Shadows over Alsace

Book Reviews

The interwar period is fully reconstructed, a period of turmoil and doubt and undeclared war, with Alsatians torn between two powers. But it’s a time that gave birth to some noble figures who refused to be seduced by Nazi siren songs.

Read this book if you really want to understand the interwar period, but also if you want to learn about political mistakes, mistakes that are being made again when it comes to issues like integration, for example, the ramifications of which will not be known for years to come, once the damage has already been done.

Paul Maugendre, Les lectures de l’oncle Paul (March 4, 2013)

Shadows over Alsace will appeal to readers of political history, espionage, World War II literature and historical fiction, but perhaps especially to those who enjoy discovering the history hidden behind familiar events. Most people know that Hitler invaded France in 1940. Far fewer know about the years of political warfare, propaganda, clandestine financing and ideological recruitment that preceded German soldiers crossing the Rhine.

By telling that story through the lives of the people who participated in it, resisted it or became its victims, Viviane Janouin-Benanti turns a regional history into something larger: a study of how democracies are undermined before anyone declares war, how fanaticism becomes respectable one compromise at a time, and how courage sometimes begins simply with the willingness to recognize danger before everyone else does.

The result is dense, disturbing and frequently gripping. It is not merely a book about what happened to Alsace-Lorraine between two world wars. It is a book about the years during which the next war was already being fought—in newspapers, political organizations, secret meetings, classrooms and streets—while much of Europe still believed itself to be at peace.

That is what makes Shadows over Alsace so worth reading. Its most compelling revelation is also its most sobering one: history’s great catastrophes rarely begin on the day armies cross a border. Long before the soldiers arrive, the shadows are already there.

The marina books lovers

Before the soldiers came, there were spies

Based on true events, Shadows over Alsace is a gripping historical novel of espionage, extremism, divided identities and courage.

It tells the story of a war that began long before 1940—fought in newspapers, secret meetings, police files and the streets of Strasbourg.

A disturbing and little-known chapter of European history, brought vividly back to life.

The True Crime French Touch, The 3E Editions blog