100 years later, trying to understand history

Visits to former battlefields, various memorials, military cemeteries are part of what is called “remembrance tourism”. Certainly necessary visits so as not to forget the horrors of war, of any war.

But these visits often leave distraught. Or don't really affect us.
The Hartmannswillerkopf in Alsace is one of these places of memory with a crypt, a battlefield, vestiges that recall the terrors experienced by French and German soldiers.

But the historial which has just opened its doors after three years of work brings another dimension to this place on the peaks of the Vosges. It's not just another memorial site, but a place that explains history and speaks to a wide audience. It is above all a Franco-German site: here, there are no sterile claims, nor “here the bad guys, there the good guys”.

The Historial made it possible to move from confrontation to cooperation. A group of eminent French and German historians worked together for four years to define this ambitious project, to make this new building a real gateway to memory and to allow a vast public to pass through it. To reach history buffs as well as families or tourists passing through who do not necessarily want to be confronted with the horror stories of war. The question also arose if it was really necessary, 100 years later, to build such a site.

The answer is yes. As the memories of the last two wars fade and the extremes grow stronger, a place had to be created that not only recalls the horrors of war but explains the process: "How did we get there? there » can we read on a panel. We must pass on this memory of the war with an appeal for peace and the strengthening of Europe. This “Entente Cordiale” between French and German historians is a marvelous illustration of Franco-German reconciliation. Having created this site together is a strong symbol.

It was also necessary to show that the war is not something distant, from another time: it was indeed young men who committed themselves, who lost their lives.
A fifteen-minute introductory film in the auditorium describes the beginnings of the war, helps to better understand this process which ended up triggering the Great War, encourages reflection.

The scenography of the historial is remarkable. It makes understandable the battlefield of Old Armand but also the Great War as a whole. Several themes are clearly presented thanks to numerous graphics, audiovisual and interactive terminals: logistics for transport, commitment, women's lives, men in war, the mountain of death…. Texts written by soldiers, German and French, are more poignant than any official documentary. Everyone can also carry a text.

Continuing the visit, we also learn all the particularities of a mountain war (the battlefield of Vieil Armand was on the heights of the Vosges) such as the difficulties of transporting troops, equipment (the Germans even built cable cars). Images of soldiers give a human face to the story.

Then, the visitor sinks as in a trench in the heart of the building. There, in the dark, he is immersed in the fighting: period videos show all the violence of the fighting on this mountain called "man-eater"...

We are relieved to come out of this "bubble", to find the luminosity of the building which is an architectural success. Vast bay windows open onto nature and the plain of Alsace, light woodwork comes from the surrounding forests, the impressive framework is reminiscent of the veins of a leaf. landscape, serving as a gateway to the Hartmannswillerkopf site: an “altar of the Fatherland which dominates the necropolis comprising more than 1256 tombs and six ossuaries, a crypt, a real underground cathedral.