Elsass (German) ~ Alsace (French) Elsass or Elsaß, or in French "Alsace", today is one of 26 french regions, located on the eastern border of France, on the west bank of the Upper Rhine, adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. Initially Alsace was inhabited by nomadic hunters, but by 1500 BC Celts began to settle in Alsace. By 58 BC, the Romans had invaded and established Alsace as a center of viticulture. To protect this highly valued industry, the Romans built fortifications and military camps that evolved into various communities which have been inhabited continuously to the present day. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Alamanni. The Alamanni were agricultural people, and their language formed the basis of the modern-day Alsatian dialect. The Franks drove the Alamanni out of Alsace during the 5th century and then became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Charlemagne was known as the founder of the Frankish realm. Alsace remained under Frankish control until the realm was formally dissolved in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun in which the grandsons of Charlemagne – divided the realm into three parts. Alsace and Lorraine formed the new Frankish Middle realm which was ruled by the youngest grandson Lothar. Lothar died early in 855 and his realm was divided into three parts. The part known as Lorraine was given to Lothar's son. The rest was shared between Lothar's brothers Carl "the Bald" ruler of the West Frankish realm and Ludwig "the German" ruler of the East Frankish realm. In time, after being part of the Kingdom of Burgundy during the 15th century, Alsace became part of the Holy Roman Empire as western part of the duchy of Swabia and was later under the administration of the Austrian House of Habsburg. Alsace experienced great prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under the Hohenstaufen Emperors, but this prosperity was terminated in the 14th century by a series of harsh winters, bad harvests, and the Black Death. An additional natural disaster was the Rhine rift earthquake of 1356, one of Europe's worst. During the Renaissance, prosperity returned to Alsace under Habsburg administration, until the Thirty Years' War devastated large parts of southern Germany. Most of Alsace was ceded to France at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which marked its start, along with Lorraine, as a contested territory between France and Germany. The City of Strasbourg was annexed by France during the reign of Louis XIV of France, in a time when Habsburg and other Germans were fighting off the Turks, at the Battle of Vienna. Since 500, the area had been predominantly populated by Germanic speaking people and they resisted efforts to have the French language and customs imposed upon them. Château du Haut-Königsburg The château du Haut-Kśnigsbourg or "Hohkönigsburg" is located at Orschwiller, Alsace, France, in the Vosges mountains. The castle is nestled at a strategic location on a high hill overlooking the Alsatian plain. As a result it was used by successive powers from the middle ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandonned. In 1900 it was restored under the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It is not known when this castle was built but the first time it was mentioned was in 1147. In 1192 it took its name, Königsburg, meaning the king's castle. In the early 13th century the castle passed from the Hohenstaufen family to the Dukes of Lorraine. In the 15th century it was held by to the Ratsamhausen family. In 1462 the castle was attacked by a coalition of cities and burned. The ruins passed to the Thiersteins who rebuilt the castle circa 1479 with a defensive system suited to the new artillery of the time. In 1517 the last Thierstein died without an heir and the castle came into the posession of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. It was abandonned after the Thirty Years' War because it had been burned and pillaged by Swedish troops after a 52 day siege. For a few hundred years the castle was left unused and became overgrown by the forest. In 1899 it was given by the city of Sélestat to the German emperor Wilhelm II. Both Alsace and Lorraine, as "Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen" became part of the new German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, causing an estimated 50,000 people to emigrate to France. Alsace remained a part of Germany until the end of World War I, when Germany ceded it under the Treaty of Versailles. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the region was self-ruling by legal status, as its constitution had stated it was bound to the sole authority of the Kaiser and not to the German State. The regional government of Alsace-Lorraine declared independence as Republic of Alsace-Lorraine, but could not fight off the French who took it over a week later. After World War I, the establishment of German identity in Alsace was reversed, as Germans who had settled in Alsace since 1871 were expelled. Policies forbidding the use of German and requiring that of French were introduced. Curiously, the region was not considered to be subject to some changes in French law from 1871 to 1919, such as the Law of Separation of the Church and the State. The region was effectively annexed by Germany in 1940 during World War II and reincorporated into the Greater German Reich. Alsace was merged with Baden, and Lorraine with the Saarland. The annexation, while putting a halt to the anti-German discrimination, subjected the region to the Nazi dictatorship, which was loathed by most of the people. The German government never negotiated or declared a formal annexation, however, in order to preserve the possibility of an agreement with the West. France regained control of the war-torn area in 1944 and resumed its policy of promoting the French language with uncompromising vigour. For instance, from 1945 to 1984 the use of German in newspapers was restricted to a maximum of 25%. The traditional language of the region is Alsatian, an Alemannic dialect of Upper German. Alsatian is closest to Swiss German. Some Frankish dialects of West Middle German are also spoken in the extreme north of Alsace. Neither Alsatian nor the Frankish dialects have any form of official status, as is customary for regional languages in France, although both are now recognized as languages of France. A wine-producing region, Alsace wines are primarily white. Its wines, which have a strong Germanic influence, are called vins d'Alsace. It produces some of the world's most noted dry rieslings and is the only région in France to produce mostly varietal wines identified by the names of the grapes used (wine from Burgundy is also mainly varietal, but not normally identified as such), typically from grapes also used in Germany. Alsace is also the main beer-producing région of France, thanks primarily to breweries in and near Strasbourg. These include those of Kronenbourg, Fischer, Heineken, Météor, and Kanterbräu. Hops are grown in Kochersberg and in northern Alsace. Schnapps is also traditionally made in Alsace, but it is in decline because home distillers are becoming less common and the consumption of traditional, strong, alcoholic beverages is decreasing. Alsatian food is synonymous with conviviality, the dishes are substantial and served in generous portions and it has one of the richest regional kitchens. The gastronomic symbol of the region is undoubtedly Sauerkraut! The word "Sauerkraut" in Alsatian has the form "Sűrkrűt ", and means "sour cabbage". To make it, the cabbage is finely shredded, layered with salt and juniper and left to ferment in wooden barrels. Sauerkraut can be served with poultry, pork or sausage. Traditionally it is served with pork, Strasbourg sausage or frankfurters, bacon, smoked pork or smoked Morteau or Montbéliard sausages or a selection of pork products. Most of the Alsatian population are Roman Catholics, but there is a significant Protestant community, not in the last place due to German influence. Unlike the rest of the country, the Alsace-Moselle region continues to follow the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, under which public subsidies are granted to Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist churches, and to Jewish synagogues, and public education in those faiths is offered. This discrepancy with the rest of the country is due to the fact that the region was administered by Imperial Germany at the time of the 1905 law separating the French church and state. In more recent years, as nationalistic emotions have receded, cultural freedom has gradually been restored. Thus for instance, several citizens' initiatives promoting the teaching of German in some form in local kindergartens and schools have been tolerated by the Paris government. France had to return Alsace with the exception of the town of Belfort and the area around it, because the inhabitants there were native French speakers unlike in the rest of Alsace. The annexed area corresponded to the French départements of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, except the area of Belfort, and a small area in the northeast of the Vosges département, all of which made up Alsace, and the départements of Moselle and the northeast of Meurthe, which were the eastern parts of Lorraine. The remaining département of Meurthe was joined with the westernmost part of Moselle which had escaped German annexation to form the new département of Meurthe-et-Moselle. The new border between France and Germany was closely following the geolinguistic divide between Romance and Germanic dialects, except in a few valleys of the Alsatian side of the Vosges mountains and in the area of Château-Salins, which were annexed by Germany despite the fact that people there spoke French. The reason for it was that German military imperatives, such as establishing the border on the crest line, had prevailed over linguistic considerations. This fact was used in France to denounce the new borders, which Germany had justified by the native Germanic dialects and culture of the inhabitants, as hypocrisy. World War II During World War II, after France was defeated in the spring of 1940, Alsace-Lorraine was administered from Berlin by the Nazis until they were defeated in 1945. During the occupation, all inhabitants of military age were subject to conscription into the German army, and in some cases were made to engage in repression against French citizens during the War. Many young men from Alsace-Lorraine were also drafted or volunteered to serve in the German Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS during World War II. This led to numerous problems and recriminations after the war. Under the later periods of German rule (between 1871-1918 and between 1940-1945), a policy of Germanization was pursued and the use of the French language was restricted. Ethnic Germans were encouraged to settle in the region, and all inhabitants of military age were subject to conscription into the German army. Those latter policies resulted in some tensions between Alsace-Lorraine and some other parts of France, after Alsace-Lorraine inhabitants conscripted into the German forces were made to engage in repression against French citizens. After World War II When Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France after the war, the fact that many young men from the area had served in the German Army and even the Waffen SS, in many cases by force, resulted in tensions between Alsace-Lorraine and other parts of France. The French government pursued a strong "anti-German" policy. The German language as well as the German dialect "Elsässisch" were strictly banned from public life (Street and City names, official Administrations, educational systems, etc). Largely due to this policy, Alsace-Lorraine is today very French in language and culture. The original "Elsässisch" is close to extinct there, yet the closely related Alemannisch is alive on the other right bank of the Rhine, in Baden, and especially in Switzerland. In recent times however, official and private initiatives have been trying to reverse this process, thus accepting the bi-lingual and bi-cultural heritage of the regions.