Alsace-Lorraine Homeland League

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The Alsace-Lorraine Home League , founded on Whit Monday (June 5th) 1926 in Strasbourg , was the most important institution of the Alsace-Lorraine autonomy movement in the interwar period. The aim of the Heimatbund was the autonomy of Alsace and Lorraine within France and the protection of the German-speaking part of the region. Founding chairman was Dr. Eugen Ricklin , the former President of the second chamber of the Landtag of the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine , General Secretary was Jean Keppi .

The Heimatbund quickly began to work with Corsican and Breton autonomists (cooperation with the A Muvra and Breiz Atao movements , August 8, 1926), but was soon harassed by the French authorities with arrests and newspaper bans. In April 1927 a political trial against Alsatian autonomists followed in Colmar . On the part of official France, the autonomists were accused of secessionist intentions.

The Heimatbund was not a political party, but it did cooperate with several autonomist parties in Alsace and Lorraine. After the successes in the election to the French National Assembly on April 29, 1928, another trial immediately followed, in which in May 1928 two just elected Alsatian MPs were sentenced to prison terms in Colmar. In 1932, however, a number of Alsatian autonomists again succeeded in entering the National Assembly.

After the German occupation of France in May / June 1940, several Alsatian autonomists made themselves available to the Nazi civil administration in Alsace, and the Heimatbund itself was "brought into line" .

The Heimatbund in the feature film "The Alsatians"

In 1996 the feature film "Les Alsaciens ou les Deux Mathilde" (German version: Die Elsässer ) set a cinematic monument to the Alsace-Lorraine autonomy movement and the Heimatbund. In the third part of the four-part film, the formation of the Heimatbund and the arrest of part of its founders and leaders ( Albert Laugel and others) is shown.

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars , European university publications, series 3, volume 42, 366 p., Peter Lang GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Munich 1975.
  • Christopher J. Fischer: Alsace to the Alsatians. Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1939 (Studies in Contemporary European History, Vol. 5). Berghahn Books, New York-Oxford 2010