August 25, 1942. A day of infamy for Alsace-Lorraine. The Nazis have just decided to draft the first Frenchmen of Alsace and Lorraine in the Wehrmacht, the German Army. Later, many would even be drafted in the infamous "Waffen SS." For Marius Meyer, my grandfather, the draft date was April 16, 1943, not even three years after he had been discharged from the French Army in the wake of the tragic defeat of 1940. But he has no choice for the draft dodgers see their families deported somewhere to the East. So he leaves his wife and daughter to go to war, once again. His destination is Kustrin, in Eastern Germany, a few steps closer to the much feared Russian Front...Marius wrote the following poem about this painful moment of departure: "Now goodbye you, my dear homelandDear land of Alsace, goodbye!We must go to a remote land!Dear land of Alsace, goodbye!And we leave with some ... feeling.Gone to the Wehrmacht into the uniform - Dear homeland, oh dear![ ]Thus they went through the town and landAnd were soon recognized everywhere A far-out hand wave, last moment of blissAnd all this was already part of the past.And always resonates of home this melody Like the complaints of the little flower from 'Forget me not!'"This book is the story of my Grandfather, one of the 130,000 Frenchmen drafted in the German Army during World War II. 32,000 of them would be killed in action and 10,500 are still missing in action to this day. It is one of the first books in English dealing with the tragedy of French nationals forced to wear the German uniform in World War II.
About the Author: About the Author Bertrand Jost grew up in Alsace, France. In 1991, he graduated as an electrical engineer and moved to the United States. After a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Master in Business Administration, Bertrand Jost worked as a credit analyst in various financial institutions in New York. Simultaneously, Bertrand Jost wrote various articles and books (mostly in French) focusing on Alsatian history. Bibliography Kocherschbari no64 - Winter 2011 La guillotine à Hohatzenheim - L'affaire Nicolas Blaise (1793-1794) Vicissitudes Militaires 1809-1959 Sept générations de conscrits d'une famille alsacienne aux armées de cinq empires Volume 3 - Quand nous étions allemands 1871-1918 Calleva - October 2011 Vicissitudes Militaires 1809-1959 Sept générations de conscrits d'une famille alsacienne aux armées de cinq empires Volume 2 - Le Prix de la Liberté 1815-1870 Calleva - June 2011 Vicissitudes Militaires 1809-1959 Sept générations de conscrits d'une famille alsacienne aux armées de cinq empires Volume 1 - Grandeur et déchéance 1809-1815 Calleva - May 2010 Kocherschbari no56 - Winter 2007 Marius Meyer (1917-2006) - Mémoires inachevées Kocherschbari no56 - Winter 2007 Histoire de la libération de Hohatzenheim et des environs (1944-1948) Empire Patriot - Volume 9 Issue 3 - August 2007 The American War of Independance - A Global War against England Kocherschbari no54 - Hiver 2006 Une famille de bergers du Kochersberg: les Jost entre 1726 et 1789 Kocherschbari no50 - Hiver 2004 Hohatzenheim n'est pas le domaine des dieux - Etymologie du nom du village Applied Mathematics and Computation - Volume 71, Issue 1 - August 1995 A critical analysis of the numerical and analytical methods used in the construction of the lunar gravity potential model