ALSATIANS (ELSÄSSERN) Verified listing

The German-speaking peoples of the West, formerly members of the Empire, have struggled to preserve their identity. Alsace, Mosellan Lorraine, and Luxembourg have faced, to varying degrees, arrogant Francophone claims.

The Elsässern, Alesaciones, Alesacius (642–658 in Fredegar, 7–8) take their name from Old High German Eli-sâzzo, from Germanic *ali-sātia, “the other settlement” (F. Bader in Langues indo-européennes, CNRS, Paris, 1994, p. 74). They stem from the confederation of the Alemanni (Alamanni in Dio Cassius, LXVII, whence the designation “Alemannic Switzerland”). The speech varieties of Alsace (Elsass), or Elsässerdeutsch/-ditsch, belong for the most part to the Low Alemannic group of High German (Hochdeutsch) and are identical to those of the right bank of the Rhine, likewise arrayed from north to south. As in all German-speaking lands, the “dialect” and the koiné mutually support one another. The displacement of Standarddeutsch by French as the language of education and administration weakens Alsatian identity. The absurd administrative border on the Rhine (a consequence of the military conquest of the seventeenth century) cannot erase the historical and spiritual solidarities of Rhenish Europe.

The flag of the Alsatians is red and white.
On 25 June 1912, the Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen adopted a flag representative of the territory and of its special status by placing a gold Cross of Lorraine in the canton of the Alsatian flag.

The arms of Lower Alsace consist of a silver bend accompanied by two silver flowered cotises. The landgraviate of Upper Alsace has a gold bend accompanied by gold crowns, themselves also flowered. These were combined into a single coat of arms, either by juxtaposition (parti) or by fusion: a silver bend accompanied by two flowered cotises and six gold, flowered crowns. This latter version, adopted by the former administrative region in 1990, reprises the arms of the seventeenth century. The common element is the fleuron.

Alsace used signs known as Hofzeichen, carved on lintels and portals or drawn on the wrought iron of signboards to announce the inhabitants’ activity. They could be accompanied by inscriptions. This recalls the major role played by Alsace in the development of printing: it was in Strasbourg, where Johannes Gutenberg stayed from 1434 until at least 1444, that he conceived his invention and perfected his alloys. The first Bible in German was printed there in 1466 by J. Mentelin, a native of Schlettstadt (Sélestat), followed by the Comedies of Terence, by J. Grüninger in 1496. Alsatian printing would also promote the works of early-sixteenth-century Alsatian humanists (Geiler von Kaysersberg, J. Wimpfeling), geographers (Sebastian Münster), and historians (Chronicon Alsatiae by Reinhardt Hertzog in 1592).

Here, we have placed along the border a motif that recalls heraldic fleurons and, like them, is trilobed. The central emblem is a heart, a protective sign of houses and lineages, the motif most widely used in Alsatian decoration.