Commission de Triage

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The Commission de Triage (German: Triage Commission ) was the name given to commissions set up by the French authorities in the German-speaking areas of Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War . Their task was to pass resolutions on the Germans to be expelled and to punish collaborators . The name derives from the triage , i.e. the sighting and sorting of the wounded.

history

The commissions arose according to plan in all the larger and medium-sized cities of the former Reichsland . They consisted of a presiding officer and three assessors selected by the Commissioner General from a list of proposals. This list of proposals was drawn up by the chambers of commerce, trade unions and city councils. The commission also included a secretary who was appointed by the commissioner general on the basis of a proposal by the French army.

About 150,000 people, mostly old Germans , who themselves or their parents / grandparents came from the German Reich or from Austria-Hungary, were expelled by sayings of the triage commissions . In addition, the chambers pronounced property penalties or the deprivation of civil rights. In addition to the “old Germans”, Alsatians and Lorraine people who had not immigrated (including those with French as their mother tongue) were also affected and were accused of collaborating with the German administration or the German military.

There was no prosecution. The commissions worked on the basis of black lists and denunciations . The last commissions stopped their work in the mid-1920s.

In 1919, in Colmar , Strasbourg and Metz, Commissions spéciales d'Examen des Etrangers (translated: Special Commissions for the Investigation of Foreigners) were set up as a second instance to review complaints against decisions of the Triage Commission on deportation. These commissions, which met for 18 months, consisted of a judge appointed by the general commissioner on the proposal of the general public prosecutor, as well as three assessors and a secretary, who were appointed in the same way as the triage commissions.

Even after the Second World War , comparable commissions were set up to punish collaboration in France (1940-1944) , the Commission d'Épuration .

Known victims

literature

  • Laird Boswell: From Liberation to Purge Trials in the “Mythical Provinces”: Recasting French Identites in Alsace and Lorraine, 1918–1920 . In: French Historical Studies , 23/1, 2000, pp. 129-162.
  • François Roth: The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France . In: Gerd Krumeich (Ed.): Versailles 1919. Aims - Effect - Perception (Writings of the Library for Contemporary History - New Series, Volume 14), Essen 2001, pp. 126–144.
  • David Allen Harvey: Lost Children or Enemy Aliens? Classifying the Population of Alsace after the First World War . In: Journal of Contemporary History , 34/4, 1999, pp. 537-554, JSTOR 261250
  • Christiane Kohser-Spohn: State violence and the compulsion to be clear. French politics in Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War . In: Philipp Ther, Holm Sundhaussen (Ed.): Nationality Conflicts in the 20th Century: A Comparison of Causes of Inter-Ethnic Violence (Research on Eastern European History, Volume 59), Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 978-3-447-04494-3 , Pp. 183-202, books.google.de

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arrêté du 11 may 1919 Commissariat Général de la République