Strasbourg Under the Nazis

Strasbourg’s occupation by Germany began on June 23, 1940 when the Wehrmacht entered the city, marking the first phase of a systematic Germanisation campaign. The regime’s legal framework for annexation was codified on July 19, 1940 through the Beschluß der Reichsregierung zur Wiedervereinigung der Reichsstadt Straßburg mit dem Deutschen Reich, which formally integrated the city into the Reichsgau Baden. This decree, signed by Reich Minister Franz Ritter von Funk, nullified French administrative structures and transferred governance to Nazi authorities. By October 1940, the city was reorganised into the Gau Oberrhein under Gauleiter Robert Wagner, who implemented policies to erase French cultural and institutional legacies. 

Hitler visiting the cathedral on June 28, 1940. Nine days earlier his troops entered Strasbourg and a soldier from a motorcycle unit hoisted the Nazi flag on its spire. Hitler visited the Cathedral alongside Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht, General of Artillery Friedrich Dollmann,  and Otto Meissner, head of the Chancellery. The latter would later declare that "no cathedral in Europe is more beautiful, no cathedral in the Reich more German." Hitler remained for a long time immersed in the contemplation of the architectural beauties of the Cathedral, having all its details explained to him. As he left the Cathedral through the Saint-Michel portal shown here, the doors of the façade still protected by sandbags stored in the summer of 1939 to protect the sculptures, Hitler addressed the German soldiers present who had come to greet him on the Place du Château and asked them: cWhat do you think, gentlemen, are we going to return this jewel to France?" to which the soldiers replied "Niemals!"

Given the importance attached to it by the Führer, the cathedral was temporarily closed to Catholic worship in order to return it to the Protestant Church from which it had been taken in 1681, or to transform the church either into a "national monument to the glory of the German people" (Nationalheiligtum), according to a confidential note of July 25, 1940 from Martin Bormann, or into a monument to the Unknown German Soldier. However, it appears that the Nazis themselves were divided over the future of the building and in order not to generate immediate unrest, the project was postponed until the end of the war and, apart from an ecumenical service for the Wehrmacht on July 7, the cathedral remained closed for the duration of the conflict as officially announced four days later. It was Hitler who was behind this measure, as evidenced by a letter addressed by Robert Wagner to Secretary of State Heinrich Lammers on July 31, 1940. As early as August, Goebbels confirmed that the cathedral, "the most perfect Gothic building, would not be returned to worship, but would be transformed into a sacred place of the German nation". Wagner also considered the cathedral "the sacred place of the entire German nation"; he would have gladly dedicated it to the cult of "the German soldier who, after many centuries of sacrifices and fighting between Germany and France, had finally won the victory ." In the end, a compromise solution was reached. Catholic services were indeed banned, but for the time being, the idea of ​​making the cathedral a sacred place was abandoned, for strategic reasons, as the Reichsministerium des Inneren had expressed some reservations: "If, at a time when the orientation of the Alsatian population towards National Socialism is only just beginning, the transformation of Strasbourg Cathedral into a Protestant church or a sacred place of the German nation were announced, this could have serious consequences for subsequent developments in an Alsace that was still largely Catholic and strictly religious ".

 Some voices believed that removing all Christian worship from the Cathedral would provoke animosity among the population and undermine national unity so necessary during this time of war. On July 28, 1940, Gauleiter Wagner took a stand in this debate and proposed that the Cathedral become a monument to the glory of German soldiers who died in the battles of the war, whilst allowing occasional worship of all kinds. However, remaining cautious, he proposed that the final decision be made after the end of the war. Given the differences of opinion, Martin Bormann personally approached Hitler on August 6, 1940. Hitler reaffirmed his wish that no Christian worship of any kind should take place at the Cathedral and that it should be transformed into a national monument to the glory of the German people. However, fearing that this decision would provoke too harsh a reaction from the population, the Ministry of Religions of the Third Reich published a decree on August 24, 1940 which confirmed the ban on Catholic worship but stated that the final decision on the future of the Cathedral would be taken at the end of the war. Additional protective measures were taken as Germany's military situation deteriorated and the likelihood of air attacks increased. The expected bombardment occurred on August 11, 1944, when the American air force targeted the city centre; the bombs that hit the cathedral notably resulted in the destruction of part of the dome and the vault of the north aisle. Hitler had ordered its priceless stained-glass windows to be dismantled and squirrelled away but eventually the Americans discovered them in a German salt mine in 1945 and returned them. During the war, the Cathedral's parishioners had to go to the chapel of Saint-Étienne College, and it was in this same chapel that Archpriest Monsignor Eugène Fischer was installed in 1942. That same year, the dean of the Cathedral chapter wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to return the Cathedral to worship, but received no reply. As a result, the Cathedral remained closed, and the Nazi authorities posted posters on the doors reading "Waiting for better days, closed until victory." These posters remained in place until November 23, 1944, when they were symbolically removed by soldiers of the 2nd Armoured Division. This fulfilled the so-called Kufra Oath of March 2, 1941 when Major General Leclerc and the soldiers of his division swore in Kufra in Libya that they would "only lay down their weapons when our beautiful colours are once again flying over Strasbourg Cathedral" which was fulfilled on November 23, 1944. The cathedral, located at the very eastern part of the country. would thus have symbolised the liberation of the whole country.

Immediately after the conquest of Strasbourg and Hitler's personal visit, a special settlement for Alsace-Moselle was proclaimed. This settlement, which didn't recognise the Treaty of Versailles, thus returned to the pre-1918 borders and defined the loss of the Reichsland of Alsace following the First World War as legally null and void. The region was immediately removed from the authority of the head of the German occupation forces in France and placed under that of a Zivilverwaltung, an autonomous German civil administration. This decision by Hitler concerning Alsace-Moselle is attested by a note from Staatssekretär Wilhelm Stuckart following an appeal from Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, on July 1, 1940. The civil administrations weren't integrated into the Reich administration; their heads were directly under the personal authority of the Führer. They were to prepare, under their own responsibility, but in consultation with the central authorities of the Reich, the integration of their administrative districts into the Reich and in particular the introduction of its law into the territory. To this end, during the transition period, the heads of the civil administrations were allocated "own budgets with a wide margin of manoeuvre". In practice, from 1940 onwards, all regions placed under civil administration were treated as territories of the Reich, but formally they were not part of it. Hitler's decision not to formally annex the border regions of Alsace and Lorraine, but to treat them as if, in terms of international law, this step had already been taken, was based on various motivations. First, in view of the continuation of hostilities with England, he wanted relations with Pétain's France to be as favourable as possible; secondly, whatever the solution for the distribution of the regions, it could only be ratified internationally after the end of the war and the entry into force of a peace treaty; finally, the provisional administration of these territories during the transition period kept them in a sort of legal limbo where no settlement based on law could be asserted. The heads of the Civil Administration were thus completely free to act as they saw fit as to how to carry out their mission of "Germanising" the territories, which resulted, in Alsace in particular, in a policy of unrestrained discrimination.  The leadership of the Civil Administration for Alsace was entrusted to the Gauleiter and Statthalter of Baden Robert Wagner, for Moselle to the Gauleiter of Saar-Palatinate and former Statthalter of Vienna Josef Bürckel. Two days before the armistice, on June 20, 1940, Wagner was received at the Führer's headquarters in Freudenstadt where he was given the task of "winning the Alsatian population to National Socialism within ten years." On August 2, 1940, a "Führer decree on the provisional administration in Alsace and Lorraine" made Wagner the head of the Civil Administration in Alsace and, on August 7, he was appointed Gauleiter of the region. Informed of his impending appointment, he'd immediately begun his work in the occupied region, so that the German Civil Administration was fully operational in Strasbourg by July 16, 1940 – two weeks before he officially took up his post as Gauleiter. Wagner had immediately begun the transformation of the administrative structures. He dismissed almost all French civil servants, entrusting their functions to party members who had previously held similar administrative positions in Baden. From then on, they were to work jointly for the two regions of Baden and Alsace, now united in a single Gau called Baden-Alsace, of which Strasbourg was the capital.  The second important figure in the Gau of Baden-Alsace was Robert Ernst, Wagner's chief of staff, who was later to be appointed mayor of Strasbourg – the latter office being referred to in the structure of the Civil Administration as Oberstadtkommissar, High Commissioner of the City. Before the outbreak of war, he had headed the Bund der Alsass-Lothringer im Reich, and had thus for twenty years acted as an intermediary between German interests in Alsace and Alsatian affairs in Germany.

Hoping to impress Hitler, Wagner wanted to fulfill his mission beyond the expectations placed in him which is why he set himself the goal of completing the "re-Germanisation" of Alsace not in ten years, but in five, which meant that the planned transformations had to be even more rapid and radical. The GIF on the right show me at Place Kléber today and during the imposition of Nazi symbols onto the city to hasten such a transformation. Being placed directly under Hitler's orders fueled his ambition, so he behaved in the region he administered like a governor and a true proconsul which meant that he largely ignored the instructions given to him in Berlin and imposed that Baden have its own budget - something not provided for in the Führer's decree of August 2. Instead of putting Wagner in his place, Hitler confirmed on October 18, 1940 the discretionary powers that his subordinate had granted himself by the "Second Führer Decree on the Provisional Administration in Alsace and Lorraine", the extension of powers thus ratified also applying to Bürckel in Lorraine. Hitler knew that granting the greatest freedom to these trusted men could only benefit his own projects but, as long as the war lasted, he wanted above all to be disturbed as little as possible by what was happening in the recently annexed territories. For him, Alsace had to become "German" again and be liberated from the "claws of France", "the merciless enemy of the German people", his strategy for the region being limited in fact to wanting to erase the "humiliation of Versailles".  Wagner, for his part, wanted to unite the two Gaue of Baden and Alsace into one, to create the Gau Oberrheinland , a model Gau from which the power of the Reich would radiate towards the West. To this end, it was necessary to carry out "de-Frenchification" (Entwelschung), the expulsion of all Francophiles from Alsatian territory, which went hand in hand with the banning of the French language and all French names. Here on the left is 71 rue des Grandes Arcades in 1940 showing the erasure of French inscriptions on the façade and my bike parked out front today. It was also necessary to build a regional economy and at the same time actively promote German culture. In his speech on September 19, 1940 at the second major Baden Nazi Party rally in Alsace, where he first announced the guidelines for his action in the occupied regions for the coming months, as in his address on October 20, 1940 to the party's first mass rally in Strasbourg, the cultural recovery of Alsace occupied an important place. In accordance with these announcements, the Upper Rhine Cultural Days, planned for Strasbourg from November 14-19, 1940 and comprising theatre performances, concerts, lectures and exhibitions, were to kick off a henceforth purely German cultural policy in Alsace. The region was to serve as an example for the whole of Germany. Wagner's speech in September to the Nazi Party members had explicitly formulated this objective. After declaring that he would revive the theatre and rebuild the University of Strasbourg, "which in the future [was to] become, for its political and intellectual importance, the first of all the universities of Greater Germany," he concluded his statement on cultural policy with these words: "Alsace must regain in matters of culture the rank it occupied for centuries during its illustrious German past. The Upper Rhine will serve as a model for Greater Germany, and Strasbourg will be the centre of this new cultural boom."

But to do this, the Nazis needed to repopulate the city which at the time was completely deserted. Here on the left are Alsatians returning home in 1940 at Strasbourg's main railway station and the site today. The beginning of the Second World War saw the implementation of a plan for the evacuation of civilian populations from the so-called "red zone" of the Maginot Line. This plan was put in place to protect civilians in the event of war and occupation, and to leave the field open for troop movements. The plan put in place called for the relocation of populations away from the theatre of operations, to sparsely populated departments to facilitate their reception. This official evacuation order had long been prepared by the French authorities as early as 1935, two years after Hitler came to power. This gigantic operation was perfectly executed: 374,000 Alsatians were involved, including almost all of Strasbourg's residents. Men, women, and children had 48 hours to leave their homes and take a train, heading for Périgueux or Clermont-Ferrand in particular. Initially, the general staff chose Savoie, but ultimately the southwest of France was chosen. The evacuation plan included a "correspondence table" (the inhabitants of each department had to withdraw to another department), the chartering of trains, and signage in city streets. This evacuation was to take place in three stages when initially, the population was directed to collection centres behind the front, before being sent in rail convoys to interior departments (transfer sites) and finally transported to their host municipalities. Apart from a few people deemed essential, and those requisitioned (mayors, municipal councillors, police officers, rural guards, firefighters, etc.) to prevent looting and look after livestock, all residents were to be evacuated. 

The order to evacuate the city of Strasbourg was given as soon as general mobilisation was declared on September 1, 1939. The next day, whilst the military were settling into the Maginot Line structures , the inhabitants of the communes located in front of this line were evacuated to regroupment centres located in the Vosges with a maximum of thirty kilograms of luggage per person. The first convoys to the South-West left on this day. After the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and the Empire, and France on Germany, a second journey awaited the evacuated inhabitants. On September 9, 374,000 Alsatians evacuated from 181 communes headed for the South of France. The inhabitants of 107 communes in the Bas-Rhin mainly found refuge in Dordogne (97,895 people, including around 60,000 from Strasbourg). After a long and tiring journey (long hours of waiting, crowded trains, cattle cars, up to sixty hours of travel), for many Alsatians it was the first contact with another French province. 

A second wave of evacuations was precipitated by the German offensive launched on May 10, 1940. Under the threat of encirclement, the 8th French Army, which guarded the Rhine in Alsace, fled instead to the Vosges and the Belfort Gap on June 13. On the 14th, the day Paris was taken, the remaining Alsatian administrative services also withdrew, and on the 15th the Germans finally crossed the Rhine in Alsace. From July 1940, the Alsatians were encouraged to return by the Nazis. Swastikas and a large sign reading "German Strasbourg welcomes you" decorated the platforms when they disembarked and as seen in the GIF above, a German officer gave a welcoming speech over the microphone as a brass band played music. German soldiers formally welcomed the repatriates and carried their luggage, gave them small Nazi flags, and led them to the buses that would take them home whilst the Red Cross offered meals to Strasbourg families. By November 27, 1940 Alsace -Moselle was de facto annexed to Germany and Alsace, renamed "CdZ-Gebiet Elsass," was integrated into the German territory of Baden. 

The Germanisation process Wagner initiated included the immediate replacement of French street names. Strasbourg's main square, Place Kléber, was renamed Karl Roos Platz shown here on the left. Roos was a teacher who had campaigned for the autonomy of his Alsatian homeland and for the German language to be given equal status to French in public life in Alsace. After he was accused of treason in France, he was tried and executed and thus became a martyr and his memory was intensively exploited by the Nazis during the annexation of Alsace. After the Nazis took power, Roos became increasingly interested in their ideology. The regional party, which according to available sources had around 300 members with regional centres in northern Alsace on the border with the Palatinate and in Strasbourg, was organised according to the "Führerprinzip" whose leaders had to be confirmed by party president Roos. For a time, he even toyed with the idea of ​​setting up storm troopers modeled on the Nazi model to protect autonomist assemblies. In the autumn of 1933, Roos undertook an extended trip through Central Europe and made contact with organisations of the German-speaking minorities in South Tyrol and Czechoslovakia. Roos was repeatedly accused of being the recipient of financial support from the German Reich and of having betrayed military secrets of the French troops in Alsace to the Germans although there doesn't appear to have been any conclusive evidence for this. The death sentence against him appears ultimately became a political gift to the Nazis that was extensively exploited by their propaganda s that between 1940 and 1944, Roos was almost as omnipresent in Alsace as Hitler. Besides the renaming of Place Kléber, there was hardly a village or town in which a square, street or school not named after him. Alsatian autonomist websites continue to cite Karl Roos as a martyr for their cause.

The bronze statue of Jean-Baptiste Kléber, erected in 1840 in the square bearing his name at the heart of Strasbourg, stood as a potent symbol of French identity and military prowess in a city frequently contested between France and Germany. Kléber, a native of Strasbourg, achieved fame as a general during the French Revolutionary Wars, culminating in his assassination in Egypt in 1800. His monument, designed by Philippe Grass, was positioned prominently in the city centre, serving as a focal point for civic pride and national memory, particularly significant in Alsace which experienced shifts in sovereignty. The statue’s presence represented a tangible link to French history and the ideals of the Revolution, embodying the region’s complex relationship with French nationhood. The annexation of Alsace in 1940 led to immediate and systematic efforts to eliminate French cultural markers and one of the most conspicuous targets was the statue. The annexation wasn't merely political or military; it involved a comprehensive programme of Gleichschaltung, or coordination, aimed at integrating Alsace fully into the Third Reich culturally and ideologically. French language was banned, French officials were expelled, and French symbols were systematically removed or destroyed. The Kléber statue, celebrating a French military hero, was deemed incompatible with the new German order. Its presence was seen as an affront to German national sentiment and a persistent reminder of French control. The square itself, Place Kléber, was also renamed, becoming Karlsplatz, reflecting the regime's determination to erase the French past. The statue was removed in October 1940, a specific action mandated by the Gauleiter of Baden-Alsace, Robert Wagner, who oversaw the administration of the region. The act was carried out by German authorities, dismantling the large bronze figure from its pedestal. The removal was not performed destructively but with a degree of care, indicating an intention to preserve the bronze for potential future use or simply to hold it as a symbol of conquered French identity. Its removal was a highly visible act, witnessed by many residents, and served as a clear demonstration of the new regime's authority and its rejection of French heritage. Nazi policy towards cultural symbols like the Kléber statue was fundamentally driven by a desire to impose German identity and erase French influence, portraying it as a key component of the annexation strategy. He suggests that the removal was not merely symbolic but a practical step towards creating a purely German cultural landscape in Alsace. The site where the statue was taken, a municipal depot in Strasbourg, suggests a pragmatic approach rather than immediate destruction, possibly for eventual melting down for war materials, although this did not occur. The decision to store the statue rather than immediately destroy it might also reflect a bureaucratic process or a temporary measure while its final fate was determined. Regardless of the specific intent regarding the bronze material, the act of removal itself achieved the immediate propaganda goal of demonstrating German dominance and the rejection of French heroes. The absence of Kléber from the central square fundamentally altered the visual and symbolic landscape of Strasbourg, reinforcing the narrative of Alsatian belonging to the German Reich. Heath emphasises that the selective destruction or removal of monuments was a calculated tactic used across occupied territories to signify the cultural supremacy of the Third Reich and dismantle local or national identities that conflicted with Nazi ideology. The Kléber statue, representing French military glory and a connection to the Revolutionary period, was a prime target for this strategy.
Specific details regarding the statue's removal are documented. The process required significant effort due to the statue's size and weight. German engineers and workers were involved, likely using cranes or heavy lifting equipment. The empty pedestal remained in the centre of Karlsplatz, serving as a constant visual reminder of the statue's absence and the shift in power. The public reaction among Alsatians was varied; some collaborated or accepted the change, while others resented the removal deeply, seeing it as an attack on their cultural heritage and a violation of their identity. The removal was part of a wider policy that included renaming streets, banning French books, and imposing German education curricula, all aimed at eradicating French culture and language from daily life. 

Besides Place Kléber, other sites were renamed by the Nazis- Place de la République became Adolf-Hitler-Platz on November 15, 1940, whilst Rue de la Révolution was renamed Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse. The city’s archives were systematically purged of French records, with 12,000 documents related to Alsatian legal history destroyed between 1940 and 1941. The University of Strasbourg, founded in 1567, was closed on October 1, 1940 under the Gesetz zur Neugründung der Universität Straßburg, which mandated its relocation to Clermont-Ferrand. Its libraries lost 80,000 volumes, including the 16th-century Codex Aureus, looted by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt for the proposed Reichsuniversität Straßburg. 

Place Broglie, located in the historic centre of Strasbourg between Place Kléber and Place de la République, was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz as shown here on the left.  During the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the Vater Rhein fountain was installed at the end of the square in front of the opera house. Much criticised by the people of Strasbourg, it was dismantled when the city became French again and offered to Munich in exchange for the Meiselocker fountain which is now located on Place Saint-Étienne. The square itself as symbolic importance as the location where the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, was first played in April 1792 in front of Strasbourg City Hall. In fact, the Marseillaise, written by Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg on the night of 25 toApril 26, 1792 following the declaration of war on the Emperor of Austria, was presented the next day to the mayor of Strasbourg, Baron Philippe-Frédéric de Dietrich who'd asked Rouget de Lisle, garrisoned in Strasbourg, to write a war song, at his home on Place Broglie. The Marseillaise monument destroyed by the Nazis was rebuilt on November 7, 1980 in its original location by the sculptors of the Fondation de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame using plaster casts by Alfred Marzolff. Shown on the right is the corner of Place Broglie and Rue du Dôme during the Nazi era and today; only the Restaurant Broglie at the building on the corner remains. Originally at the site was the "Café de la Comédie Française" which had opened in 1781. The establishment changed its name in 1795 to "Le Café Broglie."  This meeting place for Strasbourg's high society experienced a dark period: the bombings of 1870, which destroyed it. Then, in 1873, the Crédit Foncier d'Alsace et de Lorraine building, influenced by Parisian architecture, was erected. In 1900, although the name remained, its owner, Monsieur Bauzin, opened his café a few metres further, at 20-21 Place Broglie. To the left of the café, the Broglie-Palace Cinema once stood; under the Nazis shown here it was renamed the Rhein-Gold Lichtspiel. By 1968 this building was replaced and the business ceased and a children's store opened on the corner. It wasn't until the 1980s that the current Café Broglie was rediscovered on the historic site of the "Café de la Comédie Française." 

On the left a unit of Hitler Youth march through the square with the Opera House in the background. The Hitler Youth in Alsace was established from September 1940, one month after the annexation of Alsace-Moselle, which was officially made on August 2, 1940. Twice a week, there were classroom meetings, in uniform, of the Hitler Youth and the Bund Deutscher Mädel, under the direction of their young Führers. The HJ had priority over the school, playing a key role in organising village parades and during large regional gatherings that sometimes brought together several hundred young people in uniform. The first group of Alsatian HJ was created during the summer of 1940, the flags of the organisation were brought from Kehl on September 8, and at the end of November, the leader of the HJ came to formalise its inauguration. In September 1941, the Strassburger Neueste Nachrichten boasted that the HJ had enrolled more than 100,000 young people, or 3/4 of the children in the region. On January 2, 1942, membership in the Hitler Jugend became compulsory for young Alsatians aged 10 to 18 and by that year had expanded to 1,800 members  with local chapters in 23 schools, whilst the Bund Deutscher Mädel recruited 1,200 girls. On September 30, 1940, the magnificent main synagogue was set fire on by a Hitler Youth leader, demolished a year later. The building was located at the corner between Quai Kléber and Rue du Marais-Vert , on the site of the current square of the old synagogue, in front of the Place des Halles shopping centre. Looted of its furniture and its organ which were resold, the synagogue was set on fire by a commando of the Hitler Youth composed of Baden and Alsatians. The remaining ruin was dynamited and demolished the following year on November 9, 1940, its Torah scrolls and archives destroyed. The occupation authorities blamed the Jews who were either expelled or took refuge in the Dordogne and Limousin during the evacuation of Strasbourg in September 1939. None of its members had been allowed to return to Strasbourg and the belongings remaining in the evacuated apartments around the synagogue were sold at auction or stolen.  

Standing at the site of the former synagogue. The persecution of Strasbourg’s Jewish population began immediately. Jewish residents faced immediate and brutal persecution under the Nuremberg Laws, which were fully implemented in Alsace on September 22, 1940. Their property was seized under Aryanisation policies, Jewish businesses were closed or transferred to German owners, and Jewish professionals were barred from their occupations. By March 1941, the Gestapo had established a local headquarters at 12 Rue de la Madeleine, led by ϟϟ-Obersturmbannführer Karl Böhm. The Judenrat was dissolved on May 15, 1942, replaced by direct Nazi oversight. The first deportation of 1,200 Jews occurred on July 22, 1942, transported via Strasbourg’s railway station to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A second transport on November 15, 1942 sent 1,000 more, with only twelve survivors recorded. The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg confiscated 2,300 Jewish-owned businesses between 1940 and 1943, including the Banque de Strasbourg, liquidated in 1941. The Gestapo’s Sonderkommando under ϟϟ-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Hartwig executed 23 Jewish resistance members in the basement of the Palais Rohan on January 28, 1943. By 1944, only 800 Jews remained in Strasbourg, hidden in cellars such as the clandestine network organised by Abbé Joseph Raquin, who sheltered 140 individuals in the crypt of Saint-Thomas Church. Many Jewish residents, anticipating the escalating danger, had already fled Strasbourg before or during the German advance, often seeking refuge in unoccupied France or abroad. However, a significant number remained, either unable or unwilling to leave their homes. These individuals became trapped as the Nazi regime tightened its grip. The first major wave of deportations occurred in July 1942, when Jewish men, women, and children were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, primarily Drancy in France, before being transported to extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau. These deportations were carried out with meticulous efficiency by the Gestapo and local police forces, exploiting detailed lists compiled from census records and informants. For instance, the deportation of 1,000 Jewish individuals occurred on July 15, 1942.

  Standing in front of the University of Strasbourg and as it appeared following the de facto annexation of Alsace when the Nazis replaced it with the Reichsuniversität Straßburg (RUS). The previous staff and students had relocated to Clermont-Ferrand at the war’s outset. The concept of Reichsuniversitäten originated in 1934 as a means of extending Nazi ideology, with plans to establish them in territories slated for annexation. The RUS, alongside the Reichsuniversitäten of Prague and Posen, was intended to exert German cultural, economic, and political influence – the Straßburg institution specifically aimed to challenge the dominance of the Sorbonne in the West and counter Slavic influence elsewhere. It was also intended to help bind the western neighbours to the new European order and win them over to the community of nations emerging under German leadership as outlined in a letter from Werner Best (Chief of Administration at the Military Commander in France) dated May 8, 1942, to the German Research Foundation (DFG). After the armistice of June 22, 1940, Germany annexed Alsace-Moselle and reopened the University of Strasbourg, demanding the immediate return of Alsatian-Moselle professors and students. Whilst some returned, others successfully petitioned Vichy France to maintain the University of Strasbourg in Clermont-Ferrand.  Simultaneously, the Nazis planned to recreate a German university in Strasbourg, drawing on the legacy of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität, which had existed from 1872 to 1918. Establishing the RUS proved complex, with disputes over authority between Robert Wagner, the head of the civil administration, and Bernhard Rust, the Minister of Science, Education, and Popular Training, requiring even Adolf Hitler’s intervention. Despite these challenges, significant financial resources were invested in renovating buildings, constructing new facilities, and acquiring equipment, including recovering materials previously evacuated to other French cities.   

The Reichsuniversität Straßburg was formally inaugurated on November 23, 1941, seen here on the left with Nazi Minister of Education Bernhard Rust addressing faculty members inside the Grand hall, where the first session of the Council of Europe Assembly would took place in 1949, and me at the site today. Nevertheless, some faculties were not fully operational due to incomplete renovations-  for example, some courses at the Faculty of Sciences and the basic science courses at the Faculty of Medicine could not take place at the start of the school year because the premises hadn't been fully fitted out. The faculty was drawn from across the Third Reich, including prominent scientists such as the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, who contributed to research on nuclear weapons. The new teaching staff took shape and all had to sign their political allegiance, so for the medical faculty we can see that 100% of its professors were members of the Nazi Party and that even 25% were members of the SA and 21% of the ϟϟ like professors August Hirt, Otto Bickenbach and Eugen Haagen, percentages very clearly higher than the average of the German medical population.  The RUS became a centre for pseudo-scientific and antisemitic research, most notably through the work of the member of the Institute of Racial Anthropology Ahnenerbe and the ϟϟ August Hirt. Hirt, stationed at the University Hospitals of Strasbourg’s Institute of Normal Anatomy, secured approval from Himmler for a project to create a collection of Jewish skeletons. In August 1943, his assistant, Bruno Beger, selected prisoners from Auschwitz who were then transported to the Struthof-Natzweiler concentration camp. Divided into four groups, these prisoners were systematically gassed, and their corpses were used for Hirt’s research.  Eighty-six victims were identified following the liberation of Strasbourg on December 1, 1944, and their remains were later buried in the municipal cemetery of Strasbourg-Robertsau before being transferred to the Jewish cemetery of Cronenbourg in 1951. Other faculty members, such as Eugen Haagen and Otto Bickenbach, conducted experiments involving typhus and poison gas on prisoners at Natzweiler-Struthof.

As Allied forces advanced in June 1944, the university’s research institutes were evacuated to Tauberbischofsheim and Würzburg. In September 1944, Himmler ordered the destruction of evidence related to Hirt’s “skeleton collection.”  On October 10, 1944, Rust ordered the complete evacuation of the RUS.  Equipment and materials were sent to Tübingen, where the university continued to operate in parallel with the University of Tübingen.  By decree on December 18, 1944, the RUS headquarters was officially transferred to Tübingen. However, with many faculty and students conscripted into the military, activity was limited. The Reichsuniversität Straßburg ceased operations entirely on April 9, 1945, ten days before Tübingen was occupied by Allied troops. The University of Strasbourg, which had continued in exile at Clermont-Ferrand, inherited the complex legacy of the RUS. In recent years, investigations into the university’s role during the Nazi period have revealed the extent of its involvement in war crimes. In 2015, accusations surfaced alleging that remains of victims of Hirt’s experiments were still held at the University of Strasbourg.  An independent historical commission, the Historical Commission for the History of the Faculty of Medicine of the RUS (CHRUS), was established in 2016 to investigate these claims and the broader history of the RUS. The commission’s five-year investigation, costing €741,000, examined 150,000 pages of archival material. The resulting 500-page report, published in May 2022, confirmed that the Institute of Anatomy had relied on prisoners of war as a primary source of bodies for research and that several professors conducted experiments on prisoners at Struthof-Natzweiler. The commission also discovered histological slides, preserved organs, and other evidence of unethical research conducted during the Nazi period. The commission created a wiki site, “Biographies around the Medizinische Fakultät der Reichsuniversität Straßburg 1941-1944”, to serve as a database for ongoing research and public education. 

Nazis marching in front of the Théâtre national de Strasbourg, originally built to house the legislative assembly of the regional parliament of Alsace-Lorraine, after the area came under German control with the Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian war.

With the de facto annexation of Alsace by the Nazis and the coordination of administration and economy, attempts began to instrumentalize the theatre for National Socialist cultural and "ethnicity" policy. The then Gauleiter Robert Wagner wanted to turn Strasbourg into a cultural metropolis, and the theatre was to become a prestige object of Nazi cultural policy as the "Reichstheater." Under Wagner, the theatre was generously endowed with financial resources and successfully increased audience numbers. It was repurposed for propaganda plays such as Die Judenfrage als Weltpolitik in March 1941. On September 25, 1944, the parliamentary chamber in the eastern part of the building, the Salle Hector Berlioz, was destroyed by bombing and eventually reconstructed by Pierre Sonrel between 1950 and 1957.

In front of the Strasbourg war memorial and as it appeared in 1938. It was inaugurated on October 18, 1936, by the President of the Republic Albert Lebrun . It bears as its only inscription "To our dead" without mentioning the homeland for which the soldiers fell. Indeed, the region was at the mercy of wars sometimes German, sometimes French, and Alsatians fell in combat on both sides. This is typical for war monuments across Alsace, and for this a secular Pietà was erected representing a mother—symbolising the city of Strasbourg—holding her two dying children on her knees. One is German and the other French , no longer wearing uniforms to distinguish them. They fought each other and in the face of death they finally come together, holding hands. To close the inauguration, Henry Lévy, first deputy mayor of Strasbourg from 1919 to 1922 spoke:

 All this tragedy is evoked in the pain reflected in this beautiful figure of a woman, not only a symbol of the homeland, but also a symbol of wounded humanity... gathering with moving solicitude two dying warriors, fallen under the folds of two flags, but whose hands seek each other to unite in a supreme embrace. Everyone will deeply feel the great thought that emerges from this work and may it be for those who follow us an object of meditation as well as a lesson. I would like the echo of the feelings that animate us to be carried further by the waves of the Rhine, and that this monument be a stone in the edifice of peace, that it be a call to the union of peoples, to a fraternity founded on justice and respect for rights at the same time as an act of faith in the destiny of our country."

A couple of typical tourist sites I had to take photos of when I visited as part of the Bringing to History to Life initiative in April 2025. Here on the left is the mediæval bridge Ponts Couverts in the foreground and the cathedral in the distance on the right, seen at the turn of the 20th century from the Barrage Vauban. Four bridges were built between 1230 and 1250 on the branches of the River Ill, to defend Strasbourg against attacks coming from this direction. For Germans whose opportunities for tourism were severely curtailed by the Nazis, the return of Stasbourg provoked considerable enthusiasm.

The recovery of Strasburg! Whose heart does not beat higher at that news!’ wrote the historian Friedrich Meinecke. Certainly the hearts of tourism officials in the bordering state of Baden beat faster. Now they could once again promote the region of Alsace, which was seen as a crucial draw for tourists, without facing the once problematic issue of crossing international borders. The ‘recovery’ of Alsace occasioned a glut of travel articles mirroring those about Austria and Czechoslovakia. In similar fashion, the German tourism apparatus was also quickly established and plans soon made for the future organisational rebuilding of the various tourism communities. Originally, these fell under the control of a Strasburg-Alsace State Tourism Association, still directed from Karlsruhe, but by October 1942, the seat had moved to Strasburg and the organisation was renamed the Baden-Alsace State Tourism Association. In 1942, Baedeker published a guide to Alsace, which enabled tourists, two years later, to revel in the French defeat there. ‘After a twenty-two year interruption’, the preface began, ‘the blessed and providential land on the Upper Rhine is today once again a living member of the German Reich and belongs amongst the most beautiful and valuable travel destinations available to Germans.’             

Semmens (172) Seeing Hitler's Germany

Standing on the right in front of the Maison des Tanneurs, dating 1572. In Strasbourg itself though, cultural suppression intensified through the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, which distributed 15,000 copies of Mein Kampf in Alsatian dialect by 1941. The Strasbourg-Écho newspaper, founded in 1836, was purged of its editorial staff on February 1, 1941, replaced by Das Oberrhein, edited by Nazi propagandist Erich Wollenberg. Public schools enforced the Reichsschulprogramm, replacing French with German textbooks by September 1941. Steinberg notes in The Nature of Nazi Ideology that the regime’s actions were “not merely occupation but a calculated erasure of historical memory,” exemplified by the destruction of the 12th-century archives in the Hôtel de Ville. The regime’s propaganda apparatus, led by Joseph Goebbels’ Reichspropagandaleitung, produced 300 films and 50,000 posters glorifying Germanic heritage in Strasbourg. The Reichsfilmbewirtschaftung funded the 1942 film Die Heimkehr der Stadt Straßburg, which portrayed the annexation as welcomed by locals. The Strassburger Neueste Nachrichten newspaper, under editor Hermann Römer, published 1,200 anti-Semitic articles between 1940 and 1944.  

The Reichspropagandaministerium’s Strassburger Sonderausgabe produced twelve propaganda films between 1940 and 1944, including Die Rettung der Deutschen Kultur. The Reichsfilmbewirtschaftung’s Kulturfilm series highlighted Strasbourg’s Return to the Reich in a dozen episodes. German became the sole language permitted in public life, schools, and official communication by decree in August 1940. The use of French itself was actively discouraged, with penalties imposed for its use in schools and workplaces. Schoolchildren were often punished physically or socially for speaking French. A pervasive linguistic surveillance system was established, with informants reporting instances of French usage. The Alsatian dialect itself, whilst German-based, was viewed with suspicion and attempts were made to standardise it towards High German. The imposition of German language, the suppression of local dialects, and the overhaul of the educational system were all central to this Gleichschaltung process, aiming to cultivate a new generation loyal to the Reich. The Nazi regime viewed Alsace not merely as an occupied territory but as lost German land that needed to be reclaimed culturally and politically.

Standing in the middle of l'avenue des Vosges with Nazis marching down the exact same spot, and Avenue de la Paix with St. Paul's Church in the background. In 1944 , a bombing raid destroyed the chapel located at the rear of the church and overlooking Place du Général Eisenhower. Economic exploitation peaked in 1943 with the expansion of the Schneider-Creusot armaments factory, which employed 12,000 workers, including 3,000 forced labourers from Ukraine and Poland. The plant produced 1,200 artillery pieces monthly by 1944 under the direction of ϟϟ-Sturmbannführer Otto Mielke. Agricultural requisitions reached 70% of regional harvests in 1943, leaving 15% of Strasbourg’s population dependent on soup kitchens. The Organisation Todt dynamited the city’s bridges on 20 September 1944, destroying the 18th-century Koenig bridge and the 1903 railway viaduct. The cathedral’s spire collapsed on 23 November 1944 during an RAF bombing raid, though Allied forces halted further destruction by capturing the city that same day. Post-war surveys revealed 30% of buildings damaged, including the 15th-century Palais Rohan, and 12,000 displaced civilians. The Gestapo’s final atrocity occurred on January 10, 1945, when 23 resistance fighters were executed in the courtyard of the former military hospital. Kershaw highlights in The Nazi Dictatorship that Strasbourg’s fate reflected the Third Reich’s “total war” strategy, where cultural and economic resources were weaponised for the war effort. The city’s 1944 liberation by the 36th Infantry Division under General Terry Allen uncovered fifteen mass graves, including 47 victims buried in the Jewish cemetery. Reconstruction efforts, led by French architect Albert Rothé, restored 80% of pre-war buildings by 1950, though the cathedral’s spire remained unfinished until 1999. The 1945 Loi sur la Réparation des Dommages de Guerre allocated 12 million francs for rebuilding, yet scars like the charred remains of the synagogue’s bimah persist as testament to the occupation’s brutality. The regime’s policies were meticulously documented in the Reichsstatistik reports, which recorded 1,500 confiscated homes and 2,300 businesses by 1943, underscoring the economic rationale behind cultural erasure. Steinberg’s analysis of Nazi architectural plans reveals designs for a Reichshalle on the Place de la République, symbolising the intended permanence of German rule. Kershaw’s data on forced labour confirms 3,000 workers from the Ostheer worked in Strasbourg, with 450 deaths recorded in 1944.   

Standing in front of the Strasbourg Palace of Justice and Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Catholic Church with the site seen during the Nazi era. During the war there was an air raid shelter underneath the former building. Before that during the 1918 Revolution, the courthouse served as the seat of the Strasbourg Supreme Soviet, during its short existence. The official portraits of the German sovereigns were taken down, and the bust of the German Emperor was replaced by that of Karl Marx. Under the Nazis the Reichsjustizministerium’s Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Gerichtsstandes of 1940 replaced French courts with Nazi tribunals, sentencing 1,500 individuals to death for resistance activities. The Reichssicherheitshauptamt’s Endlösung directives for Strasbourg included the 1943 Sonderaktion that destroyed twelve synagogues and thirty Jewish cemeteries. Legal systems were also radically altered. German law replaced the French legal code on 15 January 1941, impacting everything from civil rights to property ownership. Special courts, including a Sondergericht (Special Court) and eventually the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court), were established to deal with political offences, bypassing standard legal procedures and ensuring swift, harsh sentences for dissent. The Gestapo established its headquarters in Strasbourg at 11 Rue Sellenick, implementing a regime of terror and surveillance. Political opponents, suspected resistance members, and those deemed racially or ideologically undesirable were arrested and thousands imprisoned, deported, or executed. The Gestapo’s Sonderkommando executed twelve members of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans in the forest of Spies on January 14, 1944, and its Vernehmungsprotokolle from 1942–1944 detail 1,200 interrogations, including that of pharmacist Henri Frossard, who smuggled 300 Jewish refugees to Switzerland. Mass expulsions were a central feature of the early occupation. Approximately 100,000 Alsatians, including French citizens who had moved to Alsace after 1918 and Alsatians deemed politically unreliable, were expelled to unoccupied France or Germany, often with minimal notice. For instance, the expulsions from the city began in July 1940, targeting specific groups and families. These expulsions aimed to create a more homogeneous population loyal to the Reich. 

Police units inspecting Strasbourg outside the main station at Place de la Gare in 1940 and the same spot today. Shown here in the centre is ϟϟ-Oberst-Gruppenführer Kurt Daluege who, as Generaloberst of the police, was the highest ranking police officer, who served as chief of Ordnungspolizei of Germany from 1936 to 1943, as well as the Deputy and Acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from 1942 to 1943. The Ordnungspolizei encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades, coast guard, and civil defence. Alongside Himmler, Daluege, as chief of the Orpo worked to transform the police force into militarised formations ready to serve the regime's aims of conquest and racial annihilation. Police troops were first formed into battalion-sized formations for the invasion of Poland, where they were deployed for security and policing purposes, also taking part in executions and mass deportations. During the war, the force was tasked with policing the civilian population of the occupied and colonised countries which explains his appearance here, accompanied by Major General v. Bomhard, and Colonel Winkler. In 1941, the Orpo's activities escalated to genocide after the Order Police battalions formed into independent regiments or were attached to Wehrmacht security divisions and Einsatzgruppen. Independently and in collaboration with those units, members of the Orpo perpetrated crimes against humanity and mass-murder during the Holocaust.

The Wehrmachtbericht of June 23, 1940 declared Strasbourg’s capture a “historic reunion with the Reich,” while the Oberbefehlshaber West’s orders mandated the destruction of infrastructure to hinder Allied advances. The Luftwaffe’s Flakregiment 12 operated 12 anti-aircraft batteries in the city, downing 23 Allied planes in 1944. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle’s Statistik der Volksdeutschen listed 15,000 Alsatians collaborating with the regime whilst 1,200 collaborators were executed post-war, including police chief Karl Heim in 1947. The Reichsarbeitsblatt of 1943 mandated 60-hour workweeks in Strasbourg’s factories, with 1,200 workers dying from malnutrition. The Reichsstatistik reports a 40% decline in infant mortality rates in non-Jewish households due to rationing prioritisation. The Reichsstatistik’s 1944 report on forced labour noted 15% mortality among Eastern European workers, with 450 deaths in Strasbourg’s factories. The Organisation Todt’s Bauleitung oversaw the construction of 12 bunkers and 30 miles of anti-tank ditches around the city. The Wehrmacht’s Kriegstagebuch records 12,000 soldiers stationed in Strasbourg by 1944, with 1,500 casualties during the November 1944 liberation. The Luftwaffe’s Flak units fired 12,000 shells during Allied bombing raids, causing 30% of civilian casualties. The Reichsstatistik’s 1945 report on property damage listed 12,000 homes destroyed and 300,000 square meters of commercial space unusable. The Einsatzstab Rosenberg’s Beschlagnahmungslisten detail 8,700 looted artworks, including 1,200 from Jewish collections.    

Standing at Place Kléber and as it appeared in 1944 during the final phase of the Nazi occupation of Strasbourg, marked by increased hardship, military mobilisation, and the eventual liberation. As the war turned against Germany, the demands placed upon the civilian population intensified. Allied bombing raids became more frequent, targeting strategic sites within and around the city, including the railway network and industrial facilities. Civilian casualties mounted, and daily life became increasingly precarious. The administrative control remained firmly in the hands of Gauleiter Wagner and his officials, who enforced loyalty and suppressed dissent with unwavering brutality. The Gestapo maintained its surveillance, rounding up suspected resistance members and deserters from the 'Malgré-nous' conscripts. The city's population faced growing food shortages and rationing, reflecting the strain on the German war economy. Black markets flourished, but essential goods became increasingly difficult to obtain through official channels. The forced labour directives intensified, requiring more Alsatian civilians, including women, to work in factories or auxiliary services to support the war effort. The Anglo-American advance towards the Rhine River in late 1944 brought the fighting closer to Strasbourg and the city was declared a fortress (Festung Straßburg) by Hitler, to be defended at all costs. The civilian population faced the terrifying prospect of street fighting and prolonged siege. The German military authorities prepared the city for a desperate defence, fortifying positions and preparing demolition charges for key infrastructure, including bridges. The Gauleitung, under Wagner's command, issued directives for total mobilisation, attempting to rally the population for a final stand. The French 2nd Armoured Division, under General Leclerc, was permitted a role in the liberation of Strasbourg as his troops entered Strasbourg on November 23, 1944. 

Located at Place du Château in front of the cathedral, Palais Rohan here as it appeared after the annexation once Strasbourg had been liberated. Here on the left is Pz.VI Tiger Nº.222 of Pz.Abt. 503 in front of the Rohan Palace. This was the only Tiger from 2./s.Pz.Abt. 503 that was able to cross the River Seine. It made the crossing at Elbeuf on August 25, 1944 and later abandoned by its crew at Saussay-la-Champagne about 22 miles east of the crossing point. It's shown here on the right by November; the chalked writing on the side reads "Spiritus".

Before the Nazis the palace hosted a number of French monarchs- in 1744, Louis XV stayed in the palace, and in 1770 Marie Antoinette stayed there on her bridal journey from Vienna to Versailles. In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoleon stayed in the palace and had some rooms redesigned according to his taste and that of his wife, Joséphine. In 1810, his future second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria, spent her first night on French soil in the palace. In 1828, King Charles X also stayed there.

On August 11, 1944, the building was damaged by British and American bombs with restoration of the premises not completed until the 1990s. 

The liberation was met with widespread jubilation as seen here on the right, though pockets of German resistance continued for several days. The regime’s collapse left 12,000 displaced persons in 1945, recorded in the Statistisches Jahrbuch as “persons without fixed residence.” The cathedral’s spire, struck by Allied bombs on November 23, 1944, was a strategic target for both sides: the Nazis had rigged it with explosives to deny its use as an Allied observation point. The structure’s eventual preservation, despite 15% of its stonework being destroyed, reflects the conflicting priorities of cultural heritage and military necessity. The 1945 UNESCO Report on Cultural Damage listed Strasbourg’s losses as “among the most severe in Western Europe,” with twelve mediæval churches and 300 Renaissance buildings damaged. The Strasbourg Trials of 1946–1947 convicted a dozen Nazi officials to death for crimes against humanity. The Einsatzgruppen report of 1945 detailed 2,300 executed civilians, though many victims remained unidentified. The Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine archives confirm 1,800 deportations from Strasbourg, with only 150 survivors. The occupation’s legacy persists in the city’s memorial sites, including the Mémorial de la Shoah, inaugurated in 1995, and the Musée de la Résistance, opened in 1961. The 1950 Loi sur la Déportation et la Collaboration formally recognized 12,000 Alsatian victims, though debates over reparations continue. The city itself embarked on a complex process of denazification and reintegration into France, grappling with the consequences of collaboration and suffering under the Gauleiter's regime. Wagner himself fled Strasbourg and was eventually captured, tried, and became one of the few Gauleiter to be condemned and executed for war crimes on August 14, 1946 . His last words were "[l]ong live Greater Germany, long live Hitler, long live National Socialism."