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2012 The Malgré-Elles of Steven A. (Steven Alexander) Lovasz

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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 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

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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

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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 . 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

ix 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

x 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.

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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 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.

1 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

2 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

3 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

4 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 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.

5 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

6 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

7 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

8 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

9 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 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.

10 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

11 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.

12 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.

13 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

14 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

15 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.

16 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 , 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

17 northernmost city of . 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 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).

18 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

19 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 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).

20

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

21 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?

22 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 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

23 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

24 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

25 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

26 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

27 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

28 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

29 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

30 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.

31 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

32 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’

33 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

34 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

35 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

36 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

37 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

38 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

39 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

40 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).

41 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

42 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).

43 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

44 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

45 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

46 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

47 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).

48 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

49 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

50 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.

51 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

52 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

53 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).

54 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

55 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.

56 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

57 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

58 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

59 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

60 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

61 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

62 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.

63 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

64 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

65 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

66 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

67 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

68 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

69 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).

70

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.

71 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

72 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

73 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.

74 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.

75 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

76 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.

77 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.

78 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

79 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

80 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

81 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

82 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.

83 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

84 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

85 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

86 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).

87

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

88 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

89 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

90 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

91 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 or from the Francophone zone of Moselle who did not speak German on

92 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

93 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

94 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

95 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.

96

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.

97 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

98 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

99 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

100 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

101 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 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.

102 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

103 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

104 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

105 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.

106 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.

107 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

108 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

109 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.

110 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.

111 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

112 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

113 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

114 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

115 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.

116 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.

117 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

118 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

119 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.

120 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

121 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

122 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

123 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.

124 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.

125 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.

126 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.

127 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.

128 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.

129 APPENDIX B TABLES

Table 1: Linguistic Background

Ida Cloé Rose Marie Jackie Karina Léonie Sérena Katrine Néomie Dorotée Béatrice Pierrette Colombe Jacqueline

Lived extensively in Germanophone 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 area prior to draft

One or more parents or grand- 1 x 1 x x 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x parents spoke German / Platt

Interviewee spoke German / Platt 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 before draft

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 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.67 1 1 1 0.33 0.5 0 0 0 Aggregate

G (Germanophone)/ G G G G G G G G G G F F F F F F (Francophone)

Legend for answers Yes 1 No 0 Not mentioned x

130

Table 2: Reactions to German Take-Over

Ijel adine Noel Rivet Jager Michele Pr Laurent Dietrich Clement Kesseler Shneider Balthazar Courouve Jacquemin Krumenaker

Prior to draft Reaction to arrival of 0 0 0 0 x 0 1 1 1 x 0 x 0 1 0 German military Reaction to annexation of 0 1 x 1 1 0 0 0 x x 1 0 0 x x Mosel 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 0 0.5 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 0.5 1 0 0.5 0 0 1 0 Aggregate Group 4/10: .4 1.5/5: .3 Aggregate

Legend for answers Resignation 1 Opposition 0 Not mentioned x

Table 3: Reaction to Draft

ie

Ida Cloé Rose Marie Jack Karina Léonie Sérena Katrine Néomie Dorotée Béatrice Pierrette Colombe Jacqueline

Interviewees’ reaction to 1 1 x 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 draft

Group Aggregate 1/5: .2 4/9: .4

Legend for answers Resignation/Acceptance 1 Fear of reprisal against 0 family Not mentioned x

131

Table 4: Reactions to Experiences in Germany

ie

Ida Cloé Rose Marie Jack Karina Léonie Sérena Katrine Néomie Dorotée Béatrice Pierrette Colombe Jacqueline

Reactions to German 1 0 x 1 1 x x x 1 1 x x 1 x 1 peers in RAD/KHD Attitude toward 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 x Führerins Adapted to RAD/KHD 1 x x x x x x x x 1 0 0 1 0 x service Opinion of wartime 1 0 x 1 x 0 0 0 1 1 x 0 1 1 x service experience Interviewee's opinion of 1 1 x x 1 0 x 1 1 x x x 1 1 x majority of Germans Numerical 5 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 4 4 0 1 5 3 1 Total Total 5 5 1 3 3 3 2 3 4 4 2 3 5 4 1 Answers Individual 1 0.4 1 0.6 0.6 0.3 0.5 0.6 1 1 0 0.33 1 0.75 1 Aggregate Group 7.21/10: .72 3.03/5: .616 Aggregate

Legend for answers Positive 1 Negative 0 Not x mentioned

132

Table 5: Oath of Loyalty to Hitler

Ida Cloé Rose Marie Jackie Karina Léonie Sérena Katrine Néomie Dorotée Béatrice Pierrette Colombe Jacqueline

Swore oath of loyalty 2 1 1 2 1 2 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 2 1

Group Aggregate 6/5: 1.2 11/8:1.375

Legend for answers Did not remember 2 Remembers 1 Denies swearing oath 0

133 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

134

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.

135 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)

136

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)

137

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)

138

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)

139

4: 1942 German official notification requesting identification of all young women born in 1924 able to serve in the RAD. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

140

5: 1942 German document call-up for the RAD of all young women of Moselle born in 1924. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

141

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)

142

7: 1943 German official notification of the call-up for the RAD of all young women of Moselle born in 1926. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

143

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)

144

9: RAD identity card belonging to Hélène Wiesen from Metz. It contains on the right the dates covering her RAD service. (Source: Denise Weiland)

145

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

146

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)

147

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)

148

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.)

149

14: Certificate of employment of Camilla Lang in a steel mill in Germany during her KHD service after her RAD service. (Source: Camilla Lang)

150

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

151

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)

152

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)

153

19: Drawing by Camilla Lang of Room 5 of dormitory for RAD Arbeitsmaiden with wooden bunk beds and wall lockers. (Source: Camilla Lang)

154

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

155

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

156

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

157

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)

158

24: 1942 German registration certificate identifying Cecilia Rauch as candidate for call-up for the RAD. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

159

25: Three unidentified RAD Arbeitsmaiden in RAD dress uniform wearing the bronze RAD brooch on blouse. (Source: ASCOMEMO)

160

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)

161 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?

162 ______

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: ______

163

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:______

164 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?______

165 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:______

166 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?

______

167

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?______

______

168 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?______

169

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?______

______

170 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?______

171 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?______

______

172 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?______

173 APPENDIX F

APPROVAL AND CONSENT FORMS

FSU HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE APPROVAL

174

INTERVIEW CONSCENT FORM

175 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

176 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.

177 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.

178 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].

179 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.

PUBLISHED SOURCES Scholarly books and articles

Ambrosi, Christian (1976) La France 1870-1975. Paris: Masson.

Amouroux, Henri (1976) Le Peuple du Désastre, 1939-1940. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont.

Amouroux, Henri (1977) Quarante Millions de Petainistes, Juin 1940-Juin 1941. Paris:

180 Editions Robert Laffont.

Amouroux, Henri (1978) Les Beaux Jours des Collabos. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont.

Amouroux, Henri (1979) Le Peuple Reveillé, Juin 1940-Avril 1942. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont.

Amouroux, Henri (1988) Joies et Douleurs du Peuple Libéré, 6 Juin-1 Septembre 1944. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont.

Amouroux , Henri (1991) Les Règlements de Compte, Septembre 1944-Janvier 1945. Paris: Robert Laffont.

Les Années de Liberté 1940-1945 (1994). Metz: Republicain Lorrain.

Anneser, Jules (1948) Vautours sur la Lorraine. Metz: Editions Le Lorrain.

Appel, Maurice; Clauss, Gaston; France, Hubert; Lefort, Jean; Mirgain, Roger (1996) Les P.R.O de Moselle 1940-1945. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Barbier, Nina (2008) Malgré Elles: Les Alsaciennes et Mosellanes Incorporées de force dans la machine de Guerre Nazie. Strasbourg: Ed. La Nuée Bleue.

Benoit, Michèle; Michel, Claude (2001) le Parler de Metz et du Pays Messin. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Berglund, Abraham (1919) “The Iron-Ore Problem of Lorraine”. The Quarterl Journal of Economics, 3 May, pp. 531-554.

Bleicher, Albert (1942) Elsass und Lothringen wirtschaftlich gesehen. Postdam: Hayn’s Erben.

181 Bourdel, Philippe (2002) L’épuration sauvage; 1944-1945. Paris: Perrin.

Burg, Joseph; Pierron, Marcel (1991) Malgré-Nous et Autres Oubliés- 1940-1945. Sarreguemines: Editions Pierrom.

Catella, Francis (1987) “Le N.S.D.A.P.” Uniformalogie et Organigrames. Strasbourg: Publications Francis Catella.

Cuny, Jean-Marie (1990) Histoire de la Lorraine. Nancy: Editions JMC.

Denis, Pierre, Général (1997) La Libération de la Moselle. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Dauendorffer, Jules (1982) J’étais un “Malgré-Nous”. Boulay: Imprimerie Leon Louis &Cie.

DeFabrique Nathalie, Steven J. Romano, and Vincent B. Vanttasselt (2007) “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome”. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July, pp. 10-15.

Fischbach, Bernard (2009) RAD, malgré eux. Saint-Cyr-sur- Loire: Editions Alain Sutton.

Furia, Daniel (2003) Des Alsaciens pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Lyon: Editions Bellier.

Fortescue, William (2000) The Third Republic in France, 1870-1940. London: Routledge.

Einchenlaub, Jean-Luc, and Jean-Noël Grandhomme, eds (2003) Août 1942, l’incorporation de force des Alsaciens et des Mosellans dans les armées allemandes. Colmar: Archives Départementales du Haut-Rhin, 2003.

Gandebeuf, Jacques (1996) Le Silence rompu: La Moselle racontée aux Françaix de l’intérieur. Metz: Ed. Serpenoise.

182

Gandebeuf, Jacques (1998) La Parole retrouvée: Près de 200 Mosellans racontent leur vie entre 1940 et 1945. Metz: Ed. Serpenoise.

Gellately, Robert (1990) The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gilbert, Martin (1989) The Second World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Gildea, Robert (2002) France since 1945. Oxford: University Press.

Gildea, Robert (2004) Marianne In Chains. New York: Picador Edition.

Gillingham, John (1985) Industry and Politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr Coal, Hitler and Europe. New York: Columbia University Press.

Golsan, Richard J (2000) Vichy’s Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Gonner, von Generalarbeitsfuhrer (1939) Spaten und Uhre. Heidelberg: Kurt Vowindel Verlag.

Goodfellow, Samuel Huston (1999) Between the Swastika and the Cross of Lorraine: Fascism in Interwar Alsace. Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press.

Grandhomme, Jean-Noël (2008) Boches Ou Tricolores- Les Alsaciens-Lorrains dans la Grande Guerre. Strasbourg: Editions La Nuée Bleue.

Hargreaves, Alec G (2005) Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism. Laham: Lexington Books.

183 Heiderscheid, Andre (2000) Zwangsrekrutiert. Luxembourg: Editions Saint-Paul.

Heiser, Eugene. (1982) La Tragedie Lorraine. Sarreguemines: Editions Pierron.

Hiegel, Henri (1982) L’Enrolement Des Mosellans Dans La R.A.D. Sarreguemines: Imprimerie Pierron.

Hopkin, David M. (2003) Soldier and Peasant In French Popular Culture, 1766-1870. Suffolk: The Boydell Press.

Jackson, Julian (2001) France- The Dark Years 1940-1944 . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Judt, Tony (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York: Penguin Press. Kaplan, Alice (2000) The Collaborator: The trial &execution of Robert Brasillach. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Kater, Michael H. (2004) Hitler Youth. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Kedward, H.R. (1985) Occupied France-Collaboration and Resistance 1940-1944. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Kenson, Keith H. (2006) “Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War”. Mankind Quarterly, Volume XLVI Number 4, Summer.

Langer, Lawrence L. (1991) Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Laumesfeld, Daniel. (2006) La Lorraine Francique- Culture mosaique et dissidence linguistique. Paris: L’Harmattan.

184 Leclercq, Christine, and Jarrige, Olivier, and Neveu, Cedric, and Méaux, Alexandre (2011) Trous de Mémoire- Prisonniers de guerre et travailleurs forcés en Moselle annexée. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Le Moigne, Francois-Yves, ed. (1991) Moselle. Paris: Editions Bonneton.

Le Marec, Bernard, and Le Marec, Gérard (2005) Les Années noires: La Moselle annexée par Hitler. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Liddell Hart, B. H. (1970) History of the Second World War. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Mallebrein, Wolfram (1979) Manner und Maiden. Auflage: Verlag K.W. Schiitz KG. Preubisch Oldendorf.

Martino, Laurent (2009) Histoire Chronologique de la Lorraine. Nancy: Editions Place Stanislas.

Mayeur, Jean-Marie, and Reberioux, Madeleine (1984) The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War, 1871-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Patel, Kiran Klaus (2005) Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New deal America, 1933-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paxton, Robert, O. (1972) Vichy France; Old Guard and New Order 1940-1944. New York: Columbia University Press.

Perny, Pierre (2005) L’incorporation de force: Témoignages de “Malgré-Nous”. Illkirch: Imprimerie Valbor.

Riedweg, Eugène (2008) Les “Malgré Nous”: Histoire de l’Incorporation de force des Alsaciens-Mosellans dans l’armée allemande. Strasbourg: Editions La Nuée Bleue.

185

Riethmuller, Marthe, and Joseph (1999) Le Canton de Pange. Joué-les-Tours:Editions Alan Sutton.

Roos, Pierre (2006) Histoire de la Communauté Juive de Thionville. Thionville: Documents Thionvillois.

Roth, Francois (2006) Histoire de la Lorraine et des Lorrains. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Roth, Francois (2010) Alsace Lorraine: Histoire d’un “pays perdu”. Nancy: Editions Place Stanislas.

Roth, Francois (2011) La Lorraine Annexée 1871-1918. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Rouquet, Francois (2011) Une Épuration Ordinaire (1944-1949). Paris: CNRS Editions.

Rousso, Henry (1991) The Vichy Syndrome. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Silverman, Dan P. (1972) Reluctant Union: Alsace Lorraine and Imperial Germany 1871-1918. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Société d’Histoire et d’Archeologie du Ried Nord (2005) L’incorporation de force: Témoignage de Malgré-Nous. Illkich: Imprimerie Valblor.

Soutou, Georges-Henri (1989) L’Or et le Sang: Les Buts de Guerre Économiques de la Première Guerre Mondiale. Paris: Fayard.

Sutter, Antoine (1987) Mgr Joseph Heintz (1886-1958); Centième évêque de Metz; Pèlerin de l’Espérence. Metz: Evêché de Metz.

Tournoux, J.-R. (1964) Pétain et De Gaulle: Secrets d’État. Meaux: Plon.

186

Vinen, Richard (2006) The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Weyland, Albert. (2010) Moselle Plurielle. Metz: Editions Serpenoise.

Williamson, Gordon (2003) World War II German Women’s Auxilliary Services. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

Wilmouth, Philippe (2004) La Moselle en Guerre 1939-1945. Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire: Editions Alan Sutton.

Vinen, Richard (2006) The Unfree French; Life under the Occupation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Winter, J.M. (1990) La Première Guerre Mondiale. Paris: Selection du Reader’s Digest. Paris.

Wolfanger, Dieter (1982) Nazification de la Lorraine mosellane 1940-1945. Sarreguemines: Editions Pierron.

Newspaper Articles

Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace [Strasbourg].

21 November 1991.“ Le souvenir du train de la révolte de 1943”.

21 November 1991. “Un train nommé révolte”.

17 July 2008. “RAD-KHD: la fin d’un long feuilleton”.

187 17 July 2008. “L’indemnisation tant attendue”.

Le Republicain Lorrain [Metz].

October 1945: “168 Lorrains sont rapatriés de Russie”.

13 October 1945: “La revanche des malgré-nous”.

21 October 1945: “300 Alsaciens et Lorrains malades rapatriés de Tambow ont fait escale à 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”.

14 January 1980: “ L’enrolement des Mosellans dans le R.A.D. et la Wehrmacht”.

14 April 1980: “Les femmes incorporées de force s’organisent”.

188

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”.

189 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- , numéro 11, January-February, pp. 24-28.

Feuerstein, Lionel ( 1999). “L’honneur des ‘malgré-elles’”. L’Express, 29 July.

190

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.

191

Internet Documents

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“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.

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“Nazi flags of Adolph Hitler and the third Reich”. http://www.pzg.biz/flags_nazi.htm/23 November 2006.

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192

“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.

193 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.

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