Strasbourg Evacuation 1939

[Jim Oxley]

Blimey! The scale of relocations is really quite surprising. Were the people allowed to return once France signed the armistice?

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Jim Oxley

Blimey! The scale of relocations is really quite surprising. Were the people allowed to return once France signed the armistice?

..yes, wry smile here too...our European neighbours are very good at organising mass rail transit...

...can't see the occupying power laying on trains to transport eveyone home somehow - not that French 'Alsaciens' wanted to go home. Alsace was quickly 're-germanised' of course - the Mark became the official currency, French was banned, as was wearing the beret... etc etc...elsewhere many ethnic German 'Alsacien' refugees throughout France went to the new authorities to sign up as fully fledged Germans of course. The French 'administration' told them that they were 'free to stay or go home'...cf Amouroux P 552, 10 August 1940, ten buses, 3 cars and ten lorries departed Perigueux for Strasbourg...

[CJE]

Well, it's a very touchy matter over here.
Alsacians were neither French nor German and both at the same time!
Anyone coming in from outside Alsace was refered to as "French from the interior" and still is even nowadays.
However, most of the Alsacians (and Lorrans) "impressed" into the Wehrmacht called themselves the "malgré-nous" (against our will). They fought on the German side with little eargerness and few of them volunteered to join in the SS Division Charlemagne.