The Alsace-Lorraine region in eastern France is the center of a power struggle between France and Germany during the interwar period. This French territory, which belonged to Germany from 1871 to 1918, is returned to France after the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. But tensions don’t end. In the years leading up to World War II, as the people of Alsace-Lorraine yearn for autonomy, a separatist movement takes hold. In Germany, Alsatian refugee activist Robert Ernst is tasked with recruiting Alsatian separatists to join the nascent Nazi Party. Germany finances their anti-French campaigns. Dr. Karl Roos, a clever and conniving Alsatian separatist with a love of everything German, becomes the secret weapon of Hitler’s Third Reich in Alsace-Lorraine.
As Nazism rises in Europe, Alsatian Jews organize to defend themselves. The eminent Dr. Joseph Weill, alarmed by Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Céline’s Bagatelles pour un Massacre, endeavors to educate his community while establishing a Jewish resistance movement in Alsace.
When Hitler comes to power in 1933, tensions in the region reach new heights. The Jewish community of Strasbourg mobilizes, while separatists in the region carry out Nazi propaganda campaigns. Dr. Weill’s powerful network launches a daring counter-espionage mission in collaboration with French secret services that results in the arrests of Nazis masquerading as separatists in Alsace-Lorraine. The traitors are put on trial, one after the other, and justice is served…until Hitler’s army invades and again occupies the region, turning French traitor Karl Roos into a German national hero.
Viviane Janouin-Benanti uses her talents as a seasoned creative nonfiction author to retell the little-known story of separatists, Nazis, and the Jewish Resistance in Alsace-Lorraine. An incredible slice of history that reminds us of the horrors of World War II and the unsung heroes of the Resistance.
