Jean-Marie Hostert, 99 years old, was present this Saturday on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Strasbourg. He was part of the “Despite us”, these soldiers forcibly incorporated into the Nazi army between 1942 and 1945. A still complicated episode that he chose to tell.
“To preserve my parents, I agreed to become a ‘Despite us’”. Jean-Marie Hostert, 99, present at the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Strasbourg, testified to AFP this Saturday, November 23, about his forced incorporation into the German army in 1942, an episode that is still painful.
The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron rightly called this Saturday to “name, recognize and teach” the tragedy of “Despite us” which still remains taboo.
Mosellan by birth, born in 1925, Jean-Marie Hostert recounts his carefree youth until the de facto annexation by Nazi Germany of Alsace and Moselle in 1940.
“My youth was studious, very animated by my practice of scouting and happy, until the day of the annexation. I never thought that I would one day be taken into the German army. But at the end of August 1942 came the obligation” for Alsatians and Mosellans to join the ranks of the German army, with the decrees of August 25 and 29, 1942.
For the young man, a dilemma arises: to join his older brother towards Lyon – “it was easy, the border was directly next to my hometown” – or to submit to forced incorporation.
“I was one of the 100,000 Alsatian 'Despite Us'”
“I wanted to stay because of my parents, I didn’t want them to suffer the reprisals that were planned for those who were rebellious,” he explains. “So I was one of the 100,000 Alsatian 'Despite us', and the 30,000 Moselle 'Despite us'.”
“Our luck was that we weren't in the infantry, we were in communications. We were sent to Poland first, and then afterwards I arrived in Italy at a radar station” , he specifies about his group of 400 “Despite us”.
In 1944, “as soon as I knew that my native region and Strasbourg were going to be liberated, something happened in my head. In the space of three minutes, I deserted the German army “.
“After two days of wandering in hiding, I met a young lady who told me where I should hide at night. And I hid under a small bridge all night. And the next day, this lady found someone to take me to the partisans and I joined the Garibaldi Natisone division, Italian partisans, for the end of the war.
When the war is over, he returns to the scene to “greet” this young girl to whom he owes the success of his escape and remains with his family, working in “field work”. “Then love came and I married her. I married her in Italy and I brought her back to France. And she became the mother of my children.”
“One thing that has always been misunderstood”
In total, more than 130,000 Alsatians and Mosellans were forcibly incorporated from 1942 to 1945. Around 40,000 of these men never returned.
“I am a miracle,” assures Jean-Marie Hostert. “In the family, out of three 'Despite Us', one did not return from Russia, one returned from Russia with frozen feet, and I, who had not been to Russia, was lucky to be spared.”
The history of forced incorporations has been a source of misunderstanding and distrust between Alsace, Moselle and the rest of France. It is “something that has always been misunderstood”, testifies Mr. Hostert. “We didn’t want to go there.”
After the war, he became an executive at Saint-Gobain then mayor of Cirey-sur-Vezouze, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, for 17 years, until 2008.
When asked what he expects from Emmanuel Macron, his voice breaking with emotion, he replies: “I tell Macron, if he can do something, that he try to avoid this drama.”
“When I watch the news, I imagine going back to what I experienced when I was young, at 14, at the time of the annexation. We are on the eve of a third world war and no one will have seen nothing coming…”
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