Red Zone (Siegfried Line)
During the Second World War, the red zone was the 400 km long and 10 km wide postage area along the Franco-German border in the run-up to and between the fortifications of the West Wall . The inhabitants of this area, around one million people, were evacuated several times between 1939 and 1945 to the interior of the German Reich . In the course of this measure, the residents had to give up their property and leave it behind.
prehistory
During the Sudeten crisis in September 1938, there was already a risk of war between the German Reich and France . Private individuals left the border area threatened in the event of war on their own initiative. The party leadership referred to the people as "Sudeten crooks" and "suitcase patriots", but at the same time they began planning for an evacuation of the population in the border area in the event of a war. The area in question was called the “Red Zone” and comprised an area of around 400 km in length and 10 km in width from Basel in the south to Aachen in the north, which in addition to rural regions also included densely populated areas such as Karlsruhe , Saarbrücken , Saarlautern and Trier . About one million people lived in the planned evacuation area.
The evacuation of the population should take place with buses, trucks, private vehicles and wagons on back roads. This served to protect these means of transport from enemy access and was intended to channel the flow of people by using the railroad and main roads for the simultaneous military advance in the opposite direction. The plans remained secret and were only known to a limited group of people. Hitler reserved the official announcement of the plans for himself. From May 13th to May 19th, 1939 he traveled the western border and was informed about the state of the Westwall construction and the evacuation measures. Passwords were assigned to start the individual franking phases:
| password | meaning |
|---|---|
| Advent wreath | Preparation for repatriation of the population |
| lighting | Instruction of the marching block and marching group leaders and the population |
| Lathe | Beginning of preparations for accommodating and feeding the repatriates |
| Moving van | Repatriation of property from the authorities and the economy |
| spring Festival | Postage for facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes, prisons |
| Patience | Repatriation of those unable to march by train |
| front yard | Postage in the red zone |
| Secret Annex | Postage in the green zone |
Repatriation in 1939
Two days before the start of the Second World War , the code words “Advent wreath” and “lighting” were passed on. In the next few days, the further phases of the evacuation followed one another at short intervals, most recently on September 3, 1939 “front garden” and “rear house”. The “rear building” phase comprised the region known as the “green zone” in the back of the west wall and was ultimately not implemented. Mothers who were unable to march and children under the age of 14 were transported by buses; In the villages, columns of marches and treks with carts were assembled, which marched along fixed routes inland. 30 kg of luggage were allowed, houses had to be left unlocked, livestock had to be left completely behind. This meant that many residents had to give up their property and lost it.
Those affected were taken to reception areas in the interior of the German Reich and billeted there in rooms made available to them by locals. After a consolidation phase, in which families torn apart found each other again via the central file of the evacuees and quarters were changed, the victims settled in the reception quarters poorly. In the west, church towers, transmission systems and observation towers were blown up along the border and even the menhir Gollenstein was laid down so that the French military would not leave any landmarks as landmarks, and bridges were mined and blown up to stop the advance. The French army advanced across the border into the evacuated area in September 1939. There were battles in which several villages were destroyed. During the seated war that followed in 1939/40, a major offensive was not carried out on either side. France was defeated and occupied by the western campaign in May and June 1940, with the main thrust bypassing the Maginot Line and instead making the neutral Benelux countries a combat zone. Three days after the Compiègne armistice was signed , Hitler issued a decree that the repatriation of the population should be carried out by the same authorities that had organized it in 1939, e. B. the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) .
Resettlement in 1940
In order to avoid a disorderly and hasty return of the population, the return could only be made with a return card. Initially, the Wehrmacht cleared the mine belt and the Siegfried Line in the second half of June 1940. Subsequently, pre-orders repaired damage to the supply lines and got the food, water and energy supplies going. Most recently, the Hitler Youth and the Association of German Girls mucked out those houses that were neglected after almost a year of vacancy and multiple looting by soldiers. Passengers and luggage were transported free of charge upon presentation of the returnee ID; the realm paid the costs. Most of the population returned to their homeland in the second half of July and August 1940. A special credit campaign, the "Reich Economic Aid for the Restoration of the Economy in the formerly cleared western border areas", served to stimulate the economy. Destruction and damage to buildings in the evacuated areas were officially recorded and compensation paid out.
Soon after the damage assessment commission began its work, the idea of repairing the war damage and clearance damage at the same time as initiating land consolidation and a generous reconstruction of the most destroyed villages. The repopulation of the affected places was therefore postponed, the town centers were loosened up by demolishing numerous un- or hardly damaged buildings. The small town of Hornbach in the west of the Palatinate was particularly hard hit and lost a large part of its building stock. A rebuilding by French prisoners of war was planned, which was delayed during the war due to a shortage of skilled workers, planning and material procurement difficulties. Contrary to the original plan, it was finally given up completely when other priorities had to be set as the war continued.
Franking 1944
After the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, the Allies retook all of France by late 1944, so that the main battle line was again moving towards the Siegfried Line. In this situation the Red Zone was again evacuated, which was less orderly and less organized than in 1939. Some of the residents refused to leave their homeland again this time, while others went to the places they had been to in 1939. Sometimes people found shelter in the general chaos with friends, relatives and strangers in order to stay there until the end of the war in May 1945. In the meantime, the entire infrastructure in the German Reich was damaged or destroyed by war damage.
After the capitulation of the German Reich on May 7 and 8, 1945, some made their way home through the country on foot and with bicycles to their partly completely destroyed places of residence. Those with limited mobility had to wait until autumn 1945 for trains to run again. This ended the second vacancy of the buildings and the entire cleared area, which was again around a year.
No man's land policy 1945
In the turmoil of the end of the war, the French leadership issued the so-called “no man's land order” on May 6 and 7, 1945. All places that were less than three miles from the border were to be evacuated permanently and become no man's land . This z. For example, in the Bergzabern district alone, eight of the 16 settlements that have already been evacuated twice were evacuated for the third time and the population expelled leaving their property behind. The order was soon lifted and the population was allowed to return to their homeland permanently in the course of June and July 1945.
Disaster area
In the post-war period, the term “red zone” was expanded. In Rhineland-Palatinate , it was used to designate the entire emergency area, which included the rural districts and cities near the border that had been evacuated several times and in which economic activity was hardly possible due to evictions and destruction. This phase was not completed until the Saarland was reorganized .
Similar measures in other countries
Similar actions began at the outbreak of the war in France and in the United Kingdom : On the French side of the border, in 1939 the population was evacuated from the apron of the Maginot Line into the interior of France. Among them were 300,000 Alsatians , 190,000 of them from Strasbourg alone , and 300,000 from Lorraine . In the UK , 1.5 million children have been evacuated from major cities amid fears of German air strikes.
literature
- Birgit Arnold: The franking and evacuation of the border areas in Baden 1939/40 . Heidelberg 1994.
- Johannes Großmann, Fabian Lemmes, Nicholas Williams: Les évacuations dans l'espace frontalier franco-allemand pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Vers une histoire comparée . In: François Roth (ed.): La Lorraine et les pays de la rive gauche du Rhin (Sarre, Palatinat, pays de Trèves) du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours . edhisto, Moyenmoutier 2011, pp. 125-139.
- Hans-Walter Herrmann : The franking of the red zone 1939/1940. Procedure and sources . In: Journal for the history of the Saar region , 32nd year, Saarbrücken 1984, pp. 64–89.
- Hans Heß: Westwall construction, evacuation and resettlement in the border communities of the former Bergzabern district . In: Journal for the history of the Saar region , 32nd year, Saarbrücken 1984, pp. 90-106.
- Fritz Jacoby: Sources for the first evacuation in 1939/1940 in the Saarbrücken city archive . In: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 32nd year, Saarbrücken 1984, pp. 107–110.
- Fabian Lemmes, Johannes Großmann, Nicholas Williams, Olivier Forcade, Rainer Hudemann (eds.): Evacuations in Europe of the World Wars - Les évacuations dans l'Europe des guerres mondiales - Evacuations in World War Europe , Berlin 2014 (several articles on the topic).
- Nicholas J. Williams: Limits of the 'People's Community'. The 1939/40 evacuation in Germany and France . In: Journal for the history of the Saar region , volume 60, Saarbrücken 2012, pp. 113–126.
- Nicholas J. Williams: From "Saarf French" and "Gypsy People". Saarbrücken evacuees as "victims"? . In: Hans-Christian Herrmann, Ruth Bauer (Ed.): Resistance, Repression and Persecution. Contributions to the history of National Socialism on the Saar . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2014, pp. 279-312.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ A comparative history of the evacuations in the Franco-German border area during the Second World War. In: nng.uni-saarland.de. Retrieved November 18, 2013 .
- ↑ 50 years ago - May 30, 1950. "Red Zone". The borderland problem in Rhineland-Palatinate. In: landeshauptarchiv.de. Retrieved November 18, 2013 .