interviewed

indicated that their families were among the many who did not request to leave and preferred to

remain at home and take their chances with the occupation instead of finding themselves once

47

again destitute and treated as strangers if not as Germans by their fellow citizens of unoccupied

France (Jacqueline, Malgré-elle: Interview).

2.6 The Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD and other forms of forced services

Germanization of the population was not easy. In addition to the problems caused by the

internal contradictions among the various Nazi leaders and organizations, the population of the

département slowly started to develop a spirit of resistance, which began with individual acts.

As signs of resistance grew, a more rigorous and constraining policy was adopted by the German

administration. At the beginning of 1941, the population of Moselle was officially designated as

Volksdeutsche or Ethnic German. Starting in February 1941, this led to accepting volunteers into

the Reichsarbeitsdienst or R.A.D. This organization was devoted to teaching and imbuing the

German youth during a training period of six months with the elements of Nazism through the

benefits of collective physical labor (Fischbach 2009:23). This labor organization was already

established in Germany but was finally and totally co-opted by the Nazi Party by 1935. The

immediate results of recruiting for the RAD were disastrous in the département because the

young men of Moselle realized that submitting to the RAD training program was the first step

toward eventual incorporation into the German armed forces. By 1 November 1941, only 507

youth from the two départements of Alsace volunteered and even less from Moselle. This

attempt to militarize the young led to the sudden attempt by numerous young males of the

département to flee Moselle to unoccupied France (le Marec 2005: 188).

Following the failure of this call for volunteers, a decree was issued which made the

RAD mandatory as of 23 April 1941 for all young people aged 17 to 25 years. The draft for this

civic obligation concerned all young men of the 1920 to 1927 birth-year groups and young

women of the 1923 to 1926 year groups (ONAC L’Incorporation de Force: 7). The first

contingent of men of year group 1922 left for RAD training on 7 October 1941 followed rapidly

on 1 November by women from the 1923-year group. Twice a year, on January-February and

October-November, succeeding contingents of younger and younger youth departed for the RAD

until July-September 1944 when the last contingent, drawn from the 1927-year group, left for

their training (Hiegel 1982: 78). Until October 1942, young men and women of year groups

1920 to 1922 who had finished their six months of RAD were allowed to return to their civilian

occupation (Eichenbaum 2003: 186). With the award of German citizenship to the population

48

resident in the département in August 1942, there no longer existed any obstacle to the

incorporation into the German armed forces of men who had finished their RAD training. Thus,

the first contingent of men in year group 1922 was called up about six months after their RAD

training and incorporated into the Wehrmacht. From that moment on and until the end of the war,

all subsequent male RAD graduating classes went directly into the Wehrmacht after finishing

their RAD training. The RAD training period became shorter and shorter as time passed and

German military casualties increased.

Resistance to incorporation of men into the RAD was rather substantial since it was seen

as the prelude to incorporation into the German armed forces and combat. It is estimated that the

potential recruits from the three annexed départements represented about 200,000 young men but

all were not incorporated. About one in three escaped this incorporation, as was the case in the

two départements of Alsace (Eichenlaub 2003: 101). A significant number were exempted

thanks to the complicity of sympathetic doctors or because they were indispensable to the war

effort (Einchenlaub 2003: 100). Approximately 4,000 avoided the draft by escaping into

Switzerland or into unoccupied France, a process facilitated by the long borders of the

département (Le Marec 2005: 188). A number managed to remain in their département hidden

by relatives and friends (Riedweg 2008: 100).

The first group of young women was called up in November 1941, followed successively

by those of 1920 to 1922 and those of 1924 to 1927 birth years. This last year group left Moselle

for the RAD in September 1944. Evidence exists that tends to indicate that a large number of

young women managed to be exempted from the RAD after having been certified indispensable

to their farming family by their local Bauernführer in the countryside and by their Politischen

Leiter or political leaders in the city. Exemptions were also obtained if the women were married,

especially with children, or if medical doctors certified them unfit for medical reasons (Hiegel

1982: 79). During their six months of service in a RAD camp, the young women were

indoctrinated in Nazi political philosophy and collective work responsibilities. As a partial

answer to the wartime manpower shortage, they also provided support services to local farming

families as well as to German women with numerous young children. Between 3,000 and 4,000

women from Moselle underwent training in the RAD before the end of the war (Le Marec 2005:

188). It is impossible to provide exact numbers because many German administrative documents

relating to the RAD were destroyed or discarded after the end of the war (Eichenlaub 2003: 78).

49

After their six-month training/service period in the RAD and starting in late 1943,

increasing numbers of women were retained in service and assigned to the Kriegshilfsdienst

(KHD) or contribution to the war service for a period of six months or ordered directly to units of

the Wehrmacht as Wehrmachthelferinnen, Luftwaffe as Luftwaffenhelferinnen or Kriegsmarine

as Kriegsmarinehelferinnen (Barbier 2008: 49). By 8 April 1944, the traditional 12 months of

RAD/KHD service was increased to 14 months. This was necessitated by the ever increasing

manpower losses and the labor requirements of a Nazi war industry under tremendous stress

from logistics requirements and never ceasing Allied bombings (49). Women assigned to

support roles in the Army (Wehrmacht) and in the Navy (Kriegsmarine) were usually required to

perform administrative tasks, serving as secretaries, switchboard operators or in medical units.

However, many of those assigned to Air Force (Luftwaffe) units were employed as

Flakhelfferinnen in air defense units manning searchlights and aerial target acquisition

instruments for the air defense guns. Most of the young women of the KHD were employed in

munitions factories, in public transports as Strassenbahnhelferinnen, in public communications

as Nachrichtenhelferinnen, or in hospitals and administrative posts (Hiegel 1982: 79). It is

estimated that the number of women assigned to military units was very small compared to those

who were retained for work in the civilian sector.

As stated earlier, Gauleiter Bürckel awarded by the end of August 1942 German

nationality to an estimated 412,706 natives of Moselle despite the fact that he was not convinced

that those thus awarded this nationality were or had become loyal to the Third Reich (Wolfanger

1982: 133). He had already decreed mandatory national service on 23 April 1941 for the young

people of Moselle but that service stopped of incorporation into the armed forces due to legal

obstacles. With staggering manpower loses on the eastern front and a long and expensive

campaign in human lives to be expected, Germany needed soldiers badly. There were

phenomenal German losses later at Stalingrad and German wartime manpower requirements

became increasingly obvious over time despite the blindness of some of the top Nazi leaders

(Eichenlaub 2003: 87). New manpower could be gotten from the newly occupied territories but

a legal obstacle remained. The German law of 21 May 1935 on a German’s military obligation

required that all who served in the Wehrmacht had to be German citizens (Eichenlaun 2003: 87).

Thus, the award of German nationality was indispensible for service in the German armed forces

50

and had to be extended to all Volksdeutsche who were potentially candidates for the wearing of

the feldgrau uniform.

Approximately 130,000 young Frenchmen from the three annexed départements were

forced to serve in the German armed forces during the war years. Of those, about 30,000 came

from Moselle. Of that number, it is estimated that about 22,000 served in the RAD (Le Marec

2005: 188). Most of the draftees originating from the three French annexed départements served

in combat on the Eastern Front against Russia. This was a policy decision by the German High

Command (OKW) because of its distrust concerning the reliability of the French draftees. As part

of this policy, the number of French draftees in combat units was kept deliberately low, no more

than 5%, and at 15 % for training units so as to not encourage mutinies or desertions (Eichenlaub

2003: 101). In addition, they were forbidden to serve on the Western front in countries such as

France, Holland and Belgium (ONAC L’Incorporation de Force: 16). Of the 30,000 young

people of Moselle in German military uniform, 8,000 died either in combat, in Russian prisoner

of war camps, such as Tambov, or disappeared for ever from causes unknown (Wolfanger 1982:

162). As a political gesture by the Russians, 1,500 POW’s, many from Moselle, were liberated

from Tambov in July 1944 (Riedweg 2008: 189). With their return to Allied controlled territory

in North Africa, the men of this contingent continued the war in the ranks of the Free French

Forces and participated in the liberation of France (Weyland 2010: 132). It must be noted that

the 1500 freed from Tambov did not represent the totality of French POW’s incarcerated in

Russian prison camps. Their liberation was nothing more than a propaganda gesture because no

other liberation from either Tambov or from other Russian prisons occurred until the end of the

war. French and Allied figures indicate that only around 11,000 French POW’s from Russia were

able to return to France by the end of 1945 (Riedweg 2008: 243).

2.7 Resistance and Liberation

Resistance to the forced RAD incorporation occurred rapidly after the first draftees, in

August 1941, were ordered to report to their draft board (Musterung) for in processing and a

physical examination. The start of this draft created the need to aid those who wanted to avoid

this new servitude. Given the pervasive Nazi security presence in Moselle, most of this aid was

more individual than collective. The omnipresence of the Nazi security apparatus prevented the

organization of large resistance networks. As early as summer 1941, young men liable to be

51

called up for the RAD fled Moselle for Occupied France or Switzerland (Eichenlaub 2003: 97).

Some tried to avoid or postpone the draft using various legal means such as the influence of a

friendly local political representative or that of an influential boss who certified the person as

essential to the war effort in his job. Others tried to be exempted for medical reasons. Some

doctors provided documents certifying that the draft evader had some serious malady or was

recuperating from the effects of some surgery (Eichenlaub 2003: 100). Individual acts of self-

injury were also known to have been perpetrated such as drinking chemical products or burning

one self with boiling water. A certain number hidden by their family or friends never showed

up at their draft board. Anything and everything was considered as long as it helped to either

delay or preferably avoid the draft (Eichenlaub 2003: 100).

The most serious signs of resistance occurred either at the draft board or at the train

station prior to departure for Germany. Some draftees refused to sign their draft document

confirming their aptitude and agreement for the draft. Others destroyed the interior of the train

taking them to the RAD. The French national anthem was sung publicly and small French flags

were waved. Graffiti insulting Germany and Hitler were written on the side of trains. Trains

transporting the draftees to Germany were interfered with repeatedly. Additional acts of

resistance occurred during the RAD training period. Certain trainees from Alsace and Moselle

refused to take the oath of allegiance to Germany and to Hitler personally. A number of

demonstrations as well as work stoppages occurred in industrial centers that resulted in a

reduction in industrial production and an increased sense of solidarity among the working

population (Eichenlaub 2003: 99).

German response to this resistance was swift and harsh. Some of the young resistants

participating in mass acts of resistance were arrested, tried and condemned to forced labor.

Others who were captured after attempting to avoid the draft board or to flee Moselle were tried

and sentenced to the prison camp of Schirmeck (Hiegel 1982: 79). With the increase in

clandestine departures from the département, the German authorities warned that the properties

of those who fled would be confiscated and their parents and all those who lived with them

would be exiled in Germany (Eichenlaub 2003: 98). 142 young rebels opposed to their RAD

obligation were arrested for insubordination as well as 30 deserters caught attempting to cross

into Occupied France or who never returned to their units after their first leave/pass.

52

Occurrences of this nature increased in the latter stages of the war, in particular after the landing

of Allied forces in Normandy in June 1944 (ONAC La Moselle Annexée: 15).

It was not until the introduction of the call-up for duty in the Wehrmacht in late 1942 that

resistance to the incorporation became more generalized and intense in Moselle. Although most

inhabitants of Moselle realized since the introduction of mandatory RAD training that it

represented the prelude to military service for men, the fact that those who had finished their

RAD service had come back mitigated much of the anxiety over the continuing war. Now, with

military service becoming mandatory since mid-1942, the veil of illusion was cast off and the

feeling of peril for their loved ones gripped most families who had children of military age. For

the Germans, now that the population of Moselle had acquired German nationality by a decree of

the Gauleiter during summer 1942, refusing to heed the call for the Wehrmacht was considered

an act of treason in time of war and anyone who aided the young rebel was considered just as

guilty. As a result, German reactions became more repressive. It is well established that in

Moselle about 6000 young people eligible for military service managed to avoid the draft by

either fleeing the département or hiding with family or in the département’s many forests. It is

also known that the Gestapo and the Police (Schupo) were still looking for 3000 of them in June

1944 (ONAC La Moselle Annexée: 15). Another 1075 deserters were captured, sent to

concentration camps, assigned to forced labor battalions or condemned to death by military

tribunals. Officially, German military courts judged 229 young men from the département. Of

32 facing the death sentence, 21 were executed. Many more were shot out of hand without the

advantage of appearing before a military court (Républicain Lorrain 14 January 1980). As the

war progressed, harsher and harsher repressive measures were applied to stem the number of

fugitives and deserters. Thus by February 1945, orders were that all deserters were to be shot on

the spot when captured (ONAC L’Incorporation de Force: 23).

Faced with such large numbers as well as a desperate manpower shortage, the Germans

resorted to drastic means. 7,800 inhabitants of the département were arrested for various acts of

resistance and many interned in some 25 security prisons located in Moselle. 2,379 Jews were

among the 7,800 arrested. The SS also had their prisons among which the Fort de Queuleu,

located on the outskirts of Metz, figured prominently. In this prison, about 1800 detainees were

interrogated, tortured and detained from October 1943 to August 1944 (Wolfanger 1982:172).

151 were summarily executed, 1800 detained and 5800 deported to camps in Germany (Le

53

Marec 2005:256). In a lecture given at the city hall in Metz on 10 December 1981, Mr. Neigert

reported that of the near 8,000 arrested, 5,812 were deported to camps in Germany where 2,960

died. The remainders of those arrested were incarcerated in various prisons of the département

with most held at the Fort de Queuleu (Denis 1997:201).

One of the consequences for family members and friends of aiding deserters and rebels to

the draft was arrest and deportation to camps often located in the eastern parts of the Reich. The

decree of 1 October 1943 on collective responsibility, which made all the members of a family

responsible for the actions of any member, had a powerful restraining influence on any intention

of resistance of any young person (Eichelaub 2003:99). Probably the single most feared

repressive anti-resistance legal measure, it was based on a Germanic concept of clan

responsibility (Sippenhaftung). This resulted in the confiscation of a fugitive’s family’s goods

and properties and their transplantation or exile in a work camp somewhere in the far eastern

parts of the Reich (Riedweg 2008:170). This measure was extended to friends and neighbors of

the fugitive who as a consequence was liable to be prevented from obtaining any aid whatsoever.

The effectiveness of this harsh measure was confirmed during repeated interviews with male and

female malgré-nous and malgré-elles of Moselle (Interview Jacqueline J. Malgré–elle). Many

who lived through the war years in the two annexed Rhine départements also attested to its

effectiveness. By the end of May 1942 after the initial introduction of the RAD draft, there were

already 750 people exiled from Moselle.

As stated earlier, the all-pervasive presence of the Nazi security apparatus prevented the

operations of large resistance organizations in the département (Roth 2010:171). Nevertheless,

some resistance organizations did appear as early as 1940 and a number remained operational

until the end of the war. Most of these operations were primarily dedicated to supporting the

escape of military draft evaders, POW’s and Allied servicemen, limited actions of sabotage and

the transmission of intelligence information to London (Roth 2010:171).

The spirit of resistance, whether individual or collective, began very early in Moselle.

One of the earliest forms of resistance was the refusal to heed German directives to stop listening

to foreign radio broadcasts. Soon after the annexation, many in Moselle became very quickly

disenchanted with the never ceasing Nazi propaganda broadcast by German radio stations.

Although the fact that not everyone understood German was not the primary reason for not

listening to German language broadcasts, they much preferred listening to foreign broadcasts

54

coming from the interior of France, Britain, Switzerland and even Italy. The German authorities

feared in particular the British broadcasts because of the ability of the Free French and other

allied intelligence networks in London to pass on encrypted messages in their broadcasts which

were in reality instructions to the Resistance within France (Le Marec 2005: 247).

To listen to foreign broadcasts was formally forbidden in the département on 14 February

1941. Although listening to foreign broadcasts prior to this date was punished by a prison

sentence or forfeiture of all property and exile to the French interior, all condemnations

henceforth became extremely severe in terms of prison durations and deportation of all the

family members to the interior of the Reich. Over a period of five years from 1940 to 1945, 142

arrests were made for listening to foreign broadcasts (Le Marec 2005:248).

More active forms of resistance were employed as soon as the French defeat became

visible in the military presence of German troops in Moselle. As early as summer 1940, high

school boys of Metz, aged 16 to 22, joined by one adult organized almost spontaneously the

“Espoir Français ” network. Their goal: to oppose by all means the restoration of Nazi

sovereignty in Moselle. Their mission was to provide help to POW escapees, distribution of

pamphlets and the transmission of intelligence information on enemy troop movements. The

network remained operational until about summer 1941 when, as a result of treachery, around

thirty of its members were arrested, tried, with two executed and the others sent to concentration

camps from which five never came back.

The best-known resistance network of Moselle was the Groupe Mario. It owed its birth

to Jean Burger, a teacher from Moselle and member of the French Communist Party, who

managed to escape from his POW camp in Germany and returned home to Talange in the

industrial northwest of the département where he began to organize his network made up largely

of foreign workers in the steel and coal industries of Moselle. He adopted the code name of

“Mario” and started to coordinate the individual actions of communist militants and union

workers (CGT) (Le Marec 2005: 252). Miners, railroad workers, and steel mill workers made up

his network. Many were French but many others were anti-fascist foreigners such as Italians,

Poles and others of diverse nationalities who represented around 22% of those eventually

arrested by the Nazi security apparatus. In total, the network counted around 3,000 men and

women (ONAC La Moselle Annexée: 12).

55

The network’s activities consisted of the organization of combat groups, ammunition and

arms depots, the distribution of pamphlets, acts of sabotage and aid to deserters and escaped

POWs (Le Marec 2005: 253). It must be noted that this group received very little material help

from the Allies due to its perceived communist affiliation. After the successful invasion of North

Africa and a local perception that the département’s population was becoming increasingly

desperate given the increase in material privations and the demands on its youth from the

German military, the network became bolder in its activities with more acts of industrial

sabotage and damage inflicted on railroad installations and lines of communication. Arson was

also used against the farms of Siedlers.

Betrayed by two German agents who had infiltrated the group, the network was

practically dismantled as a consequence of massive arrests among its members. In a period of

one year from summer 1943 to summer 1944, numerous arrests led to the weakening of the

group, from which it never recovered. This started with the arrest of its leader, Burger, and of

another 900 members of which about 264 died, incarcerated in concentration camps.

A number of other networks of lesser importance were organized in Moselle but most

shared the same fate as the Groupe Mario. “Groupe Derhan”, called by its members “ Parti de

Gaulle”, was made up mostly of steel mill workers within the Orne valley in the northwest part

of the département. For ideological as well as tactical reasons, it refused to commit acts of

sabotage and avoided contact with communist resistance groups (Le Marec 2005: 254). It was

active in spreading anti-German propaganda within the département’s population and was

planning on waiting for the Allied invasion in order to begin military operations against the

Germans. Its political goal was to work toward ensuring the adhesion of the département to a

Gaullist France. The network was also betrayed and most of its members arrested and

incarcerated in Germany. Other smaller resistance groups operated in Moselle such as the

“Mithrade” network specializing in transmitting intelligence via radio to London (Les Années de

Liberté 1994: 33), the “Alliance” network as well as the Navarre intelligence mission. At the

liberation of the département by allied troops, most of the members of these groups were

integrated into the Free French of the Interior (FFI) armed movement.

This latter organization did not get organized in Moselle until early in 1944 under the

command of Major Alfred Krieger and it then cooperated with advancing US troops of the 20th

56

US corps in guiding armed patrols and engaging retreating German forces in limited combat

(Denis 1997: 96).

Given the long western border of the département with the rest of France, a particular

form of resistance activity developed early on. The border between the départements of Moselle

and Meurthe-et-Moselle was 200 kilometers long and offered numerous points of passage. This

facilitated the development of a clandestine resistance activity which consisted of helping the

escape of French and allied POWs, in particular downed allied aviators, and especially in

providing aid to those of the département fleeing the military draft. Help was also given to

fleeing Jews and to the numerous Soviet POWs who were particularly ill treated by the Nazis.

Although the Passeurs or helpers were pretty much representative of most of the département’s

population, railroad workers were one category of professionals heavily represented in and vital

to the activities of the Passeurs. One of the best-known Passeurs of the département was a nun

from Metz. Sœur Helene was responsible for helping in the escape of several thousand French

POWs and deserters (Amouroux 1979: 439). Another woman well known for her activities in a

Passeur network was Suzanne Thiam from Metz who helped pass over 500 POWs and escapees

including François Mitterrand, future French president. Denounced, arrested and incarcerated

after painful interrogations, she was condemned to hard labor at the prison of Haguenau in

France (Les Années de Liberté 1994: 20).

Most of the passage points were located in the northern part of the département where

most of the hills and forests as well as heavy industries were located. Although the passage

points at the border were heavily guarded, imaginative methods were developed to speed the

movement of escapees and contraband across into the next département of Meurthe-et-Moselle.

Passage through the vast layout of the steel mills and the heavy urbanization of the valleys of the

Orne and the Fensch was used to escape the vigilance of Nazi security. Passage through forests

and on ore trains was also used. Some passage points were also located in wooded areas of the

southern part of the département where the networks took advantage of the many small farms

scattered across the landscape.

The Passeurs did not only help cross the département’s border. Individually or as part of

a resistance group, Passeurs also acted as couriers facilitating the transport of mail, money, and

small packages of contraband. Since the Deutsch Mark was the local currency in all the annexed

territories, pre-war French francs were of value only in Occupied France and Vichy France.

57

Often, this clandestine work was the work of an individual, in particular that of a woman, who

was well known in the area and who often crossed the border legally at the same place on a

bicycle. This was the case of Jacqueline, one of the women interviewed. Almost all elements of

the bicycle were used to hide the contraband; in the seat, in the handlebar, or in the air pump.

Bags with double bottoms were also used. Contact on the other side of the border was seldom

made and dead drops were often used in order to ensure that any knowledge of the network

remained compartmentalized. Much of the time, individual passeurs operated with the

knowledge and cooperation of the local German customs agents and members of the

Feldgendarmerie who profited themselves from their cooperation (Interview with Jacqueline).

The vast majority of passeurs were never officially recognized, thus it is difficult to provide any

form of statistic as to their actual number, but it is recognized locally in Moselle that a great

many anonymous individuals were involved.

Most passeurs eventually caught were arrested after being denounced by someone close

to them. It is estimated that about 514 arrests were made of which 152 persons were condemned

by tribunals to forced labor in concentration camps. By April 1944, all those caught no longer

even appeared before a tribunal but were sent directly to a concentration camp (Le Marec 2005:

241).

When one touches on the subject of the collaboration of Frenchmen in the three annexed

départements during the Second World War, it important to treat their case apart from that of the

rest of France. The intense and brutal operations of Germanization in the three départements

undertaken by the Nazis which resulted in the forced integration of their populations into the

greater German nation necessitates the taking into account of the socio-historical specificity of

their collaboration. In a word, it was either leave or agree to live in an environment that was

almost totally German. Unlike the rest of France, which was either occupied, or under the rule of

Vichy, Germans ran every activity of the State. Except for a few activities such as the railroad,

the postal service or the administration, most of every State activity was manned by Germans.

The all-pervading atmosphere of coercion established by the Nazi system was an

important factor in shaping the pattern of collaboration in the three annexed départements. As

stated earlier, Germans or ethnic Germans aided by Nazi sympathizers manned all the State

security organizations in the département. The presence of German functionaries was pervasive.

It must be noted that about 53,000 ethnic Germans were imported into Moselle by the Nazi

58

administration which gave the latter sufficient manpower to keep an eye on everyone in the

département (Le Marec 2005: 134). Starting with the educational system and going on with all

the socio-political organizations where participation was mandatory for the département youth as

well as adults, secrecy was almost nonexistent (Denis 1997: 21). Even the privacy of the home

was breached with the existence of the local Party Zellenleiter responsible for a neighborhood

having under his orders Blockleiters each responsible for a block of houses (Burg 1991: 365). To

show how effective the Nazi internal security apparatus was in the département and that this

effectiveness was recognized by the Allied High command, the Allies never carried out

throughout the war years any clandestine parachute operations in support of the local Resistance.

At the start of the annexation, the decision to collaborate or not seemed to be a political

or idealistic choice at first which changed based on deteriorating general material circumstances

as the occupation progressed. As stated by Robert O. Paxton: “The urge for normalcy and a job

led many Frenchmen down a path of everyday complicity that led gradually and eventually to

active assistance to the occupier” (Paxton 1972: 19). The clearest cases of collaboration involved

those individuals who voluntarily joined Nazi organizations such as the SS or local politicized

elements whose mission was to reinforce Nazi control over the département. Collaboration took

many forms and many degrees that were severely influenced by the deteriorating

military/political and economic conditions facing the département’s population as the occupation

continued.

Collaboration also differed with respect to social class, status and region. The bulk of the

population developed an attitude of accommodation or cohabitation with the occupier. Some had

closer contact with the Germans than others, as was the case of those who were obliged to billet

German troops in their homes. Others, able to remain more distant, endeavored discreetly to feed

and cloth their families while facing increasingly more severe scarcity and rationing. The urban

dwellers suffered more from food scarcity than those in the countryside. Thus the southern part

of the département, being more agricultural, fared better than the industrial north (Vinen 2006:

245). This geographical difference had an influence on the severity of material needs which was

an important factor of everyday collaboration or “collaboration de tous les jours”. Some

fraternized with the Germans for pleasure or for gain. The annexation and occupation of the

département opened up many possibilities for relations between Germans and French women. A

special appellation was even crafted for women who socialized or had sexual relations with

59

Germans. They were accused of “horizontal collaboration” (Gildea 2002: 51). Most of these

women came from the lower social classes (Vinen 2006:181). Some denounced their neighbors

out of greed or jealousy. Some served as prison guards or as officials of Nazi organizations.

Some engaged in black-market activities out of greed and self-interest as the black-market

became not only lucrative but also structural to the occupied départemental economy and the

only way to supplement what meager food was available (Kedward 1985: 15). Many tried to

make sure to have as little to do with Germans as possible. The vast majority resented the

presence of Germans but could do very little about it and thus sought survival through

accommodation (Kedward 1985: 5)

The liberation of the département began to become reality with the advance of Allied

forces into northwest France in the latter half of 1944. After liberating Paris, General Patton’s

Third US Army’s lightning motorized advance which had been sweeping Germans forces before

it (Jackson 2001: 565) was obliged to stop due to severe logistical shortages such as fuel (Denis

1997: 14) on a north-south line running along the Moselle River from Luxemburg to Nancy

(Cuny 1990: 93). With the advance of General de Lattre de Tassigny’s First French Army

moving northward along the country’s eastern border toward Alsace, retreating German forces

found themselves squeezed into France’s northeastern provinces. This resulted in Moselle

becoming the theater of vast and costly military operations. Metz was finally liberated on 22

November 1944 by units of Patton’s 20th Corps after 15 days of severe combat (Amouroux 1991:

609). Aggressive German counterattacks slowed and even stopped for a time the Allied advance.

Some from Moselle who lived through this period in the département have said that this German

resistance may have been due to the fact that for the first time Germans were fighting on what

they considered German soil. Significant human loses and material damage to the département

occurred as a result of increasingly fierce German resistance. Hence, it was not until May of the

following year that the département was finally liberated in its totality (Cuny 1990: 92).

With the end of the war it might have been thought that the plight of the malgré-nous

would have come to an end. This unfortunately was not the case. Allied non-French speaking

forces to whom malgré -nous had surrendered did not understand that these soldiers in German

uniform and many only speaking German were in reality French; nor did they have the time to

find out under combat conditions (Weyland 2010: 139). These prisoners were considered to be

German and initially placed in prisoner of war camps. The lack of comprehension of the

60

complex situation presented by the French prisoners sadly retarded their liberation. It was not

until official representatives of the French government began to intervene that the liberation

process of these malgré-nous began (Riedweg 2008: 237).

At the end of the war, the département was devastated. More than 100,000 buildings of

the département had either been destroyed or badly damaged. The road communication network

was severely affected, making motor travel very difficult in particular because of the numerous

bridges damaged or destroyed in addition to the lack of fuel (Les Années de Liberté 1994: 54).

Any work in the fields or even off-road travel was dangerous because of the more than 600,000

mines sown by the retreating German forces in the northeast of the département (Amouroux

1991: 691). The population suffered in particular from the shortage of foodstuffs and fuel as well

as from the lack of lodgings (Denis 1997: 205). The worst of the destruction was found in the

countryside but the industrial northwest also suffered. It was in the northeast of the département

along the border with Germany that the worst material damage was found. The town of Bitche

was hit the worst with 90% of its buildings suffering over 50% damage (Les Années de Liberté

1994: 4). It was recognized that Moselle was the most devastated of all French départements

(Amouroux 1991: 690).

A census in 1946 revealed that the département had lost more than 11% of its people.

Again, it was the border areas which had suffered the most with Bitche losing 41.9% of its

population and Volmunster having lost 47.6%. Human losses due directly to German action are

difficult to pin down but one can start with the 8,000 to 10,000 malgré-nous from Moselle lost

on the Eastern Front. The number of wounded cannot be estimated. Of the 7761 arrested and

imprisoned, 2960 were reported dead at war’s end.

The Jewish population of the département, not numerous to start with, was particularly

hit hard. Urban Jews suffered the most. Of the 2000 Jews from the département who lost their

lives under barbaric conditions in concentration camps, 1600 came from Metz alone (Les Années

de Liberté 1994: 56). It is unknown how many of the Moselle Jewish community, who had fled

to the French “interior”, survived after being rounded up by French Police and transferred to

“special” camps in Germany. In a word, the Jewish community of Moselle had been decimated.

The slow but successive liberation of the towns and cities of the département was

accompanied by various types and degrees of emotions and acts on the part of the population.

From the intense joy of being freed from the presence of the Nazis to the desire for some form of

61

revenge, emotions rose and fell with varying degrees of intensity. The initial exuberance

accompanying the liberation soon gave place to a desire for payback. At first, this led to a form

of anarchy which permitted varying forms of swift revenge before order was restored and courts

were established to mete out justice to those deemed to have collaborated with the enemy. Called

l’Épuration, this was a purge and retribution against those alleged to have collaborated with the

Nazis. This desire for retribution was spread over a period of several years and took various

forms. First, there was immediate revenge characterized by violence in what was referred as

l’Épuration Sauvage (Rouquet 2011: 21). The second was a more controlled form of retribution

or justice carried out by the French justice system.

L’Épuration Sauvage was a form of summary justice characterized by various degrees

and forms of violence and carried out by what some described as mob violence (Bourdel 2002:

11). The arrest, head shaving and public parading of women often naked who were accused of

having had relations with Germans come to mind (Amouroux 1988: 531). The arrest and

immediate execution of those accused of other forms of collaboration comes as a close second.

Armed groups often carried out both activities by so called local Résistants empowered by local

Comités de Libérations which sprang up in the initial power vacuum created by the departure of

the Germans (Gildea 2002: 320). Many late joiners of these groups, once the Germans were on

the run, were referred to as Résistants de la dernière heure or résistantialists (Rousso 1991: 28)

who, seeing the coming Allied victory, wanted to show some involvement in order to prove their

bona fides as having been part of the Resistance all along and to recycle themselves as patriots

(Gildea 2002: 324). In Moselle, only seven summary executions occurred after the departure of

the Germans. Several factors can be said to have influenced this low rate of “savage” retribution.

One was the pervasive presence of troops from the US 20th corps in the département which

provided some form of immediate security presence until French authorities could replace them

(Gildea 2002: 318). Second, the number of Résistants or FFI’s was not very large given that the

Gestapo had either decimated them or that their organization was of recent date and thus less

effective than those of other départements in France. Finally, the population was so tired of

strife that many wanted above all to put the occupation/annexation behind them and concentrate

on more immediate material needs such as search for food, fuel, lodgings and jobs, all in dire

shortage

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The French justice system began to get involved in the Épuration where the Épuration

Sauvage left off. The first sign of this official justice manifested itself with the establishment of

formal courts such as the Military Tribunal of Metz which operated for four months and was

replaced by the civilian Court of Justice of Moselle whose main location was Metz with an annex

in Sarreguemines. These two courts judged the most serious cases while cases of lesser

importance were treated by local Civic Chambers (Kaplan 2000: 79). The courts had very soon

their work cut out for them because of the receipt of numerous accusations, denunciations, lies

and fabrications. In total, the courts in Moselle delivered 3243 guilty verdicts and 859 acquittals.

There were additional judgments such as those involving minors, which raised the total of 4178

individuals found guilty in Moselle for collaboration with the Germans. In 84 % of cases, it was

a sentence for political collaboration and in 14% of the cases the offence was for having joined

voluntarily a German military organization. According to F. Rouquet in Une Épuration

Ordinaire, Moselle had with the two other annexed départements one of the highest official

conviction rates for condemnation in France (Rouquet 2011: 231) but also one of the lowest

death penalty rates.

2.8 Returnees, reconstruction and compensation

With the end of combat operations in Moselle, the département had to face a new

challenge which was how to organize and manage the return of several hundred thousand

refugees, POWs and deported persons into an environment devastated by four long years of war

where the most basic requirements to support life were in severe shortage (Denis 1997: 205).

The Préfet of the département, understanding the need to return of those who had had to abandon

their homes under duress, made a public appeal that they delay their return somewhat until the

département would be able to offer at least some of the basic material support required by any

population. He described the current devastation in strong and realistic terms and asked that

returns be delayed until the end of winter (Le Marec 2005: 296).

Upon their return, returnees, whether expellees or prisoners of war, were faced with

tremendous material destruction, which had an immediate impact upon their ability to survive.

With the significant amount of destruction or damage of buildings and homes, of the road

network, of the logistics distribution system, the returnees turned to and found support in the

solidarity of family and friends (Gandebeuf 1998: 76). However, not everyone found family or

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even friends upon their return. This applied in particular to those returning from Germany. On

hastily organized train convoys, they returned in thousands hoping to find something or someone

they knew. For many, this was a bitter disappointment and a rude challenge.

The first basic needs of food and shelter had to be met immediately. Unfortunately the

sheer number of returning refugees rapidly overwhelmed the quickly established support

organization left by the departed US Army (Denis 1997: 206). With time and aid from a

struggling French government, a logistics support system was established with the help of

national and départemental organizations and even funded partially through the Marshall Plan

which in total provided France over two billion dollars in aid (Judt 2005: 90). However, this took

time. Despite the fact that the French Provisional Government abolished rationing in October

1945, it was forced to re-establish it by the end of the year due to riots, which resulted from

persistent food shortages facing the country. People were thus obliged to fend for themselves

and return to survival habits developed during the war such as exploiting contacts with farmers

and use of the thriving black market. In Moselle, départemental authorities had temporary

barracks built throughout the département in order to provide immediate shelter to house

returnees (Jacqueline,J. Malgré-elle: Interview). Conditions were so bad that in a speech in April

1947, the French minister for the national economy stated: “We are threatened with total

economic and financial catastrophe” (Judt 2005: 89) According to François Roth in his Histoire

de la Lorraine, l’époque contemporaine, in Moselle alone 250,000 claims for material

compensations were received by the authorities (Weyland 2010: 134). Material damage to the

département was of a lesser magnitude compared to the psychological damage which was not

only impossible to quantify but which lasted so much longer.

With the country having to practically rebuild itself, the département’s steel and coal

industries took on added significance in the struggling economy of France. The steel industry

was nationalized, reorganized and began once again to function, thus providing badly needed

jobs and materiel for the reconstruction of the country. Despite the important number of

returnees, the newly reorganized and funded steel industry was faced with an acute labor

shortage. The département’s coal industry faced similar manpower challenges, which it had to

overcome rapidly in order to meet the energy requirements of the local population and that of re-

born national industries. This resulted in the importation of foreign workers, primarily from

Poland and Italy and later from France’s North African colonies.

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The return of over a hundred thousand to the département after five long years of

suffering put tremendous strain on the social fabric of the département. The political leadership

issues facing the nation and the département exacerbated this by adding severe confusion to the

mix. With the defeat of the enemy mainly by foreign armies with a little help from French

military units supported logistically by the US Army, the authority of the Republic stood on

shaky ground. This authority was under frequent challenge now that the Vichy government was

defunct and that De Gaulle was in the process of gathering in his hands its absent and repudiated

authority. His provisional war government did not last long and was followed by the Fourth

Republic which continued the protracted state of political instability born out of the aftermath of

the war (Hargreaves 2005: 99).

According to Henry Rousso, the French people after the war repressed memories of their

behavior during the conflict years through a carefully constructed myth called “résistancialism”

(Rousso 1991: 10). Myths of glorious wartime conduct colored the political post-war atmosphere

as competing political interests attempted to influence public opinion in order to gain power.

Two competing national resistance myths divided the French population. As Tony Judt states:

“The Communist Party managed to convert their somewhat exaggerated wartime exploits into

political capital and convinced even dispassionate observers of their unique moral standing”

(Judt 2005: 66). Calling itself the “Parti des Fusillés” and claiming that some 75,000

Communists had been shot for their activities in the Resistance, the Communist Party claimed, as

the Party of the Resistance, the political leadership of the French nation by right of the suffering

of its members and the leadership the party provided to the Resistance against the common

enemy (Rousso 1991: 19). This translated into a level of political militancy seldom seen in the

département. The Communist party, especially strong among blue-collar workers in the

coalmines and steel mills of the industrial north and northeast, engaged in a power struggle not

only with the local authorities but also with the economic and financial leaders of the

département. The party’s hard line against collaborators, numerous strikes and demonstrations

shook the political, social and economic landscape, creating widespread instability and a

psychological malaise detrimental to the rebuilding effort of the département and to its own

interests.

The second Resistance myth was one professed by De Gaulle and his adherents in which

they offered a form of national cleansing through the idea that all but a few Frenchmen had

65

resisted the Germans during the war (Hargreaves p. 99). This translated into a glorified image of

a united nation up in arms fighting relentlessly and victoriously against the Germans and which

became a heroic national collective memory (Gildea 2002: 365). Such a notion was certainly

more attractive to the French people given their unspoken doubts about their personal behavior

during the war years and their fervent desire to put memories of those same years behind them

while focusing on the reconstruction of their country (Gildea 2002: 366). This second more

inclusive view, so much easier to accept than the somewhat divisive and exclusive myth offered

by the Communists, eventually prevailed with the majority of the population and remained

dominant for the next two decades before coming under increasing scrutiny and critique (Golsan

2000: 9).

Amid these competing resistancialist myths and economic as well as financial chaos,

hundred of thousands of returnees arrived in the département hoping to resume normal life. The

joy and expectation of the return was soon dashed when too many returnees found their home

occupied by wartime squatters who angrily asserted their own claim and refused to leave (Judt

2005: 38). In other cases, returnees discovered that their neighbors had in their absence looted or

purchased their furniture and did not want to give them back (Gandebeuf 1998: 39). Some

farmers had to pursue German Siedlers back into Germany to recover their farm animals and

even their furniture (Gandebeuf 1996: 213). Accusations and denunciations among family

members and even violence among cousins over war reparation compensation strained family

ties (Gandebeuf 1998: 76). The département was so devastated, in particular its urban areas, that

it was no surprise that the psychological and emotional state of its inhabitants was so stressed.

Social antagonisms over competing national histories of France’s wartime experience led

to local internal social divisions which originated too often from resource scarcities, jealousies,

recriminations and political differences (Gandebeuf 1998: 76). Some returnees claimed to have

been more patriotic than their neighbors who had stayed because of their suffering during their

expulsion to the interior of France. In particular, those of the second expulsion of 1941 felt that

their refusal to remain in Moselle under the Germans granted them the distinction of having been

more patriotic than those who remained; therefore those who chose voluntary exile were more

French (Gandebeuf 1998: 106). Severe hostility between members of the bar who had remained

and those who had been expelled was noted (Gandebeuf 1998: 34). The divisiveness over

personal wartime history even caused tensions and perceptible divisions among a group of

66

seminarians of Metz which included men who had been forcibly drafted into the German Army,

newly returned men who had been expelled from the département by the Germans, some who

had volunteered for exile and some who had remained in the département during the war years

(Gandebeuf 1998: 20). Incomprehension at the national administrative level of the complex

wartime history of the département exacerbated local divisiveness and contributed to several

decades of tension over claims for compensation (Gandebeuf 1998: 412).

After the Liberation, much of the strain between various groups of the population seems

to have been due to incomprehension between the members of the groups or to the fact that too

many returnees looked with suspicion upon those who had remained in the département and

were inclined to think that the latter had collaborated to a certain extent with the Germans and

many of those who had remained preferred to keep quiet and put the war years behind them as if

they derived from the past some form of embarrassment (Gandebeuf 1998: 44). However, with

time, it became clear that much of the silence was due to the realization that it was practically

impossible for someone who had not lived through the annexation to understand the complexity

of what had been experienced under the Nazis (Weyland 2010: 140). This silence over the past

was especially true for those of the German-speaking zone (p.139).

Among the 300,000 returning French prisoners of war, some ninety thousand malgré-

nous finally came home with hope and joy in addition to a certain amount of apprehension

(Vinen 2006: 5). The return of the majority of them took a little over a year (1944-1945) due to

the countless obstacles their repatriation effort faced from Allied bureaucratic inefficiency,

deteriorating Soviet-Allied relations due to the beginnings of the Cold War and in part due to

Soviet reluctance to allow Western observers to view the realities of their political communist

penitential system (Riedweg 2008: 237). A second tranche of some 14,059 malgré-nous

returned to France from Russian prisons from 1945 to 1946 with some 450 others liberated in

small groups over the next nine years and the last freed in 1955 (Riedweg 2008: 258). Despite

Soviet claims after 1955 that they no longer held French POWs, letters from a handful of

imprisoned malgré-nous still in Soviet camps attested to the misleading nature of Soviet claims.

The final tally performed some ten years after the war and the return of most of the malgré-nous

reveals that out of those who departed the three northeastern départements of the country 90,000

returned, 30,000 died and 10,000 were missing in action having died in combat or in Soviet

prisons (Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie du Ried Nord 2005: 6). Among those overall

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numbers, 20,000 malgré-nous returned to Moselle, about 10,000 died on the battlefield or in

prisons and among the returnees almost 7000 came back with wounds of varying degrees of

severity (Républicain Lorrain 14 January 1980).

Thus, it was as part of the 20 million returnees of the war across Europe as a whole that

the malgré-nous finally arrived back in France. Their return to their homes was not the most

rapid since they had to stop at a repatriation staging point before being released for their final

train trip home. The French authorities attempted to sort people coming back from Germany.

This involved French prisoners of war, STOs, survivors of concentration camps, malgré-nous,

PROs, etc. In particular, they wanted to separate those who had volunteered to work in Germany

from those who had been compelled (Vinen 2006: 362). Volunteers were denied some material

benefits such as extra rations and a small sum of money. During the processing, an individual file

was created for each person and after passing a security check identity papers were provided

before the individual was released (Redwieg 2008: 237).

The jubilation of the return home was short-lived due to the many obstacles to re-

integration facing each returnee. In addition to the incomprehension and mistrust of some

friends, neighbors and many government civil servants over the malgré-nous’ service in the

German armed forces, the antagonistic attitude of the local Communist party created an obstacle

to reintegration for returnees who had worn a German military uniform. This attitude was due to

the communists’ perception that most returnees from the Soviet Union were strongly anti-

communist. The importance of this attitude can be appreciated given that a quarter of the French

population had voted communist in 1946 and a much larger portion was pro-Soviet Union

(Vinen 2006: 363). Some of the frustration came from the national government’s obstinate

intent, due to incomprehension, to classify the malgré-nous as some form of STO, Service du

Travail Obligatoire, on the grounds that they had been forced to “work” in Germany during the

war (Gandebeuf 1998: 412). Attempts to obtain a good job, especially in the industrial northeast,

were sometimes hampered by some communist union leaders who feared that the large numbers

represented by the malgré-nous could adversely affect not only the reputation and influence of

their union but also that of the Communist Party. Also, attempts to obtain compensation for the

moral injustice and suffering they had been obliged to undergo in having to serve in the German

army were often derided by some interest groups, by some neighbors and even some family

68

members who saw the malgré-nous as competitors for the limited financial resources set aside by

the government for compensating a multitude of claims (Riedweg 2008: 285).

Faced with so many obstacles in their attempts to obtain recognition and reparation, many

malgré-nous initially decided to remain silent and just hunker down while trying to readjust to

their new life. The incomprehension shown by others regarding their decision to obey the

German draft was mirrored by their own incomprehension as to why others could not understand

the situation in which they had found themselves and the difficulty of deciding to obey out of

fear of German reprisals against their families. So few spoke of their wartime experiences even

to family members who had not shared the burden of having to wear the German army uniform.

However, most of them felt that they had been victims and now were the subjects of gross

injustice. This sense of injustice began to grow as the individual malgré-nous started to realize

that so many others shared their feelings. This recognition of shared emotions led to the

realization that only by getting organized would they obtain satisfaction.

The malgré-nous, all males, began to organize to give weight to their demand that their

plight during the war be recognized as an injustice and that their suffering be compensated in the

same manner as for other claimant groups. The organizing began in the two Alsace

départements and spread to Moselle. The declared goals of these organizations were to keep

alive the memory of the wartime history of their members and to defend the moral and material

interests of these “reluctant veterans of the German armed forces” (Riedweg 08: 283). Their

organizations, called “Association des déportés, évadés et incorporés de force” or ADEIF,

followed by the name of the département where located, were handicapped in their efforts to

obtain justice for their members because of the ignorance and too often in some cases because of

the reluctance of government functionaries. This caused their claims to be recognized only with

a certain delay compared to the claims of other groups and after considerable efforts on the part

of organization representatives (p.285). It was not until 1984 or forty years after the war that

they finally obtained the recognition of having been “incorporés de force” i.e. forced to serve

against their will (Riedweg 2008: 286).

The claims by the malgré-nous to share in the payment by the German government to

compensate French victims of Nazism were initially rejected by the French government. The

German government paid the French government in 1960 an initial indemnity of 200 million

Marks. The latter disbursed the monies only to deportees and prison camp internees who were

69

the only ones that met the official designation of victims of Nazism. Any pressure placed on the

German government failed to provide the hoped-for results because the government felt that it

had respected and met its obligations under the terms of its 1960 agreement with the French

authorities. These rejections of their demands only energized the veteran organizations that then

engaged in increasingly large public movements and more frequent demands to the French and

German governments.

It was in 1984 that the German government finally recognized the claims of the French

who had been forced to serve during the war in its armed forces. As a result, the German

government paid the French government a sum of 250 million Marks or 128 million euros

equivalent (Fischbach 2009: 67). The French government then disbursed those monies through a

foundation located in Strasburg called “La Foundation Entente Franco-Allemande” or FEFA.

For the veterans the two disbursements totaling 9,100 Francs per individual malgré-nous

represented a paltry sum that was overshadowed by the official recognition by both governments

that an injustice had been committed and thus the honor of the malgré-nous was restored (p.69).

This was explicitly recognized by the French minister of veterans affairs, Jean Laurain, when he

stated that this compensation represented “une réparation morale et non matérielle, réparation de

l’humiliation subie à cette époque par les Alsaciens Mosellans d’avoir été contraints de servir

dans une armée étrangère, fait reconnu comme crime de guerre par le Tribunal de Nuremberg”

(“a moral and non-material amend, a compensation for the humiliation experienced in that period

by those of Alsace-Moselle for having been forced to serve in a foreign army, a fact recognized

as a war crime by the Nuremberg War Tribunal”) (Riedweg 2008: 291).

Unlike the men who began soon after the end of the war to organize, the malgré-elles

lagged to get together in an organized fashion. Most just wanted to reintegrate their families

after the war and put their painful experience behind them. In many cases, any attempt to raise

the specter of their service in German uniform was discouraged by family members who feared

public hostility so soon after the war. Some of the malgré-elles had the feeling of being

bothersome, obliging others by their memories to evoke painful memories mostly already

forgotten in months and years of peace following the war. As early as 1957, some women joined

their départemental ADEIF. Probably deriving some encouragement from the efforts of the

malgré-nous as well as a sense of indignation at the refusal to recognize their sacrifice, many of

the malgré-elles began to form three female organizations, one in each of the previously annexed

70

départements. In Moselle, an organization was formed around 1974 called “L’Association des

incorporées de force féminines de Moselle” and was located in Metz. Membership in the

association climbed initially to slightly over 500 and then with time waned as old age began to

take its toll. The three départemental associations provided each other mutual assistance in their

struggle for the recognition from the French government of having been victims of the war

(Barbier 2008:110).

The struggle for recognition was arduous. The obstacles facing these women stemmed

from a multitude of reasons running from misogyny to general ignorance on the part of

government functionaries. Many of the malgré-elles’ male counterparts dismissed the women’s

claim for compensation because they never carried a rifle or weapon or because not a single

malgré-elles was ever killed in combat. Others, more virulent, accused them of having served as

mattresses for German officers (Fischbach 2009: 108). The hardest part of their fight seemed to

have been with government bureaucracy in all its ignorance as it attempted to classify them as

STOs on the grounds that both groups were forced to perform civilian work rather than military

service. Yet the parallel was not exact for, unlike the young men enrolled by Vichy as STOs, the

malgré-elles conscripted by the Reich were required to wear German uniforms, subjected to

military-style discipline and in some cases were assigned to defensive units of the Luftwaffe.

The general lack of government funds also acted as an obstacle in their struggle for recognition.

The apparent reluctance of the FEFA to recognize their claims due to internal politics and the

limited amount of funds remaining after the men were paid did not help the malgré-elles’ cause

(Fischbach 2009: 73).

Eventually, in an agreement between the French government and the FEFA signed on 17

July 2008, the two parties shared equally in a payment totaling 5.2 million euros in respect of

French women recognized as having been forced to work as auxiliaries in support of the Nazi

war effort. Thus sixty three years after the end of the Second World War, 5,000 to 8,000

surviving women of all three annexed départements, mostly in their mid-eighties, having served

in the RAD-KHD were finally compensated with 800 euros each and as a result received an

official confirmation that their struggle for recognition had been won and that justice had

prevailed (Fischbach 2009: 118).

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CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Discovery of Subject

I found out about the malgré-elles by accident. While in France visiting relatives in

Moselle in 2007, I happened to mention to a lady friend of the family that my wife’s uncle was a

malgré-nous. This lady, aged in her early eighties, declared to everybody’s surprise that she was

a malgré-elle, a term I had not previously heard. Further discussion revealed that she had been

one of over 15,000 young women from the three World War Two French annexed départements

drafted in her late teens into Nazi Germany’s Reich Arbeitsdienst (RAD) and subsequently the

Kriegshilfsdienst (KHD) to work in support of the German war effort. In consequence, she

considered herself also someone who, like the men, had been forced illegally to serve the Nazi

regime.

Attempts to obtain written material on the malgré-elles in order to confirm their existence

and acquire more information on them proved very disappointing by its scarcity. Research in the

Public Library of Metz a few days later revealed that only one book had ever been published on

the subject of the malgré-elles. This was the little known book by Nina Barbier published in

2004. On the other hand, a plethora of written material existed on the subject of the malgré-

nous. Books, written articles, French government reports and even a movie concerning the men

were easily found. Continued research revealed that eyewitness stories of malgré-elles existed in

a number of articles that appeared occasionally in local newspapers or periodicals in Mosel and

Alsace.

Inquiries throughout France confirmed that outside of Alsace and Moselle few

Frenchmen had ever heard of the malgré-elles. Through inquiries during train travel outside of

Lorraine and multiple telephone inquiries to friends in other parts of the country, it soon

appeared that their story was better known in Alsace, to a lesser extent in Moselle and practically

not at all in the rest of France.

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I discovered the existence of three associations of malgré-elles and visited each of the

departmental presidents. After informing me that she was a member of the association of

malgré-elles of Moselle, our ex-malgré-elle family friend arranged a meeting with her

departmental president living in Metz. The president informed me that her association now had

only about five hundred active and inactive members, with that membership dwindling at a rapid

pace due to age and loss of commitment on the part of the remaining members although the

publication of Nina Barbier’s book and a subsequent televised documentary seemed to have

given those concerned some encouragement. The president also provided me with the contact

information of the two association presidents of the departments of Haut and Bas-Rhin.

In view of the paucity of documentation available on the malgré-elles and now the

elderly condition of the surviving members of this group, it appeared to me urgent to collect

from them first-hand accounts of their experiences. While contextualized by written accounts

where available, the principal method adopted in my fieldwork was the conduct of oral

interviews. The conduct of oral interviews was preferred over obtaining written accounts of the

women’s experiences because the information obtained during an interview is more spontaneous,

permits the interviewer to gauge the importance the narrator gives to what he or she is saying and

allows for questions on information not covered in the written account. In addition, a written

narrative is too rigid structurally while an oral one permits greater flexibility for pursuing

information that may not have been covered in the written narration.

Meetings with the two departmental presidents provided information confirming

information already obtained about the malgré-elles and made me aware of potential constraints

involving time and financial resources. Although the meeting with a couple of malgré-elles in

Moselle made me aware that I would be dealing with ladies in their early eighties it was not until

I met the president of the association of the Haut-Rhin that I realized that I might have to deal

with age-related infirmities such as ill health, memory loss and difficulties in concentration. The

week I spent driving from one end to the other of Alsace to meet the Alsatian representatives

made me realize that any research that would include members of the Alsatian associations

would demand substantial financial resources. One other issue was discovered as a result of these

meetings. This involved a commonly shared feeling of injustice and incomprehension that was

raised by malgré-elles in all three departments. They felt that their fellow citizens’

incomprehension of their plight, in being forced to serve the Nazi war effort in Germany and the

73

resulting public sentiment of reproach as if they had done something treacherous, was unjustified

and reflected also a lack of recognition by the French government in the domain of wartime

compensation which was accorded to the malgré-nous but not to them.

Prior to leaving France, I contacted the president of the Association pour la Conservation

de la Mémoire de Moselle 39-45 (ASCOMEMO), in Hagondange, Moselle, to see if his

association had sufficient resources to help me in my research. This association, dedicated to the

historical memory of the Second World War as it affected the population of Moselle, possesses

an impressive library of documents and artifacts donated by members and benefactors. Its

collection of photos, letters and documents relating to malgré-nous is impressive. Without any

hesitation, the president promised the full support of his organization to my project, which as he

explained could only further the primary goal of his association.

3.2 Planning and Research for Interviews

After my return to the U.S. from France and subsequent discussions with my research

professor, it was agreed that there appeared to exist sufficient information, resources and interest

to develop a worthwhile and viable research topic. Bearing in mind logistical, temporal and other

contraints, it was decided that the project would focus on the relatively little researched

département of Moselle. Meetings with members of the FSU History Department were held in

order to help determine what method of research was to be used, given that the university has

already done an impressive amount of work in historical research touching on individual

Americans’ involvement in the Second World War. These meetings helped confirm that the

method best suited for my dissertation would be oral history since the core information on which

the research was to be based was going to be obtained through individual interviews.

In preparation for interviews scheduled in France for the following summer, research had

to be done to provide background information on which to base the preparation of fieldwork, to

develop a search plan to identify potential interviewees and to devise an interview strategy,

allowing for the expected geographical dispersion of the interviewees and expected challenges

due to potential age-related infirmities of the ladies. Suitable recording methods were also

identified.

Works of French history were consulted with emphasis on the period from 1870 to the

end of the Second World War. The emphasis on history from 1870 is due to the importance of

74

the consequences of France’s loss of the Franco-Prussian war which influenced Franco-German

policies and relations for the next 75 years.

Studies of the history of Alsace-Lorraine and Moselle were used to better understand

local history as it pertained to the influences on local populations of repeated German invasions

and subsequent returns to French territorial sovereignty.

The linguistic history of Lorraine was examined in order to identify the various languages

and dialects spoken in Moselle and to determine the linguistic borders within that department.

Books on the wartime and post-wartime experiences of the malgré-nous provided

important information. To start with, these books were invaluable in obtaining a basic

background on German occupation policies in Moselle as these applied to the largest group of

wartime draftees, the malgré-nous, circumstances which were very similar to those which

affected the malgré-elles. In addition, the demands of the malgré-nous for recognition and

compensation after the war greatly influenced the post-war actions of the malgré-elles.

Books and other documentation about Nazi wartime organizations such as the RAD and

KHD provided a better understanding of the socio-political environment in which the malgré-

elles found themselves obliged to survive during their wartime service in Germany.

The book by Nina Barbier and scattered individual testimonies of malgré-elles were

invaluable in obtaining first-hand information from women who lived those experiences

themselves. Local newspapers and magazines carried infrequent articles by malgré-elles relating

their individual experiences; however they seldom went into details concerning the women’s

emotional state. The book by Nina Barbier was the only book published about the malgré-elles.

Although it addresses the stories of a few women from Moselle, one shortcoming was its

noticeable concentration on the stories of women from Alsace, thus reinforcing the French

popular impression that those of Alsace suffered more than those of Lorraine.

Newspaper and magazine articles about the malgré-elles’ struggle to obtain recognition

and compensation from succeeding French governments were also consulted. In the post-war

period and after the malgré-nous had received official recognition and compensation, the three

departmental associations fought in their turn for the same rights. This struggle was

characterized by evident gender and political discrimination, which resulted in a prolonged lack

of recognition and compensation, which was granted only in 2008.

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Books on French postwar history related to events that touched on wartime collaboration

provided new appreciation of the commonly held myths nations develop to provide some closure

after undergoing painful wartime experiences. Studies such as those of Frenchman Henry

Rousso and American Robert O. Paxton helped clarify some of the ongoing controversy over the

legitimacy of the Vichy regime, the extent of its collaboration with the German authorities and

French society’s resistance to soul searching out of fear of resurrecting disturbing revelations and

guilt. The creation and subsequent rivalry of national myths necessitated by the political struggle

between the French communists and Gaullists after the war which resulted in the victory of the

Gaullist vision of an all-nation heroic struggle against the Germanic invader shed some light on

the post-war attitudes of those of Lorraine and throughout France who resisted the call for

recognition and compensation for all those men and women of Alsace-Lorraine who had been

illegally forced to serve in the German armed forces and civilian support units. Rousso and

Paxton both indicate that the scholar studying the Second World War struggle of France must, in

order to begin understanding this period, avoid thinking in terms of absolutes and accept that the

wartime complexities facing French society produced innumerable behavioral nuances.

Studies recounting post-wartime experiences of people placed under conditions of

extreme duress such as survivors of the Holocaust, POWs and terrorist victims were also

consulted. The most prolific references were accounts of experiences endured during the

Holocaust. Accounts of Japanese-held prisoners of war and accounts of terrorism-related

hostages helped to confirm that the commonality of experiences of all those held under extreme

duress had no geographical boundaries or time limits. Accounts by women were of special value

in providing information relative to female age-related memories and concerns.

Books on oral history and meetings with specialists on oral history of the FSU History

Department such as Dr. Robin Sellers were of special value in determining how the interviews

were going to be conducted. A range of possible interview methods were studied and compared

prior to deciding on the methods to be followed in my own study. Invaluable technical advice

was received from oral history specialists from the FSU History Department on the selection of

recording equipment. Information obtained from meetings with oral history specialists from the

FSU Institute on World War II & the Human Experience together with published references

helped immensely in the preparation and management of the interview process, given the

complexities involved such as gender, age and language issues.

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As a result of information gained from oral history specialists as explained above, it was

decided that an interview guide and an interview approval form were needed to support the oral

interview process. Both - interview guide and authorization form - were developed and

translated into French.

An interview plan accompanied by interview support documentation was provided to the

FSU Institutional Review Board for Research Involving Human Subjects with a request that the

proposed research be approved as oral history research. After review, the committee approved

the research as oral history.

3.3 Field Research and Interviews

Interviews and related fieldwork were conducted in the summers of 2008 and 2009 with

funds granted by the FSU Winthrop-King Institute in support of travel to France and the rental of

an automobile. Although the grant was extremely helpful, it was inadequate in covering all the

road travel expenses in Alsace-Lorraine given the large distances covered, the cost of car rental

and the high cost of fuel due to the lowered value of the dollar versus the euro in 2008-2009.

The fifteen interviews with malgré-elles on which the main body of the dissertation is based

were conducted in the summer of 2008. The following summer I worked mainly with

ASCOMEMO on contextual research and followed up with my initial and most responsive

interviewee, Jacqueline, on questions I had not asked in 2008 or subjects that needed clarification

My first challenge at the beginning of my first summer of research in 2008 was to find a

way to identify, contact and obtain agreement to be interviewed from as many malgré-elles as

possible. The family friend who had originally identified herself as a malgré-elle was my first

interviewee, followed by the Moselle association president located in Metz. Both ladies were

quite forthright during their interviews except that I was unable to obtain any help from the

association president in contacting subsequent potential interviewees. My first interviewee

contacted and obtained permission for interviews from three other friends and accompanied me

to each to conduct introductions and establish rapport. After a successful first two weeks and

five interviews, contacts dried up for the rest of the month.

This lack of progress led me to believe that I needed the help of historical associations in

Moselle dedicated to the memory of the French experience during the Second World War. I

contacted local historians and attended seminars to build some local background and hopefully

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establish some contacts. I also spoke with local retirees who had lived through the war in the

region to gain a better appreciation of local perspectives on the subject of the draft for the RAD.

Finally after conducting research in the archives of the main newspaper in Moselle, the

Républicain Lorrain, I revisited Philippe Wilmouth, the president of the ASCOMEMO in

Hagondange.

The ASCOMEMO is probably the best-known historical association in Moselle

specializing in the Second World War experiences of the local population. Its office is located in

the basement of a grammar school in Hagondange and contains an outstanding and ever growing

museum of war artifacts and a library of unique references as well as an ever increasing

collection of letters, photos and official documents donated by survivors and their descendants.

This association presents seminars throughout the département and publishes books and

pamphlets produced by members.

Philip Wilmouth put a notice in the Républicain Lorrain newspaper asking for volunteers

to identify themselves and to agree to be interviewed. His effort resulted in fifteen telephonic

replies. He helped develop a proposed interview calendar based on geographical location and

cost analysis.

Armed with the contact information of the fifteen respondents, I began to call each

person to establish contact and obtain agreement for an interview. Of the fifteen, ten readily

agreed to an interview and provided me with address and date. Of the five remaining, one

dropped out when she learned that there was no remuneration. Two eventually backed out

because of pressure from their families. One proved unsuitable because she had been a member

of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, a Nazi organization for teenage girls, during the war and not a

malgré-elles despite the fact she claimed that she had been forced to join this organization as a

teen. The last one never returned my calls for establishing an interview date.

The interview calendar for the ten respondents required me to stay for an extra month in

Lorraine. This extended period was necessitated by logistics requirements involving driving

long distances throughout Moselle and negotiating an appointment date/time that was most often

influenced by the interviewee’s daily schedule as a homemaker and the need to rest before the

interview. As a result most interviews occurred late in the afternoon at each interviewee’s home

often in the presence of the husband or other close relative.

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Interview equipment and other support items consisted of digital recorders, the interview

guide and photos copied from Nina Barbier’s book together with others obtained from

ASCOMEMO. Two recorders were available. One was an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder

WS-311M and the other an Olympus Pearlcorder J300 microcassette recorder. Due to its greater

sound sensitivity and clarity, the WS-311M was used as the principal recording device during all

the interviews while the Olympus recorder was used as a backup in case of malfunction of the

primary device. The photos mentioned above were used on some occasions to stimulate lagging

memories and restart the interviewee’s comments after momentary lapses. Photos of individuals

in RAD uniform and of camp life proved invaluable in stimulating comments and explanations

beyond what had been remembered at first.

Taking into account the age and gender of the interviewees, it was decided that it would

be beneficial to the interview process to have a local person known to the interviewee to be

present during the interview to foster a climate of security. In most cases, this person was Mr.

Roland Streit, retired engineer of Yutz, who spoke German and Platt in addition to French. His

interest and encouragement plus his language skills were invaluable. My first interviewee was

present during the interviews with all the ladies to whom she had introduced me. In addition to

knowing well all the interviewees, her own past history as a malgré-elle was immensely valuable

in putting everyone at ease and facilitating the memory-relating member. The average length of

each interview was about one hour and a half except in the cases where the help of the translator

was needed. In the case of translator-assisted interview, the duration often doubled and a break

period was needed due to mental fatigue of all concerned. I used the interview guide to ensure

that in broad terms the same questions were covered for each interviewee, thus presenting

subsequent opportunities for comparisons. Wartime documents, letters, photos and artifacts were

used as contextual reminders and memory stimulators. Although the same memory reminders

were brought to each interview, all were not necessarily shown, depending on the interviewee’s

capability to remember without an exterior stimulant

The recorded interview was always preceded by specific questions pertaining to the

narrator’s origins and past life prior to being drafted for the RAD. Answers to these questions

helped establish background information that was to be used later to properly situate the narrator

within the context of her group of peers. Such information was also used later to develop

questions about information specific to the narrator.

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Once the background information was recorded manually, the recorded interview began

with an open-ended question. Thus, the interview consisted largely of an open-ended narration

method continued subsequently by a period of specific questions. The open-ended narration

method allowed the narrator to start the interview process with a quasi-monologue of her most

vivid and relevant memories. This method, designed to reduce stress or fears on the part of the

narrator, empowers the latter to reminisce in a more relaxed manner and, probably, to remember

more.

When it was clear that the narrator had exhausted her immediate memories of the subject,

the specific follow-up questions phase began aided by information gathered from the interview

guide and from notes taken during the narration. Often using memory joggers such as photos,

artifacts, and documents, question were asked to clarify points, clear up confusion and pursue

details. This led to additional information that the narrator had forgotten or had not deemed

important. Comments made by the family member were also very helpful in stimulating the

narrator’s memory.

It was clear at the start of the interview that some of the interviewees had prepared

themselves for the recorded session by bringing personal documents, photos and even drawings

made during their service in Germany. These often served to explain with greater clarity specific

points that the interviewee wanted to make. In a couple cases, some of the interviewees had

already a typewritten copy of their tale that they made available to the interviewer. It was

interesting to note that none of them had kept the RAD broche issued following the oath of

fidelity to the flag and the Fuhrer, a point which will be further elaborated later.

Over all, the great majority of the narrators seemed to speak candidly without any signs

of discomfort. Only one narrator showed signs of emotions when relating her experiences being

interrogated by the SS. Most of the narrators needed no prompting to relate their experiences in

a chronological fashion. Some, however, needed to be prompted to remain on track and provide

the information on topics included in the interview guide.

Each interview ended with the signature of the consent form, a copy of which was given

to the interviewee. Often, interviewees offered to provide photocopies of wartime documents

and photos. Few interviewees requested complete anonymity, though in most cases the consent

form included the stipulation that only the maiden name of the narrator be used in any written

report. This request was the only time that any sign of discomfort was noted in some of the

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narrators. It was obvious that some still felt uneasy over lasting wartime perceptions of some

French. In only one case was it clear that a request for anonymity was due to any residual fear of

Germans. For consistency, the real names (both maiden and married) of all interviewees have

been replaced by pseudonyms in the dissertation.

3.4 Transcribing Interviews

The next step after the recorded interviews was to transcribe them. This took a very large

amount of time. The main difficulty concerned the transcription of grammatically non-standard

French. It was clear that in many cases, the narrator’s use of French was heavily inflected by the

Platt dialect of German spoken in the northern portion of the Moselle département. This created

a situation in which the transcriber was obliged to listen four or five time to make certain that he

understood the sense of the sentence and could transcribe it into standard French. In this way, it

took an average of a week to accurately transcribe a single interview.

After all the recorded interviews had been transcribed, a copy of the recorded interviews

was made and copied onto a CD by the FSU Audio-Visual Department. This copy acted a

backup to the transcribed narrations should any of the original recordings be damaged or lost.

During the process of transcribing the recorded narrations, a possible theme emerged. As

I was transcribing the recordings, I began to sense that there existed a difference between the

ladies from the northern part of Moselle and their sisters from the center and south of the

department. In addition to their greater language skills in German, Platt or both, the northern

ladies seemed to have a more positive attitude about their trials in the RAD/KHD than their

southern sisters. In particular, they seemed to regard wartime Germans with less resentment than

the southern ladies.

3.5 A Hypothesis on Cultural Influences

This led me to construct a hypothesis based on perceived differences between the two

groups of ladies. This hypothesis posited that pre-war German cultural influences might have

had positive effects on the wartime experiences of the ladies originating in the German-speaking

part of Moselle. As more narrations were transcribed, this hypothesis began to appear more and

more pertinent. Eventually, the final version of the hypotheses read as follows: Did German

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cultural influences facilitate the adaptability of the French female RAD conscripts during their

forced wartime service?

In order to test this hypothesis, a series of matrices were developed around five criteria.

The first matrix, titled “Linguistic Background”, was used to identify the members of the two

linguistic groups. The second matrix, titled “Reactions to German Takeover”, addressed

individual reactions to the German occupation of the département. The third matrix, titled

“Reaction to the Draft”, explored interviewees’ reaction to being called up for the RAD. The

fourth matrix, titled “Reactions to Experiences in Germany”, looked into the interviewees’

reactions to Germans and to their draft experiences in Germany. The contents of the last matrix,

titled “Oath of Loyalty to Hitler”, shed light on interviewees’ ability and willingness to

remember their participation in the mandatory oath of fidelity to the German Fuehrer and the

German national flag.

Numerical values were awarded to each criterion in all matrices to obtain an overall

aggregate for each interviewee and to permit a final group comparison and possible validation of

the hypothesis. To facilitate comparisons, in the presentation of the tables respondents were

divided into two groups: those from German-speaking backgrounds on the one hand and

Francophones on the other.

3.6 Factors Affecting the Reliability of Interview Data

In analysing the data yielded by the interviews, it is important to keep in mind significant

limitations and variations related to the age of my informants, their relatively modest numbers,

and the possible influence of the circumstances in which the interviews were conducted,

including my status as a male outsider, the presence in most cases of a family member or friend,

and the need in some cases to have recourse to the help of friend fluent in Platt and German.

Given logistical constraints facing the interviewer and, most important, the difficulties in

identifying malgré-elles willing to be interviewed, the study does not claim that the information

obtained from the fifteen interviewees represents a definitive statement on all the malgré-elles of

Moselle as a whole. For the same and other reasons, caution needs to be exercised as regards the

numerical aggregates derived from my informants’ narratives; these results can be useful in

broad terms if the researcher keeps in mind the need not to draw too precise conclusions from the

numerical data. Rather, the information should be viewed as indicative of broad rather than

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statistically precise features of a research topic that has been long been hidden from the majority

of the French population. It is therefore hoped that the contents of this study can provide

interesting information upon which others can build to continue exploring this fascinating

subject.

A comment imposes itself regarding the period of time when the interviews were

conducted and the effects of time upon memory. The interviews took place more than sixty

years after the end of the Second World War. It may be advanced that many of the opinions

expressed by the interviewees may not entirely represent their attitudes and beliefs during the

nineteen forties. I believe it is likely that decades later much of the bitterness has diminished

especially as regards the Germans for example. One can also think that some of the opinions

expressed were conditioned by postwar geopolitical events such as the Franco-German

rapprochement and the institution of the European Union. This kind of difficulty, when the

interviewee is asked to find again the context of some sixty years ago, and the tendency to

incorporate elements or reflections subsequent to the events narrated, is common in oral history.

As is observed by French oral historians Dominique Aron-Schnapper and Daniele Hanet in their

article “D’Hérodote au magnétophone: Sources orales et archives orales”, the person who evokes

his or her memories is not necessarily the person who lived the events narrated. These same

historians concluded that the tendency exists for narrators to reconstruct their memories based on

their personal logic. Another French oral historian, Freddy Raphaël in his article titled “Le

travail de la mémoire et les limites de l’histoire orale”, believes that he or she who recalls the

past reconstructs it. In this perspective, what is forgotten may be as important as what is

remembered. Thus in the context of the present research, it is particularly interesting that in their

spontaneous comments, most malgré-elles and malgré-nous almost never mention directly the

oath of Fidelity that they had to swear to Hitler and the German flag. My interviewees addressed

this subject only in answering a direct question from me and even then one sensed a certain

reluctance to address this subject. I return to this point at greater length in Chapter 6.

Interviewees may also have been inhibited to some degree by the circumstances in which

the interviews were conducted. Respondents may well be less forthcoming with strangers than

with persons well known to them, and this may be all the more likely in the case of women being

questioned by a male interviewer. The presence of friends or family members, designed to

reduce obstacles of this nature, does appear to have put my interviewees more at ease, yet it is

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also possible that the presence of such third parties, which sometimes included a friend to assist

in interpreting between French, Platt and German, may itself have engendered inhibitions that

cannot be determined with certainty.

The remoteness in time of events can also alter the clarity of the narrator’s memories

through sheer forgetfulness. It was evident during the interviews that the narrators got tangled up

in evoking situations and dates and lacked clarity in describing experiences. Yet it appeared to

me that the interviewee’s overall impression of a people or a country was not as easily forgotten

as the occurrence or chronology of specific events. The description and narration of wartime

events and experiences are of course subjective by definition, and it is important to note that my

research was less concerned with establishing veracity of historical events than with the state of

mind of the interviewees at the time of their wartime service in Germany and in their subsequent

recollections.

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CHAPTER FOUR

EXPERIENCES OF A TYPICAL MALGRÉ-ELLE

4.1 The Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Kriegshilfsdienst

Of the 130,000 persons drafted by Nazi Germany from Lorraine and Alsace, about

15,000 were female, of whom most were teenagers. The story of the men, the malgré-nous, is by

now relatively well known in France but that of the women is still little known. Personal

accounts of the women’s experiences in the RAD and KHD have appeared occasionally in local

newspapers and magazines in the three affected départements of Lorraine and Alsace. These

accounts are short and fragmentary. To understand the overall picture more fully and in greater

depth, it is useful to consider a more complete account of the events typically experienced by

these women from the outbreak of the Second World War through to their obligatory service in

war-time Germany, their eventual return to France and their readjustment to life during and after

the war. As the main focus of the present chapter is on events experienced by practically all

respondents (albeit undergone separately by each interviewee, and sometimes with different

responses, as discussed in chapter Five.) there is a sense in which any one of the interviewees’

stories might be regarded as typical. In practice, because some the women remembered events

with more or less clarity than others or were willing or able to speak at lesser or greater length

about them, in the interest of completeness it appears most useful to focus mainly on the story of

the respondent who in most respects gave the fullest account of events. This is the interviewee

identified under the pseudonym of Jacqueline. In the course of my research, she became the best

known of my interviewees, and as she could be contacted much more easily than the others

through Skype with follow-up questions it was she who provided the most complete personal

story. Moreover, even in relation to events on which she initially appeared forgetful or reluctant

to speak, such as the swearing of allegiance to Hitler, Jacqueline was typical of most of my

interviewees for most of whom events of that nature constituted particularly sensitive memories.

The story of the malgré-elles has largely remained at the margins of official French

history due to a certain extent to confusion stemming from the lack of understanding of how the

German legal system and the Labor Service subjected over 30,000 young men and women

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residents of annexed Moselle to compulsory wartime service in Nazi Germany. One example of

this confusion comes from the mistaken notion held by many in the French administration at war

end that the young men and women from the annexed départements who were obliged to serve in

the Reichsarbeitsdienst were really Vichy-France’s STO (Compulsory Labor Service)

equivalents. The passing of time and the disappearance of those from the annexed départements

who were obliged by law to serve in Nazi Germany in uniform has not improved the French

public’s awareness of their story, which has slowly faded from public memory and eventually

from French collective memory. To contextualize the experiences of a typical malgré-elle, the

following paragraphs contain a brief overview of the German laws and missions/organization of

the Reich Labor Service under which fell the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Kriegshilfsdienst.

The German Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), or German National Work Service, was created

in the summer of 1935 in response to the huge unemployment existing in pre-war Germany and

out of the pre-existing Voluntary German Labor Service or Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst (FAD)

(Patel 2005: 32). The purpose of the RAD was initially to provide some form of employment to

the many unemployed German workers. Organized in work camps across Germany, thousands

of young men were employed in various civic and agricultural construction duties (Patel 2005:

199). In addition to providing employment, another goal of this organization supported by Nazi

ideology was to regenerate German youth through participation in collective and individual

manual labor thus instilling a deep pride in the nobility of physical labor (ONAC Incorporation

de Force: 5). Thus the RAD was to be an instrument by which all social classes were to mix in

order to serve the nation.

Prior to 1935, engagement in the RAD was entirely voluntary (Patel 2005: 4); however,

after June 26, 1935, the Reich Labor Service Law directed that a six-month period of service in

the RAD be made compulsory nation-wide to all young men between the ages of 18 and 25

(Patel 2005: 126). In August 1936, this obligation was extended to all young women within the

same age bracket as the men (Patel 2005: 106).

Initially the RAD was administered by the Interior Ministry but it later became an

independent national level organization with its own hierarchy equal to other Reich ministries

(Patel 2005: 90). Just prior to the enactment of the Reich Labor Service Law, military service

for males was also made compulsory (Patel 2005: 99) and formed a natural sequel to RAD

service in which after a six month formation period, the young man would give up the RAD

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symbolic spade and exchange it for a rifle for two years in one of the branches of the armed

forces. The RAD is not to be confused with the Wehrmacht as it was never part of the German

armed forces though it in effect functioned as a civilian support service for the German war

effort and, in the case of male recruits, as a preparation for military service.

The RAD was divided into separate sections for males and females. The guiding model

for the organization was clearly the military. The Reichsarbeitsdienst Männer (RAD/M) for

young men was organized into forty regional districts or Gaus each designated by a roman

numeral (Patel 2005: 116). About eight battalion-sized units consisting of about 1800 men

organized in company-sized units were assigned to each Gau (Patel 2005: 117). By 1939, at the

start of the Second World War, there were 1,700 RAD closed camps (Patel 2005: 202). Each

company-sized unit was assigned to a closed camp whose members were to train, drill, practice

and perform various labor projects assigned to the unit (Patel 2005: 225). The basic individual

tool of the RAD was the spade whose blade emerging between two sheaves of wheat (Patel

2005: 91) figured prominently on the organization’s badge. In the case of the women, their

badge, similar in design to that of the men’s, featured a regulation swastika in replacement of the

shovel blade on a circular brooch or on a shield-shaped cloth patch (Williamson 2003: 22).

As of summer 1935, compulsory RAD service for men lasted six months. Two

contingents of draftees reported to their camps each year: the first in summer, the second in

winter. The RAD camps were managed by a military hierarchy, which imposed a strict military

disciplinary regime. An oath of allegiance to the Führer was also expected before the end of the

RAD period (ONAC Incorporation de Force: 7). The activities of male draftees in camp were

divided between manual labor and military training which included political indoctrination.

Manual labor activities revolved around large projects involving the reclamation of marshlands,

saving forests, building roads and participating in various other construction projects. With the

start of the Second World War, RAD units were soon employed in military engineer support to

the Wehrmacht (Patel 2005: 109). As the war continued, this military support eventually became

a primary organizational mission of the RAD in addition to its traditional role training young

men prior to their entering the Wehrmacht (Patel 2005: 110). With the need for more manpower

as German casualties increased during the war, the six month RAD period for men was

progressively reduced to three in order to provide the armed forces with the necessary

reinforcements to the various geographic war fronts (Patel 2005: 110). Without question, the

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RAD provided the German armed forces with a vast pool of manpower that can be better

appreciated when one realizes that by 1940, about 2.74 million men had passed through the RAD

(Patel 2005: 114).

The young women’s six months of RAD was passed in one of over 2,000 all women’s

camps where they too were introduced to individual and collective labor as well as quasi-military

discipline (Kater 2004: 86). Under the supervision of an all female cadre, much of their time

was spent divided between camp support activities, such as cooking, doing the laundry, sewing,

cleaning, physical training plus political indoctrination, and outside work on neighboring farms

and in taking care of young children during the absence of their working mothers (Kater 2004:

86). As with the RAD men, the women were expected to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler

sometime prior to the end of their training period (ONAC Incorporation de Force: 9). As the war

progressed and an ever-increasing number of men were needed in the armed forces, women

finishing their RAD training were ordered held over to participate more directly in war support

industrial activities mainly in factories (ONAC Incorporation de Force: 18).

The prolongation of their work service after the RAD was arranged under the umbrella of

the Kriegshilfsdienst (KHD) program. Due to the ever-increasing demands of the war, the KHD

program was implemented by the order of the Reich Ministry of the Interior in early fall 1941

(Williamson 2003: 21). It stipulated that young women finishing their six-months RAD

obligation were to be retained for another six months for war support service, still administered

by the RAD organization but assigned to government administrative agencies or more often than

not to industrial employers who were responsible for their lodging, food, work uniform and a

minuscule stipend (Kater 2004: 87). A small number were also to be reassigned to the armed

forces as war auxiliaries mainly in the Luftwaffe as members of antiaircraft weapon crews and in

the Wehrmacht in telecommunications (Kater 2004: 233) .

The compulsory RAD was introduced in Moselle on 23 April 1943 and on 8 May of the

same year in the two départements of Alsace (ONAC Incorporation de Force: 5). With the

département a part of the Gau Westmark whose administrative headquarters was located in

Saarbrucken, the RAD organization in the Gau was also headquartered in Saarbrucken. It had for

designation the roman numeral number XXXII and consisted of ten battalion-sized work groups

numbered from 320 to 329. The Reichsarbeitsdienst was disbanded with the collapse of Nazi

Germany on 8 May 1945 (Patel p.112).

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4.2 A malgré-elle Drafted in the RAD

Jacqueline was born 9 February 1926 in Grindorff, a small village of less then 100

inhabitants in Moselle near the French-German-Luxemburg tri-border area. She was one of three

children. Her father worked for the French national railways (SNCF) as station chief in various

railroad stations in Moselle.

The family linguistic history reflected the geo-political evolution of the département of

Moselle after the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Following the reincorporation of

Moselle under French sovereignty at the end of the First World War, the family conversed at

home mainly in Platt and outside in French when dealing with representatives of the French

government such as educators, functionaries in local and departmental administrations as well as

with the SNCF hierarchy. Both parents also spoke German, as well as French. In addition,

Jacqueline’s grandparents spoke Platt and German as well as some French having been educated

in the German system prior to World War 1. As a child, Jacqueline began speaking Platt, to

which she added French when she started school, and subsequently German, which she learned

easily in secondary school due to its similarity to Platt. Her language skills were sustained and

further developed by the linguistic demands required by the family’s proximity to Luxemburg

and Germany and frequent contacts with her maternal grandparents who were more comfortable

conversing in Platt than in French or German.

After several promotions, her father took over as railroad station chief in Waldwisse, a

town in the district of Thionville near his birthplace Grindorff. The decision to accept the job in

Waldwisse turned out to be less than optimal in the long run given that it was near the German

border between the Maginot line and the German Siegfried defense line. The family realized the

full significance of this only when they were ordered by the French government to evacuate their

home in September 1939. They were not unduly worried, thinking that it was just a question of a

few weeks given their confidence in the effectiveness of the Maginot line and the might of the

French Army, which had defeated the Germans in 1918.

During the evacuation, the family left almost everything behind, just like everybody else

in their village. Permitted to take only one suitcase per person, the entire population of the

village was evacuated by train leaving behind house, belongings and pets/livestock. They were

relocated in an area near Poitiers in the department of Vienne in west central France. Their

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welcome by the local population was rather cold if not suspicious given that the newcomers

seldom spoke French well and seemed more commonly to converse among themselves in a

German sounding dialect. What hurt the evacuees most was when the locals insulted them by

calling them “Boches”. Despite local reticence, the evacuees made do and settled down, waiting

to return as soon as the border crisis was ended. This wait lasted about a year for Jacqueline’s

family before her father was reassigned to a posting as station chief at Amanviller, located on the

border between the départements of Moselle and Meurthe et Moselle. The family never saw their

house again in Waldwisse since it was destroyed in the fighting at the start of hostilities.

In 1940, the family was in Amanviller when hostilities broke out. Prior to the arrival of

the Germans, the village came under air attack that made everyone aware of the start of

hostilities. Information was rather sparse in the country. In May, the grapevine let it be known

that the Germans were coming. The local authorities were as surprised as everyone else. Very

few could believe it. The only information available was word of mouth and frequently

exaggerated. Finally, the suspense ended with the appearance of a German soldier on a

motorbike who stopped in the village square. Being fifteen years old and the only one in the

village who spoke German, Jacqueline went up to the German soldier and asked him what was

happening. He confirmed that their forces had broken through the French defensive line and that

more Germans were on the way. This was confirmed a few days later when German military

detachments appeared in all the nearby villages and started to take over from local French

authorities. Most of the population of Moselle was surprised by the rapidity of the German

victory as well as by the armistice, which was very badly accepted. The majority of people also

had a hard time accepting the notion that the invincible Maginot Line had been penetrated and

that the border defenses had fallen.

Shortly thereafter, the département was annexed by Germany and the border with

occupied France now ran just outside the village. For the rest of the family’s stay in Amanviller,

Jacqueline’s father was involved with the local French underground, passing escaping allied

soldiers and prisoners over the border into occupied France. Jacqueline was involved in resisting

in her own way like many young people, carrying messages from one side of the border to the

other. This lasted until her father was once again posted to Waldwisse as station chief.

In Waldwisse, where the family found widespread destruction as a result of the fighting,

they set out to remake their life in spite of the new hardships facing them. While they settled

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into a half destroyed house, Jacqueline’s father had to move his office into a wooden shed

because of the damage suffered by the railroad station. Unable to finish secondary school,

Jacqueline found employment at the city hall for the next two years.

With the German presence, Waldwisse settled down to make do under the new political

conditions. Most of the population evacuated to the Vienne département had returned to Moselle

but the bulk of the French functionaries such as teachers, gendarmes and custom officers had left

before the invading German forces and did not return. Now, most civil functions were taken over

by Germans or French collaborators appointed by the German authorities. One of the latter was

a rich local businessman who was appointed mayor. It was revealed after the war that the mayor

had been working all along for the Germans prior to the war. A local farmer was appointed

Bauerführer at the head of the local farmers. Both the mayor and Bauerführer were members of

the Nazi party but unlike the mayor, the Bauerführer proved himself helpful on numerous

occasions to the local population. The German military presence was slight, with only two to

three members of the Feldgendarmerie assigned to the village.

Soon after their military victory, German authorities tightened their grip on the

département and began to organize their implantation in the conquered territory. Josef Bürckel

was appointed head of civilian administration in Lorraine and soon thereafter began the

“Germanisation” of the département. The most important consequence of the French defeat for

the young people of Alsace and Lorraine was the de facto annexation to the German Reich of the

three départements comprising Moselle, Haut Rhin and Bas Rhin. This annexation meant that the

populations of the three départements were now considered to be German with the population

subject to all rights and obligations of native-born Germans. This included civic obligations like

serving in the German armed forces and participating in pre-military civic training. This

translated itself into all young men and women having an obligation to train in the RAD and for

the men to subsequently serve in the German military.

It was in August, 1943 that Jacqueline received her summon to the RAD Müsterung, an

administrative inspection that included a medical examination prior to incorporation into the

RAD. She was not unduly surprised to receive her notification because it was the turn of those

like her born in 1926 and anyway other older young women in the area had already gone in and

most had already returned. Her older sister had received her convocation a while back but had

been dispensed from serving due to the fragility of her health and the influence of the village

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Bauerführer. Despite all that, the receipt of the Müsterung was still considered by all to be an

unpleasant summons full of uncertainty and potential hazards due to the ongoing war.

Jacqueline did not try to be dispensed from the RAD obligation, primarily because of

concerns for the welfare of her family. Everyone was aware of the retributions falling on families

when a young member refused to report for the Müsterung. Stories of whole families expelled to

destinations on the far eastern frontiers of the Reich such as Silesia were common conversation

topics. The family felt that given her older sister’s dispensation, she had little chance to be

excused. In addition, being the only one from her village to receive the summons that month

made her case stand out. One of the things you did not want to do under the new regime was

draw attention to yourself. Anyway, the family knew several young women who had already

finished their service obligation and had returned to their home without a problem. So, she felt

that she had to go since it was her turn and make the best of it.

Thus according to existing laws, she reported beginning September 1943 for the

Müsterung located in the city of Thionville. Feeling extremely ill at ease, she underwent a

physical examination by a German military doctor assisted by female members of the RAD. Still

young for their age, all felt various degrees of humiliation having to disrobe before strangers. At

the end of the physical, Jacqueline knew that she had passed primarily because she was in good

health but also because it was known that practically everyone passed.

It was a little less than a month later, at the end of October 1943, that she received in the

mail her marching orders for the RAD. This reporting notice was not unexpected given that all

departures for the RAD in the second half of the year normally took place in November. Once

again, she reported to the railroad station at Thionville where the young women drafted for the

RAD were mustered for onward transportation to their individual RAD camp assignments.

Although lonely, she felt fortunate to be alone, thus avoiding unlike many of her fellow draftees’

tearful farewells from emotionally overcome family members.

The lonely train rides led north across the German border, past Coblenz and continued on

east toward an unknown destination. Like many of her drafted companions, Jacqueline suffered

a severe bout of loneliness in the train given that she did not know anyone on the train and was

aware that they all were traveling in a foreign country to an unknown fate. In the middle of the

night, the train stopped at Buschauburen in the mountainous region of Unstuck, where a

Führerin in uniform met them at the station. Still in the dark, as they carried their suitcases, she

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marched their group stumbling over mountain paths to their camp situated bout six kilometers

away, high above the station. The suitcase was not very heavy because there was not much in it;

only Jacqueline’s clothing needs for the first day and personal bathroom toiletry since she had

been told that they would be issued all their clothing needs for the next six months at the camp.

Walking in the dark, not being able to see where they were going, knowing only that one had to

follow the person in front made the march seem interminable. They were exhausted and were

suffering from thirst and hunger. Finally, the marching group arrived at the camp in a state of

fatigue and in a daze; they were fed in a mess hall and led to barracks where Jacqueline still

remembers falling into a dreamless sleep until the next morning when her six months of RAD

training really began and would not end until May of the following year.

The camp was isolated in the mountainous terrain and consisted of eight or nine wooden

buildings surrounding a large courtyard with a tall mast in the center flying the red and black

swastika flag. Four of the buildings were barracks while the rest were devoted to camp support

functions such as cafeteria, administrative offices, tool shed, etc… The camp did not have a

security fence around it. Jacqueline felt sure that discipline and fear of the German authorities

ensured the good behavior of everyone in the camp.

The following day, after a very light breakfast taken quickly, the camp cadre began to

issue the RAD uniforms that the women would wear during their camp period. These uniforms

consisted principally of work clothes and a “parade” issue. The work clothes were 2 blue cotton

dresses with white aprons, 2 red scarves, and 2 pairs of boots with thick socks. The “parade” or

dress uniform consisted of a brown colored dress-costume with white blouse and a brownish

colored fedora hat (Reichsarbeitsdienst-und Kriegshilfdienst 29 March 2009). The dress jacket

carried on the left sleeve the cloth insignia of the RAD with the Roman numeral designation of

the RAD region in which the service was performed (Williamson 2003: 24F).

The distribution of uniforms was followed immediately by a stern lecture on camp

regulations that were going to govern the women’s lives for the next six months. Jacqueline still

remembers that it was more a case of what they could not do rather than what they were allowed

to do. In particular, only German was permitted to be spoken in camp. This was no problem for

the bulk of the sixty odd young women since the great majority had been born in Germany and

were still in school when called up. However, this made it difficult for some of the six girls from

Hayange or Florange from the Francophone zone of Moselle who did not speak German on

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arrival. In their cases, the Führerins affected not to notice for a while when Jacqueline

whispered a translation. They quickly picked up the language because it was in their interest and

they really had no choice. Classes followed on camp organization, individual and collective

duties, stages of camp life and the word discipline repeated ad nausea. This schooling lasted the

first three weeks of camp. Everyone was restricted to the camp during this first stage of

instruction.

The cadre of five Führerins assisted by some six Kameradschaftsältestes gave all the

instructions in German. A Lagerführerin who was a small but very distinguished lady

commanded the camp cadre. Her husband was an army captain serving in the East. One could

see that she was often worried for her husband. She was never arrogant with anyone. Jacqueline

had heard that in some other camps the German cadre were very hard with the draftees but she

thought that much depended on the personality and attitude of the chief of the camp. Overall she

considered that she had good relations with the camp cadre and considered herself fortunate to be

in that camp.

Once the general instruction period was over, the new recruits were quickly divided into

functional groups, which were to last for the duration of their stay in camp. Jacqueline’s

barracks group was assigned initially to outside farm work to help replace the shortage of men

who were absent serving away in uniform. This was the primary work activity of the camp

population. Each group alternated between in-camp activities and farm work. Each activity

lasted about a month after which the group took on a different occupation. An individual recruit

was never sent back to the same farm where she had worked before.

In-camp activities consisted mainly of collective work aimed at camp life support. Some

groups were assigned to the camp laundry, others to the kitchens not only to cook and elaborate

different menus but also to less savory kitchen cleaning duties. Sewing and ironing occupied

also a lot of time that was appreciated because of an increased opportunity for gossip and the

occasional singing of German folksongs. In each occupation, they first received theoretical

instruction before applying what they had learned. Jacqueline went through every stage of camp

activity and felt that for a future homemaker it was very useful and would benefit her after

leaving the camp.

Camp life was very severe for seventeen-year olds. In addition to repeated bouts of

loneliness, Jacqueline remembers the physical hardships to which she was not accustomed. She

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still recalls the Spartan conditions with shivers. The barracks in which she slept, one of four,

consisted of five bunk beds per floor with one of the beds occupied by a Kameradschaftsälteste

barely older than the ten girls she was supposed to help. A Führerin supervised all in the

barracks. The bedding was made up of a mattress filled with straw, two thin sheets and two grey

military blankets. There was no heating in the rooms despite the fact that the winters were harsh

in the mountains. At times the windowpanes were so frozen that it was impossible to see the

outside. It was extremely cold in winter.

The morning camp schedule regardless of weather or season started with the barracks

Führerin appearing at five in the morning with a less than cheery “Gut morgen” enunciated in

winter in a cloud of vapor similar to smoke followed by marshaling outside in gym shorts and tee

shirt for sport. This led to a run up and down over the mountainous terrain by tortuous animal

tracks. Sometimes this daily run was even made while wearing a gas mask. Back at camp, there

was a shower followed by breakfast. There was always some hot water for the showers but only

for the first to arrive. The late arrivals had to wash off with cold water. The surprise was that no

one was ever sick during the winter season. After breakfast, it was marshaling once again but in

uniform this time for the salute to the flag and departure for those working outside the camp. The

rest reported to their assigned in-camp activities.

The evening schedule began at 18 hundred hours when everyone was back inside the

camp. It began with showers after which the girls put on the camp interior uniform.. From time

to time, groups were gathered together and given an update of the war’s progress, full of never-

ending German military successes illustrated on a large map board covered with bold colored

arrows depicting victorious German offensive operations. What Jacqueline found unexpected

were the seemingly feeble attempts at imparting Nazi propaganda by the camp cadre. This took

the form of German and Nazi patriotic songs and some classes on the make up of the Nazi party

and RAD. It appears possible that malgré-elles who, like Jacqueline, served later in the war

witnessed a significant loss of enthusiasm for the Nazi cause, reflected in decreased propaganda

efforts as the end of the war clearly approached.

One daily marshaling activity, which involved Nazi practices, was the flag raising

ceremony. This ceremony took place every morning regardless of weather, after physical

training and before breakfast. The personnel assembled in uniform in a circle around the camp

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flag post and had to give the straight Nazi arm salute as the flag was raised. On occasions,

German or Nazi patriotic songs were sung.

After the first three weeks that corresponded to the general instructions period, all the

girls had to participate in the swearing-in ceremony around the flag post. In official grey RAD

uniform, they had to swear allegiance to the Führer and to the Nazi flag. During the ceremony,

Jacqueline noticed that most of her friends from Lorraine seemed to be mumbling anything and

everything except what the Führerin was reciting for them to repeat. She also asked herself if

those who did not speak German even understood what was going on. At the end of the

ceremony, the Führerin pinned onto each girl the RAD broach containing a large swastika that

they were required to wear henceforth on all occasions while in the RAD. In Jacqueline’s view,

what was ironic about the significance of this ceremony was that most, if not all the girls, could

not have cared less about the Nazi ritual but had been looking forward to having the broach

pinned upon them because it signaled that from now on they were free to leave the camp on their

time off. This time off occurred only on Sunday when, if they did not have any camp chores,

finally they could relax and take walks in the mountain or go down to the village to church.

Jacqueline’s contacts with her parents and France were infrequent. She was given a two-

week leave for Christmas that she spent in Waldwisse with her family. Her most frequent

contacts were through the mail. Her father even came to visit her once but they were only able to

see each other at the camp reception office.

Jacqueline’s first work outside the camp was in a farm run by a charming old couple who

treated her like their granddaughter. One of their sons was an officer on active duty in the East

and another son who owned another farm was a local Auftbarrerführer. Jacqueline saw this latter

person occasionally when he came by to offer advice on cultivation and to plow his parents’

land. Motivated by their kindness, she worked hard as if it was for herself. She remembers that

each morning on arrival one of her tasks was to prepare and fill the old man’s pipe, which she

did gladly. Sometimes communicating with him was a challenge because he was deaf as a rock.

She spent most of her time at that farm outside working in the fields, which she said she enjoyed.

On another occasion, Jacqueline was assigned to a farm run by two wives of serving

military officers. The father-in-law of one and two small children lived on the farm. There, she

did mostly housework, which consisted of cleaning, ironing, sewing, some cooking and baby-

sitting the children while the adults were out in the fields. Unlike the first farm where she had

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worked, this one had a number of French prisoners of war assigned as manual labor. She was

forbidden to speak to them in French. As a result they thought she was German and made

various comments in French in her presence that she found humorous. Finally her secret was

revealed to the POWs’ embarrassment when she had to translate for a doctor from Luxemburg

who like most non-German nationals was obliged to work in Germany. She managed to render

the POWs some small services while at that farm such as sneaking out their letters and

forwarding them to her father who transferred them into the occupied zone.

Jacqueline was assigned to a third and final farm before the end of her RAD service. She

also did housework there and was happy not only because she was always well treated but also

because the noon meals taken at the farms were so much more nourishing than at the camp. This

was her last assignment outside before the end of her camp period.

The only time Jacqueline was accused of a disciplinary infraction was during the visit of

some inspectors near the end of her tour at the camp. She was assigned to the camp laundry

where there was an opportunity to dry the wet wash in the ironing room which was equipped

with a small stove. The only way to dry clothing in winter was to iron them; otherwise they dried

while they were worn. On the day of the inspection, Jacqueline had placed her wet heavy work

shoes next to the stove. One of the inspecting Führerin spotted the shoes and asked who owned

them. Jacqueline had to admit that they were hers, which resulted in a royal dressing down and a

serious residual fear. It was explained to her that the heat from the stove was going to dry the

shoes so quickly that the leather was going to crack thus permanently damaging the shoes, which

were considered army materiel during wartime. Such damage could be considered sabotage but

since she had the reputation of being a hard worker she would receive only this warning. In the

event of another such incident she would be incarcerated for sabotage. She remained a nervous

wreck following this incident. Luckily her stay at the camp was coming to a close.

Starting in the month of May 1944, the camp began preparations for the departure of the

girls who were at the end of their six months tour. Everyone was aware that the next phase of

their lives in wartime Germany was going to be in the Kriegshilfsdiensdt better known by its

initials as the KHD. The girls were not asked to provide any input for their future assignment.

They were just given marching orders. When those orders came down to the camp, they learned

that while the majority was assigned to factory and urban transportation duties in Hamburg, a

handful was directed to report immediately to the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.

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4.3 Continued Service in the KHD

Jacqueline’s orders for the KHD instructed her to report to factory duty at Wuppertal-

Elberfeld–am-Rhaunen near Coblenz. The arrival of orders signaled the end of her RAD service

and the beginning of preparations for separation from the camp. Everyone turned in their

uniforms and issued equipment and was given back the civilian clothing they wore upon their

arrival. Armed with a copy of her orders and a transportation authorization, Jacqueline’s left the

camp happy that her ordeal in the RAD had ended and traveled through Coblenz onward to the

factory in Wuppertal. She felt that despite her preference for assignment to transportation duties,

she was lucky that she was not assigned to Hamburg where frequent allied aerial bombardments

were known to inflict heavy casualties. She learned eventually that some of those assigned to

Hamburg ended up as casualties of war. She did not fully realize until after her return to France

that the RAD had been easy compared to what she was going to experience in the KHD.

Wuppertal was a large city located in the heartland of the industrial west of Germany.

The company that Jacqueline was going to work for was called Metzenauer und Jung. This was

a large company that had substantial industrial interests in the area such as three factories, which,

as often repeated by its management, were of great importance to the German war effort. A camp

complex located in the heights above the city contained the dormitories for the company

workforce. Jacqueline found herself lodged with some forty other girls in a large building of

permanent construction. A number of other buildings of more recent but flimsy construction

could be found in the camp functioning as worker barracks and housing camp support functions.

The factory to which she was assigned turned out clocks and precision instruments for the

Kriegsmarine. The factory workforce came from very diverse geographical origins throughout

the Reich and its occupied territories. While most of the factory senior and middle managers

were elderly German males, the bulk of the workers were women. The great majority were

German women who were trusted to do some of the precision work while much of the menial

work was performed by a large number of Russian women, some of whom had their children

with them. One other unusual and surprising presence was that of a few French male civilian

work draftees (STO) from Vichy-France mixed in with a larger contingent of French females of

the same worker category. For security reasons, the RAD graduates were strictly forbidden to

speak or mix with anyone not German.

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The recent graduates of the RAD were lodged all together in a separate building of a

worker camp complex located in the hills about two kilometers from and above the city. Some

forty girls found themselves under the loose supervision of an RAD Führerin. They no longer

wore a grey uniform but whatever civilian clothes they had left with from the RAD camp.

Except for the noon meal taken at the factory cafeteria, the only other meal, the evening meal,

was taken at their lodgings where a very old Russian woman cooked for them.

It was in Wuppertal while in the KHD that Jacqueline experienced her first serious

wartime privations and physical dangers. What she experienced in the KHD made her stay in the

RAD seem like a vacation. She came to appreciate that in the RAD she had been subjected to an

organized and functioning danger–free environment where the prevailing organization, discipline

and motivation resulted in severe but fair leadership. The women’s daily activities were planned,

organized and controlled to further a collective goal. In the RAD, their everyday physical

necessities such as food, shelter and cleanliness were met in austere but adequate fashion. In

retrospect, being at the RAD camp was almost like being in a boarding school run by nuns.

At Wuppertal, all of the above was missing. The leadership provided by a lone RAD

Führerin for forty odd young girls was totally inadequate. She was unable to exert the necessary

influence upon the logistics system to ensure that her charges had decent food. The food

provided either at the house or at the factory was not only not enough but also of extremely poor

quality. It was especially the poor quality that revolted everyone. Due to prevalent food

shortages, horsemeat was served almost everyday at the factory. Most everyone was

unsuspecting but Jacqueline was aware of it because she saw the pile of dead horses covered

with flies piled up in front of the factory. These were horses that had died after coming back

wounded from the fighting in Russia. She also saw the old Russian cook cutting into the rotting

flesh to preserve some of the edible parts. The meat was prepared with a heavy hot sauce to

make it edible. Daily at the factory, the loudspeakers informed all that it was beef that was going

to be on the daily menu. Eventually this subterfuge was discovered and the German workers

were no longer able to partake of the meat. However, the Russian workers were obliged to

continue eating it since they had no choice.

Jacqueline remembers that they were constantly hungry. To illustrate this constant state

of hunger, she recalls that one day she and a German girlfriend were walking on the sidewalk,

when they spotted a lone cherry lying on the ground. They asked themselves if they were going

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to pick it up. Since a solitary cherry would not go far with two hungry growing girls, they

decided to leave it there. Jacqueline emphasized that this event illustrated the depth of their

hunger especially for someone from the countryside like her used to plentiful food.

The only ray of hope came from a German family who had befriended her since her

arrival in Wuppertal. The family used the same bomb shelter as Jacqueline during the almost

nightly bombing by Allied planes of the dense industrial zone in which Wuppertal was located.

Whenever she had some free time, Jacqueline visited with the family where she was regularly

invited to partake of their meals, which were of considerably better quality and quantity than

anything encountered at the factory. The husband was a chauffeur for a Dutch industrial director

and in consequence regularly traveled across the border into Holland and had access to food not

available in Germany. He was even able to bring back fruit that had been sorely missed by the

girls. It was an extraordinary luxurious treat.

Medical care was so rudimentary as to be almost nonexistent. Wartime shortages due to

military priorities did not leave much for those who were not in uniform. The factory had a

doctor but very little medicine and even less patience. Once Jacqueline developed a foot

infection between her toes, which made walking extremely painful. The doctor provided her a

miserly treatment but no authorized rest since her purpose for being at the factory was to work.

Some of her colleagues made her a sandal in cardboard from shoeboxes and string. Her walk to

the factory was a daily Calvary. Finally after ascertaining that she was unable to walk any longer

with her toes all blue and swollen, the doctor gave her bed rest which created another problem

because only the evening meal was served at the lodgings. Thanks to her German friends from

the city, Jacqueline was provided with homemade meals brought to the camp by the German

couple’s eight-year old son.

The girls were not provided with the basic hygiene conditions necessary to the

maintenance of health. There were no laundry facilities, which prevented the women from

washing clothes and beddings. This latter shortage made life especially difficult because of the

proliferation of bedbugs in the camp, which made restful nights especially rare and the bedding

stained with blood spots. All the insistence on hygiene imposed on the girls in the RAD camp

was missing at Wuppertal. One had to even fight for the opportunity to take a shower.

The Russian work force was singularly mistreated without anyone being able to do much

for them. They were provided with very little food. Since some of the women had children with

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them, this lack of a basic necessity was especially hard on them. The rule was that only those

who worked were fed. This meant that there was no food for the children, some of whom tried

to make themselves useful by sweeping or picking up cast-off pieces of metal on the factory

floor. The mothers shared their meager portion of the noon meal with their children. Although

everyone who worked at the factory was fed a meal, the quantities were not the same for the

different groups, especially not for the Russians. Jacqueline used some of the food tickets sent

her by a friend from Metz to purchase bread at a local bakery and surreptitiously handed out

pieces at the Russian mothers’ work stations.

The treatment of the Russian workers was brutal and unforgiving. One evening, a young

woman of Jacqueline’s KHD camp group but working in another factory of the Metzenauer

group related to the members of her dormitory group an awful story after having made them all

swear to secrecy. A male Russian worker who had refused to obey an order was thrown into an

acid vat used to clean submerged metallic pieces. Nothing was left of him. The young woman

was totally undone by this heinous crime that she had witnessed. That night, Jacqueline’s group

noticed a number of Russian women crying because the husband of one of them had not returned

from his work place. No one knew or spoke of what had happened to him. Jacqueline had a

hard time reconciling the inhumanity of the system within which she was forced to work with her

appreciation of some of the Germans she knew. She was eighteen at the time and this was

among the experiences that marked her forever.

This was the environment within which she was forced to work at the factory for the next

six months of her life. Now as a member of the factory workforce, Jacqueline was assigned to

the quality control section ensuring that the instruments and spare parts were up to standards.

Most of her colleagues were assigned to the production section where they worked on a variety

of industrial equipment such as drills, lathes and cutters. The work was noisy, dirty and

dangerous. A KHD colleague from another camp working at the factory had lost all her hair due

to having it caught in a machine. Jacqueline felt that she had been lucky to be assigned to the

quality control section, which was separated from the machine shop by metal mesh fencing.

Nevertheless, everything from the machine shop could be heard and seen although the physical

danger level was markedly less in her section.

In the quality control section, Jacqueline’s station was responsible for ensuring that the

pieces machined in the shop were meeting the desired standards. Thus, a large bucket next to her

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desk contained the newly fabricated pieces that Jacqueline then passed under a precision

instrument. The finished pieces that were too large went into a designated bucket to be retooled.

Those too small went into the waste bucket. Those meeting standards went onward to shipment.

One could do this work seriously for a few hours but after a certain time every action became

automatic and the worker turned into a robot. Eventually Jacqueline started doing anything and

everything without much care for the results. This included falling asleep at her post due to the

lack of sleep resulting from the nightly bomber raids. Her supervisor, an elderly German male,

used a metallic ruler to strike the desk to wake up the controllers. This kept Jacqueline awake

for a few hours and the supervisor amused.

Jacqueline’s job at quality control gave her the opportunity to engage in some sabotage.

This involved certifying as satisfactory some pieces that were in fact too small which then went

on to be mounted on complex machines such a submarines and airplanes. This petty sabotage

was successful because there were no more controls after the pieces left the factory. Jacqueline

eventually thought that her supervisor was anti-Nazi because she suspected that he knew of her

sabotage yet never said anything. It took a while but eventually she finally realized that she was

risking her life with her acts of petty sabotage.

4.4 Escape

By the end 1944, signs of Germany’s coming defeat were widespread, demoralizing the

authorities and disorganizing everything at the KHD camp. Most Germans no longer believed in

victory. It was everybody for him or herself. Profiting from the loss of controls, Jacqueline and a

colleague slipped out of the camp with only their clothes on their back. The two girls realized

that their lack of official papers would be major obstacles to their obtaining transportation back

to France. Thanks to the German couple of Wuppertal who had befriended her, the two girls

were able to obtain train tickets from the Bormen railroad station located at a certain distance

from Wuppertal. The only tickets available were for Saarbrücken because very little functioned

anymore and Allied planes had destroyed many trains. Their intention was to take another form

of transportation, if needed, from there going southwest. Their train first took them to

Ludwigshaffen where they transferred to a train for Saarbrücken. The train was so packed that

there were no seats available in the wagons. Much of the space was taken by baggage of people

who were not even on the train. Jacqueline finally found a place on top of baggage piled up in

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the toilets of the train. There was nothing to eat or drink on the train. Allied airplane attacks on

trains had become frequent, as it appeared there were no longer any German fighters to oppose

them. At each air alert, the train stopped and passengers jumped from the train and sought shelter

in ditches. After the alert, those who had survived got back on the train while the casualties were

left to lie were they had fallen. Amid this chaos, Jacqueline lost sight of anyone she knew on the

train.

After finding out at the Saarbrücken railroad station that no trains were expected in the

immediate future, Jacqueline followed many of the passengers to the basement of the station

which was used as a military holding area and a bomb shelter. She found the basement packed

with soldiers who did not seem very perturbed about waiting for a train to take them back to

combat. In this overcrowded site, she encountered a pervasive feeling of camaraderie based on

shared tribulations. To pass the time, everyone was telling everyone his or her life story. She

shared with the soldiers around her that she was from Lorraine and was on her way home from

the RAD/KHD. One young soldier from Stiring-Wendel in Moselle admitted to her that he was

a deserter and that he faced being shot if arrested. She even fell asleep with her head resting on

an unknown soldier next to her. These were people who did not know if they would be alive the

next day.

After managing to catch a train going west, Jacqueline arrived at Mertzsich in Saar, about

fifteen kilometers from Waldwisse. She had to get off because that was the closest this train was

going to bring her to her home. She disembarked with five girls whom she discovered were from

the area of Nilvange and Hayange located well south of the train stop. At the train station office,

she told the railroad employee that she was the daughter of the station chief of Waldwisse and

wanted to call her father. He told her that it would probably not work because US troops were

reported there and the station did not answer. She tried anyway and was even able to speak with

her father who told her that US troops had not arrived yet but were not very far away. She still

remembers very vividly the giddy emotion that overcame her at the sound of her father’s voice.

She informed him where she was and asked him to bring the two-wheeled buggy with something

to feed six young women because they were exhausted and had had nothing to eat or drink for

quite sometime. After an indescribably emotional reunion with her father, the little group left for

Waldwisse alternating at pulling and riding the buggy.

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On the way while catching up on all the local and family news, Jacqueline realized that

the Allied approach was not uniform and that the liberation of her village still remained very

uncertain. Finally in Waldwisse, the group learned that US troops were still pretty far southwest

of the village in the Moselle valley and that the villagers had heard that Gandrange had been

liberated while Hayange was still occupied. There were even some German soldiers remaining

in Waldwisse living in her parents’ house. This presence of German soldiers created a danger to

the returnees because without any official papers releasing them from the RAD/KHD, they

would be considered traitors by the authorities and possibly shot.

Jaacqueline’s mother placed the girls with a friend living out of town who had a large

family and ran a restaurant. The girls helped by cleaning and babysitting for the family. Every

one of them had a small job outside the house where she was fed lunch. Breakfast and dinner,

however austere, were taken together at the house. They all slept packed in a large room which

afforded very little privacy. There was no running water so, regardless of the weather, they had

to take turns going to an exterior water source and bringing water back. With the Allied

approach, they experienced an increased rate of bombings, thankfully without any casualties or

damage to the house.

4.5 Liberation and Reconstruction

One day, the rumor mill let it be known that the Americans had arrived in the village.

Jacqueline immediately ran the kilometer or so to the village to witness this long awaited hope.

There, she saw her first American and experienced a severe disappointment at the sight of the

first representative of the liberators. She always imagined them tall, strong and good looking

wearing impeccable battle dress in addition to an eternal smile. To her dismay, she saw a short,

fat, dirty, menacing looking G.I. with whom she tried to communicate to no avail. Thankfully,

others soon followed him in command cars and set up in the village. She was eventually

befriended by a Major Logan who explained to her that not all GI’s were like the first soldier she

had encountered and that she had to make allowances for the conditions under which the

infantrymen were obliged to put up with to survive.

During the subsequent five months of the US troops’ presence in her village, she found

that they were basically kind and friendly. Most of the units stayed longer than expected due to

resupply problems that affected Patton’s Third US Army. Although some, mostly officers, were

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lodged in French homes, the rest had their camp of tents nearby. They did not have much contact

with the local population given that the latter was pretty destitute. With the US troops’ arrival,

the French government soon made its presence felt with a detachment of the Gendarmerie that

made the town railroad station its headquarters.

German presence and influence in the village disappeared almost immediately. The

military were the first to depart soon followed by a few German businessmen who had

established themselves in the area during the war years. Those who remained and anyone of

foreign origin or having foreign relations such as spouses (understood as German or Italian) were

interned for a few weeks in a camp for foreigners located near Thionville. One of Jacqueline’s

uncles was detained also because he was married to a woman originally from Saar. Most of those

detained were held less than a month until they were cleared by French government authorities

and released.

Jacqueline never really experienced the period referred to as l’Épuration. She heard of

occasional acts of revenge or exuberant displays of patriotism perpetrated mostly against young

women or collaborators in some of the larger urban centers of the province but her village

remained calm. The Germans in the village had either fled or had been taken into custody by the

newly installed gendarmes. The mayor was the only open French collaborator from the village

who was legally detained, tried and sentenced. The population of the village did not change

given that the great majority had never left for occupied France. A lot of the problems created as

a result of the rancor harbored by French people who had returned from occupied France never

took root in her area given the stability of the area’s population. She was aware of the animosity

displayed elsewhere by a number of returnees from Occupied France who considered themselves

more patriotic for having refused to live under German domination and considered themselves to

have suffered more in their exile than those who had stayed.

After her return from Germany, Jacqueline never encountered any signs of animosity

against any male or female who had been forced to serve either in the German military or

civilian support organizations. This no doubt reflected awareness in the region that the youth

drafted had not volunteered but rather had submitted to coercive influences in order to prevent

family members from being held hostages for their behavior. She was aware like everyone else

in the village that some families had been deported to Silesia in the far eastern zone of the Reich.

Everyone who had stayed in the département after the annexation had been obliged to cooperate

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with the German authorities in order to survive under the unforgiving Nazi regime. With the

Germans gone and the local logistical distribution system disturbed once again, everyone now

had plenty to do to rebuild and ensure that there would be bread on the table each day. Mostly

this required the help and cooperation of others in the community, so vendettas were considered

misplaced.

4.6 Associations of malgré-elles

Soon after the Liberation, Jacqueline married Robert, a member of the Waldwisse

Gendarmerie Detachment who arrived in the village at the same time as the US troops. She

followed him in various increasingly important assignments across the département until his

retirement in 1980. They settled in a small village just a few miles southeast of Metz. It was

during this time that she learned of the demands for recognition and compensation by the

malgré-nous of Moselle and of the two départements of Alsace. She fully agreed with their

goals and wanted to join the local women’s association of ex-RAD/KHD draftees in Metz as the

malgré-elles in the three départements began to organize. Her husband, who feared that public

knowledge of her wartime service in German paramilitary organizations would hinder his career,

initially dissuaded her from joining. Eventually after his retirement, she joined the nearest

association located in Metz.

The goal of the association was to obtain from the French government official

recognition that the wartime service in Germany by members of the association had been

unlawful under international law and that they were coerced into this service. As a result of this

injustice, they also asked that they be compensated as their male counterparts, the malgré-nous,

had been. The association in Moselle started up with a lot of enthusiastic adherents who over the

years, faced with repeated denials and numerous obstacles from both semi-official and

government organizations, slowly began to become discouraged. From over five hundred

adherents at the start, the association in Metz by the turn of the century had dwindled to a few

hundred aged and disillusioned women.

After repeated defeats in their campaign for recognition and compensation, the

government of President Sarkozy in 2008 finally agreed to the associations’ demands and

compensated all those still living. Each person received a government check for eight hundred

Euros. Like many of the women concerned, Jacqueline considered that receipt of the check was

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largely symbolic because no eight hundred Euros could compensate for the injustice and

suffering they had all gone through as a result of being hostages of the history of their country

and their département.

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CHAPTER FIVE

ATTITIDUNAL VARIATIONS

5.1 Construction of Matrices

In the process of learning more about the story of the malgré-elles, I conducted library

and archival research together with over 20 interviews, which provided a wealth of information

about the background and the wartime experiences of the malgré-elles. The interviews included

15 with malgré-elles that I subsequently analyzed using a matrix system designed to identify

similarities and differences in their experiences. In particular, the matrix was designed in such a

way as to aid in identifying the ladies whose lives prior to the war were most likely to have been

subject to German cultural influences, as marked in particular by their exposure to the German

language and/or the Platt dialect, as distinct from those whose lives were shaped predominantly

in Francophone circles. culture. Further criteria were then developed to help in confirming or

refuting whether such influences had a differential impact on the wartime experiences of the

ladies interviewed.

5.2 Linguistic Background

The purpose of the first matrix is to identify those ladies whose lives prior to the Second

World War were most likely to have been subjected to German cultural influences, as indicated

in particular by linguistic competence, as distinct from those among whom such influences were

likely to have been weaker. As the interviews had been conducted in a semi-directive fashion so

as to allow my subjects to speak as freely as possible, the elements in which I became

particularly interested during the analysis were not always found to be explicitly present in each

interview. For this reason, it was important to allow for absence of data (“no mention”) when

compiling the matrices. A positive response with reference to a given criterion was awarded a

value of 1 while a negative response received a 0. Where there was no mention by the

interviewee pertinent to the criterion, this is indicated in the Table by an X mark and no account

is taken of the criterion in question in the calculation of aggregates for the individual concerned.

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The criteria in Table 1 attempt to identify with which linguistic zone in Moselle the

interviewee was most closely associated, i.e. the northern German/Platt speaking region or the

southern Francophone region. The degree of association is mainly determined by ability to

speak German or Platt and where the person lived in Moselle when she was called up for the

RAD draft. Before the war most French citizens did not move about very much and lived out

their lives generally in the same geographical zone that they were born in. In this case, women

originating from the German-speaking zone came mostly from northern Moselle, that is in and

north of an imaginary line that runs from the Orn River valley and descends diagonally eastward

toward the Alsace border south of the Phalsburg area. In this respect, eight of the fifteen women

originated from the German-speaking zone and were called up from a town from this same zone.

The seven remaining women came from the Francophone zone. The majority of the women in

the German-speaking group tended to have passed most of their youth at locations near the

German border.

The second criterion in Table 1 references whether one or more of the interviewee’s

parents or grandparents spoke German or Platt. The confirmation of the existence of this

linguistic capability in the family is a strong indication that the interviewee was subjected in her

childhood through language to German cultural influences. Before the Second World War, many

French families consisted of multi-generational groupings that resided under the same roof.

Thus, children were more often subjected to the influence of the grandparents who took care of

the children while the parents were at work. Given their age, grandparents were also of that

generation which had lived in Moselle the longest under German rule, that is the period between

the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and the end of the First World War in 1918. Eight of

the interviewees had parents or grandparents who spoke German or Platt. In some cases,

children could converse with their grandparents only in German or Platt because most

grandparents had never been subjected to the French school system. This was particularly true

for grandmothers who tended to stay at home while their children and in-laws went to work away

from home.

The third criterion aims to identify the interviewees who spoke German or Platt

themselves at the time of their incorporation into the RAD. Most interviewees who met this

criterion had developed their Germanic language capability at home while a few others had done

so at school in the secondary level. This linguistic capability appeared to the researcher to be

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potentially significant in the women’s ability to adapt quickly to their new arduous wartime

experiences in Germany. Eleven of the interviewees claimed to have been capable of speaking

German or Platt at the time of their incorporation. Three of the women, who originated from the

Francophone area and claimed to speak German, learned that language in secondary school in

the French educational system.

Numerical totals weighted toward familiarity with German or Platt were calculated for

each respondent and then divided by the number of criteria for which her interview indicated an

answer; where her remarks made no reference to a given criterion, the number by which the

numerical total was divided was reduced commensurately. In this way, a decimal total was

obtained for each respondent based on all criteria to which responses were provided. The higher

the decimal total, the closer the respondent was associated with Germanophone culture.

The numerical results of the matrix clearly identify ten of the ladies who were most likely

to have been influenced by German culture during their childhood and adolescence. What the

ten had in common is that they all came from the German-speaking zone of Moselle, spoke

German or Platt or both before being drafted and had parents or grandparents who spoke German

or Platt. Common factors of the remaining five women are their being brought up in the

Francophone zone of Moselle, their lack of German or Platt linguistic skills and their lack of

such linguistic exposure due to parents or grandparents who did not speak any of those languages

or dialects.

In the rest of this study, the ten women whose data showed the strongest German cultural

influences will be referred to collectively as the First Group while their Francophone

counterparts will be called the Second Group.

5.3 Reactions to German Take-Over

Table 2 was constructed for the purpose of providing information which would help in

identifying the attitude of the women studied towards the German presence and the annexation

which detached the département of Moselle from France and made it a part of Nazi Germany.

The first criterion in Table 2 provides information about the opinions or reactions of the

women to the German take-over of Moselle. As none of the women spoke of having welcomed

the take-over, possible differences of opinion were assessed rather by distinguishing between

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feelings of resignation (helplessness, acceptance) on the one hand and on the other hand feelings

of fear or outrage.

Only four of the women - three of the first group and one of the second group -

mentioned having had a feeling of resignation. Those who did seemed to have been reacting to

their first sight of the victorious German soldiers whose presence indicated that the French

defenders had been clearly defeated and could no longer provide any protection. Eight of the

women mentioned fear or a sense of outrage at the presence of the invaders. Three women did

not directly address this subject.

Given the numerical distribution, it is difficult to draw a comparative conclusion as to

whether the attitudes of the women of the German-speaking group were less negative to the

invaders’ arrival than those of the Francophone group. The bulk of the women, irrespective of

which group they belonged to, reported negative feelings or feelings of helplessness at their first

sight of the invaders.

The second criterion explores the women’s reactions to the annexation of Moselle by the

German government. One of the political ramifications of this crucial step was that it legitimized

German intentions to draft French men into their armed forces and women into activities that

supported the Nazi war effort. In analyzing the data, it was interesting to see whether women of

the First Group had accepted more readily the annexation of their département or at least reacted

less negatively to this event than those of the Second Group.

Four women mentioned a feeling of helplessness in the face of annexation. It appears

that the pervasive presence of the victorious Nazi military and the ever growing influence and

presence of the state security apparatus resulted in a cowering reaction on the part of many in the

subjugated population since six women - evenly distributed on a proportional basis between the

two groups - stated negative feelings ranging from outrage to fear of the impact this event might

have on their lives and that of their families. Five respondents - again, almost evenly distributed

among the two groups - did not mention the act of annexation that was to have such a major

impact on their young lives. The decimal totals calculated for each respondent show broadly

similar levels of antipathy between the two groups.

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5.4 Reaction to Draft

Table 3, consisting of a single criterion, was constructed in order to explore the feelings

and reactions of the women upon receiving their draft notice for the RAD. Most of the fifteen

women in the study group were not among the first in Moselle to have received a draft notice and

gone on to serve in the RAD. As a matter of fact, some of the women knew other women who

had preceded them. Attempts by some to either avoid this service or to postpone it indicate some

familiarity with such administrative practices. However, outright refusal was seldom

contemplated by women, given the well-publicized brutal sanctions imposed by the German

authorities on anyone refusing to go and especially on members of their immediate family. The

imprisonment of young men and the forcible expulsion of their families to Eastern parts of the

Reich as punishment for the formers’ refusal to answer the call-up were well known throughout

Moselle.

Five women spoke of feelings of helplessness and resignation when they learned that

they had received a draft notice. This feeling seemed to stem mainly from the realization that

they had become small cogs in a huge foreign repressive machine. Some of the interviewees

were familiar with women who had preceded them in the RAD and viewed the call-up as their

turn to do something they had no control over.

Nine interviewees out of the fifteen indicated that their reaction to the call-up was a

feeling of obligation due to fear of reprisals by the German authorities against themselves and

especially against members of their families. News of reprisals by the Nazi authorities was well

known by the populations of the annexed territories. The greatest fear seemed to originate from

the Nazi administration’s well publicized policy of expelling entire families from their homes in

France and resettling them in the marshes of the new Germanic empire such as in Silesia. Most

of the comments of the interviewees seemed to indicate that fear for themselves was

subordinated to fear for their loved ones.

Only one interviewee omitted to mention her reaction to the RAD call-up. During the

interview, she treated this subject as if it were a fact that happened and that may have seemed so

normal by the time her turn came that it had to be accepted. Among those who recalled their

reactions, resignation and acceptance were more commonly found among Germanophones than

among the Francophone group, where fear of reprisals predominated.

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5.5 Reactions to Experiences in Germany

Table 4 focuses on the reactions of interviewees to their experiences in Germany. This

included relations with German officials and peers in the RAD/KHD, where it was interesting to

consider whether those who spoke German and had been exposed to German culture prior to

annexation were able to make friends with Germans more easily than those who had not.

Seven interviewees stated that they had made friends during their wartime service in

Germany either in the RAD or the KHD. Most of the friendship were developed with German

peers while in the RAD but some were made later with German civilians met while serving in

the KHD. Five of the seven were German speakers; only two were Francophone. It appears

probable that the language factor may have played an important role in facilitating a larger

number of friendships among the German speakers.

Only one interviewee declared not having made friends while in service in Germany.

One possible answer to why she did not make any German friends may be found in her statement

that there were five French women from Lorraine in her camp. Their presence may have

mitigated her need for close relationships with her German peers. The presence of such a large

number of young French women in the same camp from the same region was highly unusual.

Most of the other interviewees reported either no countrywomen at their camp or at most one or

two.

Four German speakers and three Francophones made no reference to the question of

making friends during their service in Germany.

A second element in Table 4 concerns interviewees’ attitudes toward the German

Führerins in the RAD camps. The character and behavior of the German camp cadres may be

expected to have had a major impact upon the relationships and behavior of the RAD draftees in

their camps. The senior Führerin was expected to set the tone for the camp cadres and all the

RAD draftees but was also expected to stay aloof from the draftees and act as commander of the

camp. Subordinate cadre members who had day-to-day close contacts with the draftees had a

major influence on the wellbeing and emotional state of the draftees under them. Overall, the

draftees’ willingness to open up and befriend German peers was likely to be influenced by the

attitudes of draftees toward their respective Führerin.

A total of 12 out of fifteen interviewees had a positive opinion of the camp cadres. Only

three women had negative opinions of their camp cadres and all three were Francophones. Only

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one of the three did not speak German or Platt at all before reporting to the camp. The other two

spoke German before being drafted, having learned the language in school. Some of the negative

responses of one of the Francophones, Dorotée, were due to the cruel treatment she experienced

from her Führerin as this latter tried to physically pound German language lessons into her head

with a ruler. None of the interviewees failed to state an opinion as to their attitude toward their

camp cadres, no doubt reflecting the strong impact the cadres had on the daily lives of the

draftees.

A third consideration is whether the women believed that they had or had not adapted to

RAD/KHD service. Within the first group, eight out of ten never mentioned the subject in their

interview while the other two explicitly confirmed that they had adapted. Within the second

group, three women denied having adapted, one confirmed that she had adapted and one did not

mention the subject at all. While the high proportion of non-responses among the first group

cannot be interpreted with certainty, in the absence of any explicit negative response and bearing

in mind their linguistic and cultural backgrounds it appears likely that members of this group

generally adapted relatively well to RAD/KHD service, whereas the picture is more mixed

among their Francophone peers. The fact that the latter completed their RAD service and

continued on in the KHD tends to indicate that they must have adapted but overall there was a

tendency among this group to retain far more negative sentiments and memories of their

RAD/KHD experience compared with the German-speaking group.

A fourth criterion in this matrix looks at the women’s post-war opinions of their wartime

service in Germany. One might expect a similar division to appear here between the first and

second groups but this is not the case. Four of the ten women in the first group said they looked

back on their experiences as having been positive, a similar proportion to the two women among

the five members of the second group who reported similar feelings. Moreover, where only one

member of the second group looked back negatively on her experiences, four members of the

first group expressed negative views. As these proportions do not appear to align with those

found in relation to other criteria, it is possible that they have been influenced by the passage of

time and a certain memory degradation.

A final criterion in this table addresses the women’s opinions of Germans at the time of

their service in Germany. Half of the women of the first group and a similar proportion of the

second group said they had a generally a good opinion of Germans during the war. Only one

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woman of the first group and none in the second group reported having had a negative opinion of

Germans. At the same time, most members of the second group and almost half of those of the

first group expressed no opinion on Germans. Once again, one wonders if the passage of time

and memory degradation may have contributed to these results.

5.6 Oath of Loyalty to Hitler

Table 5 considers one of the most interesting questions asked of the women, which was

whether they swore allegiance to Hitler during their service as was required of all Germans in

uniform and of all public employees of the German administration. According to most reports

from members of the RAD, the oath of loyalty to the German head of state was administered

collectively during a morning flag-raising formation at camp within the first two months after

their arrival. In addition, swearing to the oath of loyalty led to being awarded the RAD brooch,

which was a precursor event to being finally authorized to leave the camp on liberty, whether to

visit the surrounding area or to take much awaited scheduled home leave. Given that so much

was contingent on participating in the oath-swearing ceremony and that in most cases the oath

carried such a heavy emotional load, it would seem normal that the ceremony associated with the

oath-taking would have marked the memories of all the women.

Based on responses tabulated in Table 5, half of the ten interviewees in the German-

speaking group remembered participating in the oath ceremony while three did not remember

and two denied ever having participated in such a ceremony. Among the Francophones, four out

of five remembered participating in the oath-swearing ceremony while one denied ever having

participated in that ceremony. The differences between the two groups may be explained by the

fact that the ceremony may have had a greater emotional impact on the French-speaking group

thus facilitating memory retention. Another possibility is that up to half of the German-speakers

may have remained in a state of denial due to a sense of embarrassment at having participated in

what was likely to be interpreted after the war by their fellow French citizens as an objectionable

gesture.

5.7 Synthesis

Overall, in Tables 2, 3 and 4, the aggregates of German-speakers are in general slightly

less negative than for Francophones. The aggregate result of Table 3 (Reaction to draft) reflects

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this difference particularly clearly when compared with the aggregates results of Tables 2 and 4

(Reactions to German Take-over and Reactions to Experiences in Germany). In Table 2

(Reactions to German Take-over), three out of five Francophones indicated that they were

clearly opposed to the German invasion of Moselle compared with five of the ten German

speakers. In Table 3, four out of five Francophones compared with only five out of ten of their

Germans-speaking peers spoke of having felt fear of the German authorities. In the same matrix,

a marked difference between the two groups appears again among the women who stated that

they were resigned to being selected for the draft. Four out of ten German speakers declared

their resignation compared to only one out of five Francophone. Furthermore, three out of five

Francophones but none of the German speakers clearly declared having had difficulties in

adapting to RAD/KHD service. Thus it appears that the attitude of Francophones toward the

German presence in Moselle and towards the impact of the German annexation on their lives

both prior to and after being selected for the draft was generally more negative than the attitude

of their German-speaking peers.

While Francophones were noticeably more negative than German-speakers in their

attitude toward the German invasion of Moselle (Table 2) and their being drafted into the

RAD/KHD (Table 3), differences between the two groups in attitudes toward their subsequent

experiences in Germany (Table 4) are less marked. A possible explanation for this is that the

women’s shared wartime experiences had a leveling effect on them. Although they started out

from different backgrounds and in many cases with different attitudes or expectations,

similarities in their experiences in Germany tended to produce similar feelings and reactions. In

Table 4, five out of ten German-speakers spoke positively of their German peers and only one

had a negative comment; two out of four Francophones made positive comments and none had a

negative comment about their German peers at the camps. Similarities in attitudes toward

Führerins are particularly striking. An overwhelming majority of German-speakers (8 out of

ten) spoke positively of their German female cadres and only two negatively. A majority of

Francophones (three out of five) spoke favorably of the members of their German camp

leadership while one did not comment either way and only one spoke negatively. Thus the

balance between positive and negative answers is quite similar for both groups.

Several explanations can be offered to explain the apparent “leveling” effect among

people from different backgrounds when facing similar constraints. First, the forced cohabitation

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of the young French women, still in their teens, with German girls of the same age group forced

to share the same regimented living and working conditions tended to oblige people to overcome

and overlook cultural differences in order to facilitate group cooperation to the benefit of the

individual. Second, some evidence suggests that a phenomenon akin to the Stockholm syndrome

may have had some influence on the impressionable young French women. Their near total

dependence on the members of the camp’s German RAD cadre could have fostered sympathetic

attitudes during their forced stay in such an alien environment with little or no contact with a

familiar world.

As defined in an article in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, the Stockholm syndrome is

a psychological phenomenon in which captive hostages tend to develop during their captivity

signs of empathy and display signs of bonding with their captors (de Fabrique p.10). Some

psychologists believe that this occurs under conditions of intense stress in which the captive

realizes his total dependence upon his captor who holds over him the power of life or death,

provides material sustenance such as food and drink and may as he wills withhold or administer

physical punishment. This stressful environment is believed to lead a captive over a period of

time to bond with his captor and to want to please him, upon whom he perceives that he is totally

dependent. This bonding has been observed in certain hostage situations in which the captive

developed feelings of empathy for his captor. Research on this phenomenon led evolutionary

psychologist H. Keith Henson to posit that stressful condition situations of this nature can

account for extreme forms of capture-bonding exemplified by well publicized cases such as the

kidnapping of Patty Hearst in California and the hostage situation in Stockholm in 1973. He

goes further and states that that this bondage explains the success of regimentation during basic

military training (Henson).

It is true that, compared with hostages in situations like that in Stockholm, the malgré-

elles were not in a directly evident sense captives while serving in RAD during the war.

However, the women were forced to spend months in a very stressful and coercive environment

characterized by the regimentation of a militarized camp environment. More often than not,

these young and impressionable women, most still in their late teens, found themselves isolated

in a camp with strict discipline and only Germans around them. To avoid punishment for having

contravened camp rules, the malgré-elles found themselves totally dependent upon the whims of

the camp cadres who were authorized to dispense punishment and withhold camp privileges.

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Therefore it is entirely conceivable that the young women in the camp were forced to adapt to

the camp power relationship dominated by their Führerins and may over time have developed

toward the latter feelings of respect and even empathy.

With a relatively small number of aged respondents and a fair proportion of missing or

unclear answers, it is important to keep in mind the limitations of the data provided and the need

for caution in interpreting them. The availability of data to work with has been most importantly

influenced by the ability of the respondents to remember attitudes and reactions that occurred

over sixty years earlier. As with all long-term memory, only those events with the most

important emotional impact were recalled best. It must also be accepted that some answers may

have been influenced by later perceptions.

At first sight, the aggregate data do not seem to support strongly the hypothesis that there

exists a clear correlation between cultural background and the attitudes and experiences of the

ladies interviewed. That said, aggregates for the German speakers appear slightly less negative

than for their Francophone peers, with the common experiences of the members of the two

groups while in a coercive environment in Germany tending to narrow this gap.

118

CHAPTER SIX

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

In the research on which this dissertation is based, I set out to collect oral testimony by

malgré-elles from the French Moselle département and to analyze the contents of the interviews

I conducted, looking for similarities and differences in the memories of the individual women.

Analysis of responses to open-ended questions enabled me to pinpoint shared experiences and to

hypothesize that linguistic and cultural differences may have influenced the ability of these

women to adapt to the demands of the new coercive conditions regulating their lives while

obliged to serve in German uniform in the RAD/KHD during the Second World War. This

hypothesis was tested during further analysis of the interview data.

When I started this project, I was driven by a desire to learn more about the story of a

group of young women of Moselle whose experiences during the Second World War had either

been forgotten or were deliberately occulted. Prior to engaging in a systematic research plan, I

did some preliminary investigating in Alsace and Lorraine during the summer of 2007. This

investigation consisted of visiting the heads of the three departmental associations of malgré-

elles located in the two départements of Alsace and in the département of Moselle. Research in

French public libraries, notably in the département of Moselle, revealed that, except for one

book, very little had been published on my subject of interest. Contact with several local

historical associations aided me in finding a limited number of printed articles in local

periodicals in most cases these focused on the story of a single local individual. In addition, I

managed to speak with several older men and women who, as youngsters during the war, were

able to provide me with part of the context for the story of the malgré-elles. During my stay in

France that summer, I was astonished by the limited and often complete lack of knowledge of

average Frenchmen and especially those of Moselle regarding the wartime experiences of the

malgré-elles still living among them in practically total anonymity.

In preparing to interview surviving malgré-elles, consultations with experts on oral

history in the FSU History Department provided some basic information on interview

techniques, recording equipment and orientation for further published research. From

119

information obtained at the FSU History Department, I also learned that my plan to interview a

number of women during my research would require an official determination by the FSU

Institutional Human Subjects Committee that my interview project fell within the context of oral

history. I prepared and submitted a research project packet which included a schedule of

interview questions and very quickly received a positive response recognizing that my project

fell in the realm of oral history.

Prior to my return to France to conduct the interviews, I refrained from constructing a

working hypothesis on the subject of the malgré-elles. Rather than projecting onto them a pre-

determined interpretative grid, my main purpose was to find out more about what they

considered to be their most marking experiences both during the war and in its aftermath. My

plan was to conduct in-depth interviews with as many malgré-elles as would make themselves

known to me and to continue searching for published information on their story. My interview

plan, in addition to listening to a narrative by them without interrupting, contained some open-

ended questions designed to permit interviewees to speak as freely as possible in their own terms

and to nudge their memory should it become necessary.

Finding malgré-elles to interview turned to be more difficult than expected. The help of

a prior known malgré-elle and the extensive assistance provided by ASCOMEMO were

instrumental in permitting me to find and obtain permission to interview an initial group of

surviving malgré-elles within the set time frame of summer 2008. Subsequently, with

experience in the research of wartime testimonies, ASCOMEMO placed an advertisement in the

most widely read newspaper of Moselle asking for volunteers. The response provided me with

some fifteen additional volunteers among whom I was able to conduct interviews with ten who

qualified as malgré-elles. It became evident that factors limiting the prospects of finding more of

these women included the death of many from old age, various infirmities, the desire to forget an

unpleasant period of their lives and the intention to avoid reopening a wartime subject which still

remained extremely sensitive in families of Moselle even some sixty years after the end of the

Second World War.

I managed to interview fifteen malgré-elles from all over Moselle in the summer of 2008.

All interviewees, already in their mid-eighties, were enthusiastic and very cooperative during

their individual interview. Most freely showed photos, letters and in some cases documents

relating to their time in the RAD/KHD. Some even gave the interviewer photocopies of their

120

documents, a selection of which are reproduced with their permission below in Appendix C. All

interviews were recorded and in response to my request began with a narrative by the

interviewee followed by a few pertinent questions to nudge her memory. Although most covered

broadly the same topics, recollection of certain events seemed to be selective. This is where the

already prepared open-ended questions came into play and proved beneficial to the interview

process. All interviews were conducted in the interviewee’s home and the presence of a family

member during the interview proved to be an asset in reassuring the interviewee and making her

relax while discussing sensitive events with a stranger (the interviewer), though it is of course

possible that respondents may have felt inhibited in certain respects in recounting their

experiences.

On my return to FSU, I started to transcribe all the interviews. This took me almost a

year. It proved to be a time-consuming process given that the interviews were conducted in

French, leading to my being slowed down by many linguistic obstacles to easy understanding of

the oral narratives. One of the most bothersome obstacles was the local Platt accent possessed

by a large number of the German-speakers. The closer they lived to the German border, the

stronger the Germanic accent. It took time and repeated listening to parts of the recordings to

make sure that what was heard made sense. To add to the problems with local accents, a number

of the women speaking in French made grammatical errors which further confused the

understanding of the interviewer. With one woman living in the southeastern part of the

département near the Alsace border, an interpreter was occasionally needed to translate her

narrative into French due to her frequent use of a form of a local Alsatian dialect.

In analyzing the transcripts, I looked first for experiences that were typical of a young

malgré-elle. I decided that the best way of illustrating these was by focusing on the story of

Jacqueline, who throughout my research in France became the best known of my interviewees

and the easiest to access. Not only that, but she provided me with the most complete personal

story. For a fuller understanding of the overall picture, my presentation of her story in Chapter 4

is accompanied by institutional and other contextual information that help to inform the events

typically experienced by the malgré-elles from the outbreak of the Second World War through to

their obligatory service in wartime Germany, their eventual return to their homes in France and

their readjustment to life there during and after the war.

121

As I progressed in analyzing the narratives, beyond the commonalities of broadly shared

experiences, highlighted in Chapter 4, I noticed differences in attitudes and opinions regarding

those experiences, depending, it sometimes seemed, upon the women’s geographical origins. It

soon began to appear that the women could be grouped in two linguistic and cultural groups and

that the influences associated with this may have affected their attitudes and their ability to adapt

to the demands of the coercive regimented conditions regulating their lives while obliged to

serve in German uniform during the war.

In re-analyzing the interview data in light of this hypothesis, I constructed a series of

Matrices around certain criteria. The first table was used to identify the place of each woman

within the two main linguistic and cultural groups. In this table as in the others, numerical

values were awarded to each criterion to obtain an overall aggregate for each interviewee and to

permit a comparison between the two groups.

These tables and the analysis associated with them are presented in Chapter 5. Table 1

permitted the identification of two linguistic and cultural groups which separated the women into

a Germanophone and a Francophone group which then were used for comparison and contrasting

purposes. Ten women were identified with the Germanophone group and five with the

Francophone group.

Table 2 provides information about the opinions or reactions of the women to the German

take-over of Moselle. Studying the results of this table it becomes apparent that most women

regardless of which group they belonged showed broadly similar levels of antipathy toward the

occupation of their département.

Table 3 explores the feelings and reactions of the women upon receiving their draft notice

for the RAD. Feelings of resignation and fear of reprisals seemed to have dominated the

reactions of the women upon receiving their draft notice. Overall, those of the German-speaking

group displayed more signs of resignation and acceptance than their Francophone peers while the

latter emphasized more that their acceptance was due to fear of reprisals against their families.

Table 4 looks at the reactions of the women to their experiences in Germany with

emphasis on their relationship with German peers and camp authority figures. It appears that

most of those who made friends with their German peers were from the German-speaking group.

Ability to speak German early while in the camp may well have facilitated the development of

friendships with German peers. In addition, a majority of the women in both groups indicated

122

positive attitudes toward their German camp cadres. Comparing the results of the two groups it

appears that slightly more of the German-speaking group viewed their camp cadres positively

than their Francophone counterparts but it is interesting to note that the difference in results was

minimal. The mostly similar results for both groups can be explained by pointing to the

possibility that a leveling effect was active in the case of the women of both groups facing

similar constraints in a coercive environment. It is also posited that the very similar positive

reactions of the women to their camp cadres may be due to the effects of a phenomenon similar

to the Stockholm syndrome. The total dependence on and subordination of young and

impressionable women, still in their late teens, to mature authority figures in a regimented

foreign environment can explain the unexpected and surprising positive attitudes that these

women displayed toward their wartime camp leadership.

Table 5 looks at reactions to the ritualistic and mandatory swearing of the oath of

allegiance to Hitler. A greater percentage of German-speakers than Francophones stated that

they did not remember swearing the oath. Given the importance of this oath in all German

official functions, the lack of remembrance by such a large number of German-speakers may be

due to memory repression of an event which contradicted too much the self image of the women

in light of the prevalent French national myth of total resistance to the German occupier.

On the surface, the resulting data offer only limited support for the hypothesis of a

correlation between cultural influences and the attitudes and experiences of the women

interviewed. Nevertheless, the women of the German-speaking group appear slightly less

negative to their experiences in the RAD/KHD than their Francophone peers, while the common

experiences of the members of the two groups, forced to function in a coercive environment in

Germany, tended to narrow this gap.

In reviewing the data, one must be mindful that the information for this dissertation was

collected from only fifteen already aged women. This limited quantity of interviewees cannot be

said to entirely reflect attitudes and beliefs of all the women who had been malgré-elles.

However, the data obtained can permit some limited conclusions that do shed some light on an

historical event which has been practically forgotten.

Throughout my research, I remained very mindful of the many difficulties involved in

collecting information from elderly women. To ensure that the women agreed to be recorded, a

comfortable rapport between the interviewee and interviewer had to be established and

123

maintained throughout the interview. Everything had to be done to put the interviewee at ease.

This was done holding the interview at a location of her choice which was most often in her own

home and usually in the presence of a family member. The fact that the interviewer spoke native

level French greatly facilitated communication except when the interviewee lapsed into a

mixture of local dialect, French and even in some cases German. Care had to be taken so as not

to appear too abrupt in requesting that the interviewee return to the main topic, which turned out

to be frequently needed. Special care had to be taken when broaching sensitive topics such as

the swearing the oath of allegiance to Hitler, friendship with German camp cadres or even why

they accepted the draft call when they could have tried to flee into non-occupied France as some

of their male counterparts had done. Always, the interviewer had to be mindful of possible

evidence of memory loss or degradation due to age or physical infirmities.

My research had to take into account the limited resources that were available. The

elderly nature of my research subjects, combined with logistical and other contraints, limited the

number of women whom I was able to find and interview. It became obvious that mortality of

potential subjects was a very real issue given that the great majority of interviewees were in their

mid-eighties and most reported that too many of their malgré-elles friends had already passed

away. Geographical dispersion of the interviewees required serious road transportation planning,

taking into account distances between interviewees and research time availability. The high cost

of car rental and the even higher European gas prices also limited in a moderate fashion the

scope of the research. Finally, the fact that the interviewer did not speak or read German placed

other limits on the research effort.

The subject of the malgré-elles and their experiences in the RAD/KHD in wartime

Germany has not been exhausted, far from it. The French are just becoming aware of the story

of the forced conscription of women from the annexed départements during the Second World

War. Greater interest on this subject within the annexed départements could in turn engender

interest at the national level. Such renewed interest could also lead to further focus on the story

of the all-male malgré-nous. Greater local interest can engender more efforts and resources in

the collection of information and documents forgotten in some French attic or government

archives.

The extension of research investigations on this subject into Germany would be of great

benefit to our understanding of the malgré-elles. Two relevant German Army archive locations

124

are mentioned in German wartime articles. They are the German Army Archives in Berlin and

another one in Freiburg. It is believed that whatever German language documents about the

RAD/KHD can be found there could provide additional valuable information and a clearer

picture of the experiences of French women as well as those of foreign-born young women from

many of the other annexed territories such as Luxemburg, Belgium and Austria.

125

APPENDIX A

GLOSSARY

Alsace–Lorraine (French): Territorial entity created by the Germans in 1871 and formed by the

French départements of Moselle, Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin. German reference is to Elsass-

Lothringen.

Abitur (German): Maturity exam (somewhat similar to US High School diploma) taken at the

end of secondary schooling whose passing earned the right to attend university.

Abwehr (German): German military intelligence organization during Second World War.

Arbeitsmaid (German): Young woman serving in the Reicharbeitsdienst (RAD) (q.v.).

Arbeitsmaiden (German): Young women serving in the Reicharbeitsdienst (RAD) (q.v.).

Bauer or Bauernführer (German): Local Frenchman appointed in the countryside by the Nazi

administration to supervise local agriculture projects in the annexed départements.

Bund Deutscher Mädel or BDM (German): Feminine branch of the Hitlerjugend for girls aged

14 to 18.

Blockleiter (German): Head of the neighborhood Nazi Party also responsible for the surveillance

of the population within the neighborhood.

Boches (French): Insulting word in French referring to Germans.

Confédération générale du travail (CGT) (French): Politically left leaning French national trade

union federation. Closely allied to the French Communist party with which it shares many of

its members.

Département (French): French national administrative territory, roughly to a county within a

U.S. state.

Départemental (French): Pertaining to a département (q.v.).

Deutsche Volksgemeinschaft (DVG) (German): Concept of a community of German people

applied by Gauleiter Bürckel to the people of Moselle in 1940.

Feldgendarmerie (German): German police force responsible for security outside of urban

centers.

Feldgrau (German): Field grey German army uniform.

Führer (German): Leader whose title is often associated with Hitler.

126

Führerin (German) : Female leader. In the context of the RAD used with a title such as

Lagerführerin or camp commander.

Führerinnen (German): Female RAD camp cadre (plural).

Gallicisation (French): Education process to Frenchify a population that had been previously

educated in the German educational system.

Gau (German): German administrative territory or region headed by a Gauleiter.

Gauleiter (German) : Political and administrative head of a region during the period of the Third

Reich.

Gau Westmark (German) : Western administrative region formed during the Second World War

consisting of the Sarre, Palatinat and Moselle regions with Saarbrücken as its capital.

Geheimstatspolizei (Gestapo) (German): All-powerful Nazi secret police responsible for

prevention and investigation of political crimes against the Nazi Party.

Hitlerjugend (H.J.) (German): Hitler youth to which belonged most boys 14 to 18 years of age.

Jungvolk Deutsches (DJ) (German): Nazi youth organization to which belonged most boys 10 to

14 years of age.

Kamaradschaft (German): Young woman who already finished her RAD service and was

retained in an RAD camp to provide example and advice to newly arrived RAD recruits.

Kriegshilftsdienst (KHD) (German): Auxiliary war service instituted in fall 1941 requiring

young women, on completion of their Reicharbeitsdienst (RAD) service, to perform a further

six months of labor to replace some of the lost German manpower.

Kriegsmarine (German): German Navy under Hitler.

Kriegsmarinehelferinnen (German): Women, who, having completed their RAD obligation, were

seconded to the German Navy to serve in administrative support duties.

Kriesleiter (German) : Political head of the département or district Nazi Party.

Kriminalpolizei (German): German police organization responsible for traditional detective work

involving non-political criminal cases.

Lorraine (French): North-eastern province of France consisting of the départements of Moselle,

Meuse, Meurthe et Moselle and Vosges.

Lorrain (e) (French)– Male or female person from the province of Lorraine.

Luftwaffe (German): German Air Force.

127

Luftwaffenhelfer (LwH) (German)– Older teen still in High School obliged to participate in the

war effort as air defense auxiliary serving as crew on antiaircraft guns.

Maginot Line: String of French fortifications built before WW2 to guard the northeast of France

from German invasion.

Malgré–nous (singular and plural) (French): Frenchman or Frenchmen from Alsace-Moselle

drafted into the RAD followed by service in the Wehrmacht or S.S.; the colloquial expression

malgré-nous signifies that they served against their will.

Malgré-elle (French): French woman from Alsace-Moselle drafted in the RAD followed by

service in the Kriegshilfsdienst; the colloquial expression malgré-elles signifies that they

served against their will.

Manu militari: Latin term meaning “immediately and with all necessary means” often used to

denote an action involving physical force against someone.

Moselle (French): Département of Moselle within the French province of Lorraine.

Müsterung (German): Military draft in-processing including a medical exam prior to the call-up

for the RAD.

Nachrichtenhelferinnen (German): Women, who, having completed their RAD obligation were

seconded to the Public Communications sector in order to fulfill their KHD duties.

Nazi: Member of the German National Socialist Workers Party or NSDAP, i.e. Nazi Party.

Nazification (French): Nazi policy and methods to indoctrinate a population in the tenets of the

Nazi political party.

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) (German) : Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht

(German Armed Forces) during the Second World War.

Orstgruppenleiter (German): Chief of local Nazi Party.

Passeur (French): Member of French Resistance specializing in helping ex-prisoners, Allied

airmen shot down over Europe and others wanted by the German occupying security forces.

Patriotes Résistants à l’Occupation (PRO) (French): Members of a French organization which,

after the occupation of Moselle by the German during the Second World War, refused to

accept the German occupation and its attempt at Nazification as well as the forced draft of

the youth in the annexed départements into the German Army.

Politischen leiter (German): German political leader.

Préfet (French): Chief government administrator of a French département.

128

Reich: German Empire; term used with reference to Hitler’s Third Reich which lasted 12 years.

Reichland (German): German national territory on which lived populations considered as ethnic

Germans.

Reich Mark (German): German national currency used from 1924 to 1948.

Reicharbeitsdienst (RAD) (German): System of civilian labor instituted by Nazi Germany as a

civic obligation for all those considered to be German citizens. Conducted within a state-run

military-style system of discipline, a six-month period of service within the RAD was made

compulsory for 18-year-old men in 1935 and for women of the same age in 1936. For men,

this training was the prelude to being called for service in the German armed forces. From

1941 onwards, women completing their RAD service were required to perform a further six

months of labor in support of the German war effort in the Kriegshilftsdienst (KHD) (q.v.).

Revanche (French): Political policy of the French government after the loss of the Franco-

Prussian war to regain the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine.

Schutzpolizei (Schupo) (German): Internal territorial uniformed police.

Schutzhaft (German): “Protective custody”, extra-legal policy used by Nazi security forces to

round-up, without a warrant, political opponents and especially Jews.

Schutzstaffel (SS) (German): Nazi Party militarized organization which served as Party

Praetorian Guard. This included the Waffen-SS who were considered as the elite military

arm of the Nazi Party.

Sicherheitspolizei or Sipo (German): Unified Security Police which combined the

Kriminalpolizei and Gestapo.

Sicherheitsdienst or SD (German): Intelligence collection element of the SS.

Siedler (German): Person of German ethnic background transplanted to the exterior

territories of the Reich to colonize them.

Silesia (German): Eastern province of Germany; today part of Poland.

Sippenhaftung (German): A form of collective responsibility.

Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) (French)– French national railroad

system.

Souvenir Français (French): Pre-WWI French patriotic association dedicated to the maintenance

of French national identity in the annexed territories of Alsace-Lorraine.

Staat (German): State or political entity.

129

Sturmabteilung or SA (German): Uniformed “Brown Shirts” assault sections of the Nazi Party.

Strassenbahnhelferinnen (German): Women, who, having completed their RAD service were

seconded to the Public Transport sector while serving their time in the KHD.

Volksdeutsche (German): Ethnic German.

Waffen-S.S. (German): Military branch of the S.S.

Wehrmacht (German): German armed forces of the Third Reich; term often used to denote the

German regular army.

Werhmachthelferinnen (German): Women seconded to the German Army as administrative

support auxiliaries.

Zellenleiter (German): Neighborhood Nazi party cell leader responsible also for the surveillance

of the people making-up his cell group.

130

APPENDIX B

TABLES

Table 1: Linguistic Background

Jacqueline

Béatr

ice

Sére

na

Clo

é

Néom

ie

Katr

ine

Pie

rrett

e

Karina

Ida

Jackie

Doro

tée

Rose

Colo

mbe

Léonie

Marie

Lived extensively in Germanophone area prior to draft

1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

One or more parents or grand-parents spoke German / Platt

1 x 1 x x 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x

Interviewee spoke German / Platt before draft

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0

Numerical Total 3 2 3 2 2 3 2 3 2 3 1 1 0 0 0

Total Answers 3 2 3 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2

Individual Aggregate

1 1 1 1 1 1 0.67 1 1 1 0.33 0.5 0 0 0

G (Germanophone)/ F (Francophone)

G G G G G G G G G G F F F F F

Legend for answers

Yes 1

No 0

Not mentioned x

131

Table 2: Reactions to German Take-Over

Jacquem

in

Balthazar

Shneid

er

Cle

ment

Noel

Kru

menaker

Pra

din

e

Kessele

r

Ijel

Jager

Die

tric

h

Riv

et

Couro

uve

Laure

nt

Mic

hele

Prior to draft

Reaction to arrival of German military

0 0 0 0 x 0 1 1 1 x 0 x 0 1 0

Reaction to annexation of Mosel

0 1 x 1 1 0 0 0 x x 1 0 0 x x

Numerical Total 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0

Total Answers 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 0 2 1 0 1 1

Individual Aggregate

0 0.5 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 0.5 1 0 0.5 0 0 1 0

Group Aggregate

4/10: .4 1.5/5: .3

Legend for answers

Resignation 1

Opposition 0 Not mentioned x

Table 3: Reaction to Draft

Jacqueline

Béatr

ice

Sére

na

Clo

é

Néom

ie

Katr

ine

Pie

rrett

e

Karina

Ida

Jackie

Doro

tée

Rose

Colo

mbe

Léonie

Marie

Interviewees’ reaction to draft

1 1 x 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

Group Aggregate 4/9: .4

1/5: .2

Legend for answers

Resignation/Acceptance 1 Fear of reprisal against family

0

Not mentioned x

132

Table 4: Reactions to Experiences in Germany

Jacqueline

Béatr

ice

Sére

na

Clo

é

Néom

ie

Katr

ine

Pie

rrett

e

Karina

Ida

Jackie

Doro

tée

Rose

Colo

mbe

Léonie

Marie

Reactions to German peers in RAD/KHD

1 0 x 1 1 x x x 1 1 x x 1 x 1

Attitude toward Führerins

1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 x

Adapted to RAD/KHD service

1 x x x x x x x x 1 0 0 1 0 x

Opinion of wartime service experience

1 0 x 1 x 0 0 0 1 1 x 0 1 1 x

Interviewee's opinion of majority of Germans

1 1 x x 1 0 x 1 1 x x x 1 1 x

Numerical Total

5 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 4 4 0 1 5 3 1

Total Answers

5 5 1 3 3 3 2 3 4 4 2 3 5 4 1

Individual Aggregate

1 0.4 1 0.6 0.6 0.3 0.5 0.6 1 1 0 0.33 1 0.75 1

Group Aggregate

7.21/10: .72 3.03/5: .616

Legend for answers

Positive 1

Negative 0

Not mentioned

x

133

Table 5: Oath of Loyalty to Hitler

Jacqueline

Béatr

ice

Sére

na

Clo

é

Néom

ie

Katr

ine

Pie

rrett

e

Karina

Ida

Jackie

Doro

tée

Rose

Colo

mbe

Léonie

Marie

Swore oath of loyalty 2 1 1 2 1 2 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 2 1

Group Aggregate 11/8:1.375

6/5: 1.2

Legend for answers

Did not remember 2

Remembers 1

Denies swearing oath 0

134

APPENDIX C

FIGURES

Wartime Map of France

A - Unoccupied France in 1940; Occupied in 1942.

B - Occupied France in 1940

C -Annexed département in 1940

D – Occupied and governed from Brussels.

E – Occupied by Italy in 1942

135

Map of Moselle

―Boundary of Moselle

xxx - Linguistic divide as of 1950 as indicated by Daniel Laumesfeld in La Lorraine Francique.

Germanic dialect zone located northeast (to the right) of dividing line; French-speaking zone to

the southwest (left) of the dividing line.

136

APPENDIX D

ILLUSTRATIONS

1: Document from the German Military Archives located in Freiburg translated into French which provides a concise resume of what the RAD/KHD was, the laws and regulations which pertained to it and their application to the young women from Alsace-Moselle. Figure continued on next page… (Source: ASCOMEMO)

137

1 (continued): Document from the German Military Archives located in Freiburg translated into French which provides a concise resume of what the RAD/KHD was, the laws and regulations which pertained to it and their application to the young women from Alsace-Moselle. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

138

2: 1941 German document sent to city mayors informing them of the RAD requirement for women in Moselle and requesting a list of names of those affected by the call-up. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

139

3: 1942 German official notification of the civic duty requirement for the RAD of men born in 1922, 1923 and 1924 as well as women born in 1923 and 1924. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

140

4: 1942 German official notification requesting identification of all young women born in 1924 able to serve in the RAD. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

141

5: 1942 German document call-up for the RAD of all young women of Moselle born in 1924. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

142

6: 1942 German document containing a form to be returned notifying whether those men and women who had been called up for the RAD have reported for the Müsterung, i.e. draft call-up and medical examination. Below this is found a form used to inform of any reason why potential draftee cannot report as ordered. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

143

7: 1943 German official notification of the call-up for the RAD of all young women of Moselle born in 1926. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

144

8: 1944 German document with French translation informing Maria Bardot that, given that she had refused to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler during her RAD service, her request for a work permit in Moselle has been denied. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

145

9: RAD identity card belonging to Hélène Wiesen from Metz. It contains on the right the dates covering her RAD service. (Source: Denise Weiland)

146

10: 1943 Photo of Hélène Wiesen (fifth from the right) at the RAD camp with some of her co- draftees. (Source: Denise Weiland)

147

11: 1993 photo of ex-RAD Arbeitsmaiden with some of the German ex-camp cadre. Gathering was to mark the fiftieth anniversary of their camp service. The photo contains three ex-Führerinen (the second and the third from the left; the fourth from the left was the Haupführerin or camp commander). Hélène Wiesen is the seventh from the right. (Source: Denise Weiland)

148

12: Four photos of the reunion of ex-Arbeitsmaiden with ex-camp cadre. Hélène Wiesen w/ sign indicating that fifty years ago she had been an RAD Arbeitsmaid. (Source: Denise Weiland)

149

13: Photo of Pierrette P. (anonymized identity of one of the malgré-elles interviewed during dissertation field work) in RAD dress uniform with RAD brooch on blouse collar. (Source: Pierrette P.)

150

14: Certificate of employment of Camilla Lang in a steel mill in Germany during her KHD service after her RAD service. (Source: Camilla Lang)

151

15: Health insurance card issued to Camilla Lang during her KHD service in Germany. (Source: Camilla Lang)

152

16: Repatriation card issued by the French Ministry of Prisoners, Deported Persons and Refugees to Camilla Lang intended to act as a temporary identity card. (Source: Camilla Lang)

153

17: Drawing by Camilla Lang of RAD camp building and surroundings. (Source: Camilla Lang)

18: Drawing by Camilla Lang of water hauling duty during RAD service during winter in the snow. (Source: Camilla Lang)

154

19: Drawing by Camilla Lang of Room 5 of dormitory for RAD Arbeitsmaiden with wooden bunk beds and wall lockers. (Source: Camilla Lang)

155

20: Drawing by Camilla Lang of sports (top) and cleaning (bottom) RAD activities. (Source: Camilla Lang)

156

21: Drawing by Camilla Lang of morning wake-up call, sport and washing up. (Source: Camilla Lang)

157

22: Drawing by Camilla Lang of the end of day. (Source: Camilla Lang)

158

23: 1942 document showing provisional decision intending to draft Cecile Rauch into the RAD and giving her Müsterung reporting place and date of 18 June 1942. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

159

24: 1942 German registration certificate identifying Cecilia Rauch as candidate for call-up for the RAD. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

160

25: Three unidentified RAD Arbeitsmaiden in RAD dress uniform wearing the bronze RAD brooch on blouse. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

161

26: Group of unidentified women of the KHD surrounding what seems to be a work supervisor. Note the distinctive KHD brooch worn by the two women seated. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

162

APPENDIX E

INTERVIEW GUIDE

The following Interview Guide was approved by the FSU Human Subjects Committee. It was

translated into French prior to conducting the research interviews.

GENERAL

Maiden name:___________________________________________

Date and Place of birth:____________________________________

Place of residence when draft notification arrived:_______________

Occupation when notified of draft:____________________________

Marital Status:____________________________________________

If married, how long were you married before receiving the draft notification?

________________________________________________________

Did you speak German? _________ How well?__________________

PHASE ONE- Start of War to Draft Notice Reception

What was your reaction on learning that France was at war with Germany?

___________________________________________________________

What was your reaction when German forces occupied your hometown?

163

____________________________________________________________

What was your reaction on learning of the Armistice?

____________________________________________________________

Reactions to news of the German annexation of Moselle?

Yours:_______________________________________________________

Members of your family?:________________________________________

Friends and colleagues?__________________________________________

Neighbors?____________________________________________________

How did you experience the occupation of your hometown?

_____________________________________________________________

Before received the draft notification, had you heard of a draft for young French women?

_____________________________________________________________

If yes; What was your reaction upon learning of this draft of others?

_____________________________________________________________

If not married at the time of notification were you living with your family?______________

Number of brothers at home and their ages: __________________________

164

Numbers of sisters and their ages:__________________________________

PHASE TWO – From Notification of Draft to Departure for RAD Camp

Date of reception of draft notification: ______________________________

What was your reaction upon receiving your draft notification?

______________________________________________________________

Family reactions to notification:

Parents (Father/Mother):___________________________________________

Brothers/Sisters:_________________________________________________

Friends/ Neighbors:_______________________________________________

Local dignitaries’ reactions to notification ( Mayor,parish priest,teacher) ?

_______________________________________________________________

Location of RAD Draft Review Board:________________________________

Date of RAD Draft review Board appointment:__________________________

Make-up of RAD Review Board:

Civilian members:_________________________________________________

165

Military members:_________________________________________________

Your reaction to Review Board experience:_____________________________

________________________________________________________________

PHASE TWO (Continued): Pre-departure to RAD camp.

Reactions to official notification of departure:

Yours:___________________________________________________________

Family reaction:___________________________________________________

Community reactions:_______________________________________________

Any attempts to overturn the RAD notifications? _________________________

Where?_________________________________

Who?__________________________________

Reasons given for attempts:__________________________________________-

Why did you accept to go?___________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Who agreed with your decision?_______________________________________

Who disagreed with your decision?_____________________________________

166

Why?____________________________________________________________

Family members:___________________________________________________

Community members:_______________________________________________

Did anyone give you any advice? _________Who?________________________

Were any pressures applied directly or indirectly on you to influence your decision to obey the

draft notification?____________________________________________

From whom?_______________________________________________________

What type and describe:______________________________________________

Which advice or pressure influenced you the most in your decision?

__________________________________________________________________

PHASE THREE: During RAD Training Period

When and where did you report to your RAD camp?____________________________

What was the name of your RAD camp?______________________________________

How many women were in your camp?_______________________________________

What was the breakdown of the female population in term of national origins?

German:________________________________________________________________

167

French:_________________________________________________________________

Other:__________________________________________________________________

Did you wear a uniform?_______ What type?___________________________________

Did you receive any weapons training?____On what weapon?______________________

How did you get along with:

Camp leadership?_________________________________________________________

German trainees?_________________________________________________________

Did you take the oath of allegiance to the German Head of State?___________________

What was your reaction to this requirement?____________________________________

Were you victim of any discriminations due to your being French? _________________

What type and from whom?_________________________________________________

Were you subjected to any unusual medical or physical treatment during this period?

What type?______________________________________________________________

When did your RAD training end?____________________________________________

What did you think of the training received and do you still share that opinion?

________________________________________________________________________

168

At the end of RAD training, were you further assigned to service activities in support of the

German war machine?__________________________________________________

If yes, where and when?__________________________________________________

Describe follow-on assignment?____________________________________________

If not, where did you go and what did you do?________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Do you have any knowledge if any non-German trainees from your camp were assigned to

German military units?___________________ How many?_____________________

What nationalities?________________________________________________________

Do you have any idea of the assignment selection process?

For military units?________________________________________________________

For civilian service support activities?________________________________________

What civilian service support activities assignment were there?____________________

______________________________________________________________________

169

PHASE FOUR- POST_RAD SERVICE SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

Assignment:____________________________________________________________

Location:______________________________________________________________

Dates (start and end):_____________________________________________________

Description of duties:_____________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

If assigned to German armed forces:__________________________________________

Which branch and unit:____________________________________________________

Start of assignment and end dates:____________________________________________

Location:________________________________________________________________

In what function?_________________________________________________________

Were you ever wounded during your post-RAD assignment?_____________________

How?___________________________________________________________________

When?__________________________________________________________________

Location (Geo):___________________________________________________________

If assigned to a non-armed forces function, were you ever the target of discrimination because of

your non-German origin?__________________________________________

170

If yes, from whom?________________________________________________________

What type?______________________________________________________________

PHASE FIVE: UPON RETURN TO FRANCE

When did you return to France?_____________________________________________

Return destination in France?_______________________________________________

Did you receive any help during your return?___________________________________

Who, where and why?_____________________________________________________

While on the way back did you have any misgivings about the type of welcome you might

receive? If yes, why? ________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

What did you do with your German official/identity documents?____________________

________________________________________________________________________

Did you meet any signs of disapproval from anyone on your way back?______________

If so, from whom and what type?_____________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

171

Upon your return to your intended destination in France, describe any signs of

disapproval?_____________________________________________________________

From parents:___________________________________________________________

From brothers/sisters:_____________________________________________________

Other family members:____________________________________________________

From friends:____________________________________________________________

From neighbors:__________________________________________________________

Local officials:___________________________________________________________

Representatives of national government:_______________________________________

Anyone else:_____________________________________________________________

Who disapproved and how was it demonstrated?_________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Your reactions to such signs:________________________________________________

Did you receive any supports against such discrimination?_________________________

From Whom and why?_____________________________________________________

172

Did your wartime service in Germany interfere in any way with any attempts to obtain work,

government services/aid, etc..___________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

PHASE SIX- POST RETURN

What was your reaction to the organizing of the “Malgré Nous”?____________________

________________________________________________________________________

When did you learn that women with similar wartime experiences were joining women’s

associations similar to those of the Malgré Nous?________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Did you desire to join such a women’s association?______________________________

Why?___________________________________________________________________

If you joined, which association did you join?___________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Where you aware that women from Belgium and Luxembourg had received compensation for

their involuntary wartime service in Germany?___________________

Your reactions to such compensation in other countries?__________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

173

Your reactions to the resistance women’s associations were encountering in their efforts for

recognition?___________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

What do you think were the sources of such resistance?___________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

What are your feelings vis à vis the Strasbourg based Foundation which was given responsibility

by the French government to identify and compensate all those who served involuntarily in

Germany during WW2?_______________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Given the passage of time since WW2, have your feelings, about your involuntary draft service

in Germany during that period, changed any? ____________________________

If so, in what way?________________________________________________________

Do you think it is a good idea to try to revitalize and maintain the wartime memoriries of people

like you who went through difficult experiences during WW2?_______________

If so, why?_____________________________________________________________

174

APPENDIX F

APPROVAL AND CONSENT FORMS

FSU HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE APPROVAL

175

INTERVIEW CONSCENT FORM

176

BIBLIOGRAPHY

UNPUBLISHED SOURCES

Initial research meetings

Jacqueline [pseudonym]. Malgré-elle. Courcelles–sur-Nied, Moselle: 28 June 2007. Metz: 3

July 2007.

Clausen, Marguerite. Président of Association des Incorporées de Force Féminin

du Haut-Rhin. Jebsheim: 10 July 2007.

Rohrback, Germaine. Présidente of Association des Incorporées de Force Féminin

Du Bas-Rhin. Saverne: 17 July 2007.

Liedman, Paul. Professor de Lycée and ex-Luftwaffenhelfer. Yutz, Moselle: 19 July

2007.

Rivet, Ady. Présidente of Association des Incorporées de Force Féminin de Moselle.

2007.

Torlotting, Simone. Expelled from Moselle during the war to Vienne département.

Louvigny, Moselle. 21 July 2007.

Personal interviews (15) with malgré-elles

Names cited here and throughout the dissertation are pseudonyms They are listed in the order in which they appear from left to right in Tables 1-5 with the Germanophone group first followed by the Francophones.

Germanophones

177

Jacqueline, J. Malgré-elle. Courcelles-sur-Nied, Moselle: 28 May 2008.

Béatrice, B. Malgré-elle. Yutz, Moselle: 9 July 2008.

Séréna, S. Malgré-elle. Mondelange, Moselle: 17 June 2008.

Cloé, C. Malgré-elle. Thionville, Moselle: 30 June 2008.

Neomie, N. Malgré-elle. Bouzonville, Moselle: 15 July 2008.

Katrine, K. Malgré-elle. Henridorff, Moselle: 27 June 2008.

Pierrette, P. Malgré-elle. Thionville, Moselle: 26 June 2008.

Karine, Ke. Malgré-elle. Morsbach, Moselle: 18 July 2008.

Ida, I. Malgré-elle. Gadrange: 24 June 2008.

Jackie, J. Malgré-elle. Metz, Moselle: 15 July 2008.

Francophones

Dorotée, D. Malgré-elle. Metz, Moselle: 1 July 2008.

Rose, R. Malgré-elle. Metz, Moselle: 3 June 2008.

Colombe, C. Malgré-elle. Ancy, Moselle: 20 June 2008.

Léonie, L. Malgré-elle. Rombas, Moselle: 2 July 2008.

Marie, M. Malgré-elle. Metz, Moselle: 10 June 2008.

178

Other meetings during the main research period

Gandebeuf, Jacques. Author of several books on wartime Moselle. Metz: 28 May

2008.

Mangeot, Jeanne. President of Historical Section of Moyeuvre-Grande. Moyeuvre-

Grange, Moselle: 10 June 2008.

Petitjean, Francis. Director, Direction Départemental, Office National des Ancients

Combattants et Victimes de Guerre de Moselle. Metz, Moselle: 28 May 2008.

Republicain Lorrain. Most widely read newspaper of Moselle. Metz, Moselle: 25

June 2008.

Ribic, C. Ex-Bund Deutscher Mädel . Freyming, Moselle: 3 July 2008.

Vincler, Jeanne. High School Professor of History. Creator of web site for her city of

Courcelles-Chaussy covering the Second World War. Courcelles-Chaussy,

Moselle: 12 June 2008.

Wackerman, Albert. Local historian well known at ASCOMEMO for his historical

articles on the département of Moselle. Mondelange, Moselle: 13 June 2008.

Wilmouth, Philippe. President ASCOMEMO. Hagondange, Moselle: 4 June 2008.

Archives Départementales de Metz

Telephone consultation with Director of Archives of the city of Saarbrucken who stated that they

did not have any documents on the RAD since most were destroyed or thrown away

during and after the war. Recommended contact with Archives of Freiburg and Berlin in

Germany. Saarbrucken, Germany: 7July 2008.

179

Telephone consultation with Director of Archives of the city of Thionville who stated that they

did not have anything anymore on the RAD. Thionville, Moselle: 4 July 2008.

Testimonies collected and archived by the Association pour la Conservation de la Mémoire

de la Moselle (ASCOMEMO)

Brundaller, Johanna: n.d. [received July 2007].

Dalstein, Joséphine: n.d. [received July 2007]. Decker (née Fonck), Jeanne: n.d. [received

January 2012].

E., C.( anonymous): n.d. [received July 2008].

Klein (née Stock), Thérése: n.d. [received July 2007].

Mardine (née Hoenig), Françoise: n.d. [received July 2007].

Oliger (née Dimnet), Stéphanie:n.d. [received July 2007].

Romang (née Burgun), Denise: n.d. [received July 2007].

Schiel ( née Depenweiller), Marie-Jeanne: n.d. [received July 2007].

Schmitt (née Fasel), Joséphine: n.d. [received July 2007].

Stebe (née Schneider), Elise: n.d. [received July 2007].

Zimmerlin, Marguerite: n.d. [received July 2008].

Zion (née Greiner), Anna: n.d. [received July 2007].

180

Miscellaneous unpublished written testimonies by malgré-elles

Clausen, Marguerite: Saverne: 22 May 2007.

Rivet, Ady: Metz: 16 May 2007.

Documents received from Denise Weiland of Enchenberg, Moselle.

This lady had at one time started to collect testimonies of malgré-elles intending to write an

article or a book on them.

Fortunato (née Busser), Irma: n.d. [received July 2008].

Lecacheur (née Wiesen), Hélène: n.d. [received July 2008].

Steiner, Marie: n.d. [received July 2008].

Wiesen, Hélène: n.d. [received July 2008].

Illustrations

See complete list in List of Figures.

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181

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21 November 1991.“ Le souvenir du train de la révolte de 1943”.

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188

17 July 2008. “L’indemnisation tant attendue”.

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13 October 1945: “La revanche des malgré-nous”.

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Metz”.

21 October 1945: “Sept semaines de voyage pour revoir Paris”.

29 August 1952: “Les conditions d’attribution de la carte du combatant aux incorporés de force

dans la WH”.

Estimated 1965: “ Les 10 ans de l’Entente franco-allemande”.

24 April 1966 : “Les enrolés de force ne fléchiront pas: ils preparent une action de longue

haleine”.

24 March 1971: “ Tribunal administrative: Être ou ne pas être Malgré-nous”.

20 August 1972: “ L’ordonnance de triste mémoire obligeait les jeunes Alsaciens à revetir

l’uniforme allemand”.

13 November 1977: “Dialogue entre des élus du Haut-Rhin et des femmes incorporées de force”.

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14 April 1980: “Les femmes incorporées de force s’organisent”.

189

10 September 1981: “Solution en vue pour le problème des femmes incorporées de force”.

31 March 1982: “Femmes incorporées de force: des solutions aux problèmes avant la fin de

l’année”.

15 June 1984: “Les Malgré-Nous indemnisés- Premier versement allemand”.

17 December 1985: “ La Fondation Entente Franco-Allemande va mener des actions sociales et

culturelles”.

09 January 1988: “ Le combat des Malgré-Nous”.

1989: “Nous sommes français à part entière”.

1990: “ 1141 morts identifies”.

18 April 1990: “Les anciens de Tambow demandent la constitution d’une commission mixte”.

22 July 1991: “Les incorporés de force de Moselle et d’Alsace demandent justice”.

26 December 1991: “Un drame que la nation doit reconnaître”.

29 February 1992: “Bürckel et les Malgré-Nous”.

25 April 1992: “Bürckel et les Malgré-Nous”.

2 March 1999: “Ordre noir”.

17 February 1999: “ Victimes du nazisme: un fonds des industriels allemands”.

190

15 March 2000: “ Les Mosellanes victims du RAD attendent l’indemnisation”.

3 December 2000: “Le combat des malgré-elles contre l’oubli”.

25 July 2002: “Agnes Theophile, Malgré –Elle: On n’avait pas le choix, il fallait travailler”.

8 March 2003: “ Les Malgré elles victimes oubliées”.

9 October 2004: “Sur ordre”.

15 June 2008: “Aide aux chercheurs”.

17 July 2008: “ Les Malgré-elles enfin reconnues”.

17 July 2008: “ Ady Rivet: Nous aussi on en a bavé”.

17 July 2008: “Malgre-elles: la reconnaissance”.

27 February 2009: “La Resistance en Moselle annexée”.

Other Printed Texts

Baldeweck, Yolande (1945). “La revanche des ‘malgré nous’”. Le Figaro, 13 October.

Cercle Histoire de Moyeuvre (1994) 50ème Anniversaire de la Liberation de Moyeuvre-Grande

par les Troupes Americaines le 9 Septembre 1944. Florange: Imprimerie Euro’Imprim.

Estrada de Tourniel, Jérôme (2001) “Incorporées de force: Les oubliées de l’histoire”. Parisien-

Grand Est, numéro 11, January-February, pp. 24-28.

Feuerstein, Lionel ( 1999). “L’honneur des ‘malgré-elles’”. L’Express, 29 July.

191

Krieger, Charles (2002) “Marie-Rose sous l’uniforme gris-bleu de la Luftwaffe”. L’Outre Forêt,

numéro 119, pp. 37-40.

Les Patriotes Résistants à l’Occupation. (19920 La Répression Nazie dans les Départements du

Rhin et de la Moselle. Guénange: Imprimerie c.f.p.

ONAC (Office National des Anciens Combattants de la Moselle) (n.d.a.). A Forgotten Battle:

The Dornot-Corny and Arnaville Bridgeheads. Metz : Point d’Impression de l’Armée de

Terre de Metz.

________L’Incorporation de Force en Moselle (n.d.b.) Metz: Point d’Impression de l’Armée de

Terre de Metz.

_________La Moselle Annexée-1940-1945 (n.d.c.) Metz: Point d’Impression de l’Etat- major

de la Region terre Nord-Est.

_________Les Lieux de Détention en Moselle Annexée et dans le Gau Westmark (n.d.d.) Metz:

Point d’Impression de l’Armée de Terre de Metz.

Schellmann, René (2002) “10 ans loin des siens”. L’Outre Forêt, revue trimestrielle IV, numéro

special 120, pp. 84-85.

Streicher, Jean-Claude (2001) “Internée à 8 ans au [SS-Umsiedlunslager] de Schelklingen

(Wurtemberg)”. L’Outre Forêt, numéro 115, pp. 35-47.

Vianes, Jean (1983) Le drame des “Malgré nous”: L’un des plus terribles et le plus méconnu de

la guerre 40-45. Midi Libre Hérault, 17 July.

Vonau, Jean-Laurent (2002) “Récit d’un crime contre la condition humaine commis il y a 60 ans:

L’INCORPORATION DE FORCE”. L’Outre Forêt, numéro 119, 2002, pp. 5-15.

192

Internet Documents

“Alsace-Lorraine”. http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/alsace-lorraine/history.html./ 18 May

2011.

“Economic History of Alsace-Lorraine”.

www.zum.de/whkmla/region/germany/aleconomy.html/ 6 June 2008.

“Incorporées de force par le IIIe Reich, les Malgré-elles enfin indemnisées”. http://www.

lepoint.fr/actualités-societé/2008-07-17.

“Land Reclamation: Members of the Reich Labor Service Construct Drainage Channels (1936)”.

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2019/10 April 2011.

“Le choix de la collaboration pour des Alsaciens Mosellan”.

http://www.tampow3945.com/le_choix_de_la_collaboration-.php/ 29 August 2011.

“Local law in Alsace-Moselle”. http://www.ask.com/wiki/Local_law_in_Alsace-Moselle./27

March 2011.

“Medical Examination of Polish Farm Hand Recruited as Foreign Workers for the Reich

(April/May 1940”. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2037/ 10

April 2011.

“Moselle”. http://titidorancea.com/z/moselle.htm/ 27 March 2011.

“Nazi flags of Adolph Hitler and the third Reich”. http://www.pzg.biz/flags_nazi.htm/23

November 2006.

“Ordnungspolizei”. http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Ordnungspolizei/ 3 October 2011.

193

“Reichsarbeitsdienst-und Kriegshilfdienst”.

http://www.dhm.de/lemo/forum/kollektives_gedaechtnis?084/index.html/ 29 March

2009.

“Reichsarbeitsdienst”. http://www. feldgrau.com/rad.html/10 April 2011.

Vincler, Jeanne. “ Les incorporés de force Mosellans”. http://www.leovillers.com/liste.html/13

October 2006.

Vincler, Jeanne. “Les incorporés de force courcellois (Mosellans)”.

http://www..leovillers.com/rad.html/ 28 February 2008.

“Wiki:Annexion de la Moselle (1940)”.

http://wapedia.mobi/fr/Annexion_de_la_Moselle_(1940)/ 16 April 2011.

194

Biographical Sketch

Steven A. Lovasz

Born in Budapest, Hungary on 18 July 1943.

Grammar school in France 1949-1956.

Lane Tech High School Chicago, Illinois 1958-1962.

B. A. from DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois 1968.

Commissioned Second Lieutenant Airborne Infantry USA 1968.

Attended the French École Supérieure de Guerre 1984.

Extensive service overseas such as Okinawa, Vietnam, Panama, Europe and Africa.

Final Army assignment was as Defense Attaché to US Embassy in Haiti 1992-1996.

Awards and decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star w/V

Device (2), Purple Heart (3), Air Medal and numerous meritorious and campaign awards.

Retired as Lieutenant-Colonel 1996.

Graduate School FSU Foreign Languages Department 1997.

French T.A. at FSU 1997-1998.

Security Manager for ExxonMobil operations in Cameroon and Chad 1998-2004.

Return to FSU and start of Doctoral Studies Program with Dr. Hargreaves 2005.

French T.A. at FSU 2005-2009.