Eugène Philipps

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Eugène Philipps (in the civil registration Eugen , born July 6, 1918 in Strasbourg , then Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine ; † July 26, 2018 there ) was an Alsatian teacher, high school professor, publicist, sociolinguist and activist for the preservation of bilingualism in Alsace .

Life

As a young man, Eugène Philipps was drafted into the German Wehrmacht as an Alsatian during the de facto incorporation of Alsace into the German Empire at the time of the German occupation of France in World War II and thus belonged to the group of around 100,000 so-called Malgré-nous from this area. He was first used as a soldier in the east in East Prussia , Poland and the border with the Soviet Union . After a stay in the reserve hospital in Uelzen ( Lower Saxony ), he was assigned to an operations group on Lake Constance towards the end of the war , from which he deserted a few days before the surrender near Friedrichshafen .

After the war, Philipps initially held the teaching position in Itterswiller on the Alsace Wine Route for several years , later he taught as a professor of English (Professeur agrégé d'anglais honoraire) at the Lycée Technique commercial in Strasbourg. He has been teaching at several institutes at the University of Strasbourg , such as the Institut Européen d'Enseignement Commercial Supérieur , the Center d'Études International de la Propriété Industrielle and the Institut d'Études Politiques . His university teaching was based not least on his journalistic work.

Born in the German Empire, Philipps learned as a youth the centralistic and assimilatory language policy of the French Republic of the interwar period, which was often accepted with resistance in Alsace , then as a forced recruit the ruthless anti-French tyranny of National Socialism and in manhood the decline of the German (also in the form of the Alsatian dialects ) as an everyday language as a result of the rigid French language-political legislation in response to the German occupation from 1940 to 1945. In his books and essays in French and German, he was the author of numerous articles in the Alsatian daily newspapers and a speaker as a profound expert on the history of Alsace between France and Germany, in particular the development of linguistic relationships from a sociolinguistic point of view. In France as in Germany he was noticed and recognized in this regard.

Philipps saw himself personally - like his literary colleague and contemporary André Weckmann - as a representative of his own Alsatian identity, which, through access to the great cultures of the French and German-speaking areas, could play an important role in the sense of a cross-national European humanism. The promotion of an equal regional bilingualism with French and German (the latter in the two forms standard language and dialect ) was until the end his linguistic commitment u. a. as a member of the René Schickele Society , also at a critical distance from the centrally controlled language and school policy of France.

Eugène Philipps died just three weeks after his 100th birthday in his apartment in the Meinau district of Strasbourg.

Fonts (selection)

  • Les luttes linguistiques en Alsace jusqu'en 1945 . Strasbourg: Culture alsacienne 1977; 2è éd. Strasbourg: Balance 1986
  • L'Alsace face à son destin. La crise d'identité . Strasbourg: Société d'Edition de la Basse-Alsace 1978
  • Fate Alsace. Crisis of a culture and a language . German translation by Emma Guntz . Karlsruhe: CF Müller 1980
  • Le Défi alsacien. Strasbourg: Balance 1982
  • Contemporary Alsatian. The challenge of the story. Edited and translated by Monika Freitag. Karlsruhe: CF Müller 1987
  • L'Alsacien, c'est fini? Nouvelles perspectives linguistiques [avec Bernard Deck, Raymond Piela]. Strasbourg: Media 1989
  • Le pont. In the tourbillons de l'histoire alsacienne . Rétrospective et perspectives, récit d'un “Malgré-nous”. - The bridge. In the vortex of Alsatian history. Review and outlook, experience report of a forced draftee. Strasbourg: Media 1991
  • Une tragédie pour l'Alsace: La dictature nazie et l'incorporation de force. Un témoignage vécu . Strasbourg: Balance 1993
  • L'ambition culturelle de l'Alsace . Strasbourg: Salde / Media 1996
  • Nostalgies "blood and soil"? Ou une vision de l'Alsace porteuse d'avenir . Strasbourg: Balance 2000

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary
  2. ↑ See Les jeunes d'Alsace et de Moselle dans l'armée allemande. Sous la you. de Bernard Deck. Strasbourg: L'Ami du peuple 2005
personal data
SURNAME Philipps, Eugène
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Philipps, Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Alsatian publicist and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 2018
Place of death Strasbourg