Fleury-devant-Douaumont
| Fleury-devant-Douaumont | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Grand Est | |
| Department | Meuse | |
| Arrondissement | Verdun | |
| Canton | Belleville-sur-Meuse | |
| Community association | Grand Verdun | |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 12 ' N , 5 ° 26' E | |
| height | 227-390 m | |
| surface | 10.27 km 2 | |
| Residents | 0 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 0 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 55100 | |
| INSEE code | 55189 | |
 Information board on the destroyed village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont |
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Until the beginning of the Battle of Verdun in World War I, Fleury-devant-Douaumont was a small French farming village in the Meuse department in the Grand Est region (until 2015 Lorraine ). It was located in the inner defensive ring of Verdun and in a strategically crucial position in front of Verdun between the Fort de Souville and the Ouvrage de Froideterre .
Village détruit
During the battle, the village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, which changed hands several times during the fighting during 1916, was completely destroyed except for a few stones.
Today it is one of the so-called Destroyed Villages (Villages détruits) that were not rebuilt. The already barren soil of the Maas heights around the municipality was contaminated by explosives, leftover ammunition, poison gas , corpses and cadavers, so that many farmers could no longer till the soil. In total there are nine of these completely destroyed places in France. When touring the site, it is still advisable to stay on the trails as duds and other military equipment and human bones can still be found.
status
Although destroyed and without inhabitants, Fleury has retained its status as a French commune to this day. The place has a zip code and there is a mayor appointed by the prefect of the department of Meuse. The same applies to the other eight villages that were destroyed and not rebuilt in the former combat area of the Rouge zone . The Mémorial de Verdun , a memorial with a museum, was built by the architect Charles Legrand from 1963 to 1967 on the site of the village's former train station . At the end of the 20th century there was an attempt to repopulate, but this failed after a few years.
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2017 |
| Residents | 0 | 5 | 5 | 4th | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
symbol
Fleury-devant-Douaumont reached the world press again on September 22, 1984 through the meeting between President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl , when both hand in hand in front of the Douaumont ossuary commemorated the dead in the Battle of Verdun in the First World War . Your gesture is considered a symbolic climax of the Franco-German reconciliation.
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Meuse. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-84234-074-4 , pp. 182-189.
