My last blog post mentioned the role played by young René Oster working in his parents’ popular auberge at le Moulin de St-Hippolyte. During the Second World War, René was forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht, captured by the Russians and died in the prison camp at Tambow.
René was a Malgré-Nous – one of a hundred thousand Alsacien men and thirty thousand men from Moselle who were conscripted against their will into the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS after the forcible annexation of France in 1940 and compelled to fight against their country. (In a significant difference from the annexation of 1870, Alsace and Moselle remained legally French in 1940.) Malgré-Nous means ‘in spite of ourselves’. The majority who died in prison camps died in terrible, degrading conditions and near-starvation at Tambow. The fate of the Malgré-Nous is outside the scope of this blog, but there is considerable information available online, particularly at the excellent site http://www.malgre-nous.eu/ The list of names and their fates is harrowing and desolate.
By way of acknowledgement of the life of the young man who grew up at le Moulin de St-Hippolyte, I want simply to share the memorial to the Malgré-Nous at Ribeauvillé, Haut-Rhin.
Photographs my own, 2006.
Appendix
Inscription on the memorial
En hommage aux victimes de l’incorporation de forces des Alsaciens-Mosellans dans l’armée allemande lors de la guerre de 1939-1945. Ils étaient 130000 à partir contre leur gré, au mépris de toutes les conventions internationales, évitant à leurs familles d’affreuses représailles. Afin que le souvenir de cette tragédie jamais ne s’éteigne, ce monument leur est dédié. [Memorial donated by la Fédération de Tambow Brunstatt]
Location of the memorial
Jardin de Ville, route de Guémar, Ribeauvillé, Haut-Rhin
René Oster
These are René’s details taken from Tambov-Kirsenov, Une Liste de 1136 noms – a transcription from the Fiches du Volksbund – [Fiches du Volksbund transmises par Claude Herold sur la base d’une liste de 1136 noms publiée par Régis Baty dans son livre « Informations de Russie sur les Malgré-Nous »] which is available on http://www.malgre-nous.eu/
OSTER René 1925
◾ Nachname : Oster
◾ Vorname : René Daniel Martin
◾ Dienstgrad : Grenadier
◾ Geburtsdatum : 21.03.1925
◾ Geburtsort : Saint-Hippolyte
◾ Todes-/Vermisstendatum : 16.01.1945
◾ Todes-/Vermisstenort : Kgf. in Tambow
The Blue Line - the Vosges frontier 1871 to 1914 
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