This year, in August, we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the forced incorporation of Alsatian and Moselle people into the army of the Third Reich. This decision, which broke international law in so many ways that I do not have time to talk about it here, is completely in line with what has preceded since 1940. There were at least two wars during the Second World War World, the phoney war first, 39-40 then the resistance until the liberation. For the Alsatians, this second part is not first of all warlike, since the region was annexed with the Moselle to the Nazi Third Reich.
It is this period 1940-1945 that interested Jean-Laurent Vonau in a very large format work published by Éditions du Signe. 512 pages is no longer a book, it is a sum resulting from more than 20 years of research carried out in both public and private archives, in France and Germany. The important documentation thus gathered, confronted with testimonies collected from the elders who lived through this event, allows us to give you a global vision of Nazi policy in Alsace.
Arrests, bullying, pro-regime associative organizations, ban on speaking or singing in French, daily life in compulsory labor service, the criminal visions of Gauleiter Wagner, the reaction of the populations before and after the landing until the liberation, the pockets of resistance, you will know everything about this very chaotic 1940-45 period in Alsace thanks to Jean-Laurent Vonau’s book, a mass of information published by Le Signe editions, at 45 € from your favorite bookseller.