A decree issued on August 25, 1942 ordered the conscription of young men from the annexed part of eastern France into the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS.
Designated as despite U.S (in spite of us), 130,000 men were mobilized. About 32,000 people died and another 9,000 disappeared. About 15,000 young women, nicknamed despite themwere conscripted into forced labor.
Several ceremonies took place throughout Alsace for the 80th anniversary of the decree in August. In Obernai and Schirmeck, a banner 36 meters long with the names and photos of 12,000 despite U.S originally listed as missing was displayed.
Amateur historian Claude Herold, 66, went through photos of 1.3 million missing German army soldiers made available by the German Red Cross, and copied each one with an E next to it, for Elsaß– Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine).
Three of Mr Herold’s uncles were forcibly conscripted – one died in Russia, another in Italy and the third was reported missing in Poland – while his father’s cousin and three of his mother’s uncles are also deceased.
“One of my uncles was the first in the French army in 1940 and was drafted into the German army in 1943. Those who had been in the French army were ashamed to wear the German uniform.
Ernest Herold pictured in a French uniform in 1940; he was then drafted into the Wehrmacht / Photo: Claude Herold
René Herold was killed in Italy and buried by New Zealand soldiers / Photo: Claude Herold
“These young men had no choice”
“These young men had no choice. If they refused, their families were deported and their property confiscated.
Gérard Michel, president of the Orphans of Fathers Despite-We of Alsace-Moselle (OPMNAM), association of descendants of despite U.Snever knew his father.
He was mobilized in November 1944, a month before the birth of his son: “My mother was very pregnant so he couldn’t run away with her.
OPMNAM was one of the four associations to pay for the “wall of names”.
“When I was little, my grandmother visited the Jardin de la Résistance in Schiltigheim, where the names of those who died in the Resistance were displayed. My father’s name was not written anywhere. It’s as if they never existed. »
wall of honor
It was planned that a wall of names honoring all the inhabitants of the region who died during the war would be built at the Alsace-Moselle Memorial in Schirmeck.
Following the controversy over grouping the names of forced conscripts alongside those of resisters and deportees, the plans were abandoned in favor of a digital monument that will provide more historical context.
Historian Frédéric Stroh, whose book The Despite Us of Torgau traces the fate of the Resistance fighters, said: “In Alsace, one has the feeling that the rest of France does not understand what the forced conscripts were. Since the war, the despite U.S have often been associated with the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. In 1944, a Waffen-SS company destroyed a village in Haute-Vienne, killing 642 people. Among the soldiers are 14 Alsatians. Historians estimate that only around 2,500 people from Alsace-Moselle volunteered for the German army. Despite the personal risk, around 40,000 people escaped before they were called or deserted once on the front line, Dr Stroh said.
“Too many people think this is a regional story and not sufficiently embedded in the national collective memory,” he added.
Little interest elsewhere in France
“For the 80th anniversary, there were no commemorations at the national level, and historians from elsewhere in France show little interest in it.”
However, he believes that the misunderstanding of France from the inside, as the rest of the country in Alsace-Moselle is called, has diminished over the years and is “overestimated by associations”.
In 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy declared: “The despite U.S were not traitors…they were victims.
Unrecognized Alsatian culture
For Pascale Erhart, professor of dialectology at the University of Strasbourg, beyond the words of reconciliation, the “shock waves” continue to be felt in the struggle for the recognition of Alsatian culture. In local schools, children learn German, not Alsatian.
Read more: Five regions of France that have not always been French
“Only in Alsace does the dialect spoken there not have the status of a regional language,” she said.
“Corsican is a dialect of Italian, but the Corsicans were not in Oradour. They don’t have the weight of this story.
OPMNAM, for its part, is now committed to demanding compensation from Germany in excess of the highest 9,100 francs (€2,200) despite U.S received in the 1980s.
Mr Michel said: “Everyone who is buried somewhere in Poland or Russia still has German nationality and the uniform on their back.
“We believe the Germans have a moral responsibility to compensate us as they would themselves.”
Another demand from OPMNAM is that forced conscription be considered a crime against humanity.
For Dr Stroh, this would blur the distinction between the despite U.S and victims of genocide: “This risks putting everything on the same level.
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