French-German Border Research Articles

Border Region Attachment: An Empirical Study on Regional Social Capital in the French–German Border Area

Abstract In today’s globalized and interconnected world, international relationships are becoming ever more important. This applies not only to political relations but also to transnational attachment, a positive and solidary mutual attitude between the citizens of two countries, which is mainly based on social capital and trust. In particular border areas can benefit enormously when people have a bond with their neighboring country and its inhabitants. Due to their geographic proximity and historically shaped identity, border regions have a high potential for increased economic and social exchange. While empirical work on these characteristics of specific border areas is scarce, this article presents a novel approach which applies the concept of transnational social capital taking the French–German border area as an example. The representative study is based on telephone interviews, which were conducted in the border area and in regions within the two countries as a control for country-level effects. We find strong evidence for border region attachment in form of higher levels of social capital and trust in the border area. Our findings have important implications for borderland economies in general and in particular for cross-border resilience with regard to prevailing risks like upcoming nationalism and disasters such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ce que la crise sanitaire révèle du rapport à l’espace : le cas de la fermeture de la frontière franco-allemande en Alsace

IntroductionThe COVID-19 crisis of 2020 has led authorities to re-establish measures at the French-German border. The media refer to a “closure” of the border. This constitutes a rapid and brutal event in terms of the cross-border practices and mobility of local inhabitants. ObjectiveBy considering the closure period as a socio-spatial crisis, we question, first, the thematic structure of media discourse during the period of border closure, and second, the psychological continuity of the crisis discourse, by comparing it with pre-crisis interviews. MethodA thematic analysis of the discourse is done on a corpus of 407 local press articles, and on 12 semi-structured interviews with young, local inhabitants. ResultsThe analysis identified five themes which support the discursive media structure, and which organize and enable the debate. The international comparison and the use of historical and memorial content in the discourse enable actors to take a position on the border closure. The analysis of the links with the interviews shows that the relationship to the border during the crisis is structured on representational dimensions already present in the pre-crisis discourse of the inhabitants. ConclusionResults show a psychological continuity in pre- and post-crisis discourse: the media discourse reveals preexisting representations of the border, which act as generators of opinions on its closure. Additionally, we discuss the results by focusing on the place of identity-based feelings in the representational relationship to the border: this phenomenon is analysed here on a group and positional level.

Borderland resilience, willingness to help and trust–An empirical study of the French-German border area

Border regions between different countries are of special interest in studying international relationships, which is a current topic in today’s globalized and interconnected world. To strengthen their disaster resilience, it is important for local decision-makers to understand the spontaneous willingness of the population to help affected people in their region. This article presents a novel framework based on Social Capital and Weiners’ Motivational Theory of Mutual Help to quantify peoples’ willingness to help (WTH) surveyed for the hypothetical case of a natural disaster. We compared the potential helping behavior between neighbored regions and neighbored countries in France and Germany, and also in the border area between the two countries. We found a significant correlation between trust and WTH in a neighboring region and identified determinants of WTH in a neighboring country. Implications for today’s world in terms of globalization and disaster response as the Covid-19 pandemic are discussed.

Borderknots – cartographying experiences of crossing borders

Abstract. Borderknots is a drawing-performances project that I began in 2013 and through which I “graphically connect” borders of different nature with the help of a rudimentary drawing machine I developed: Inside a wooden box, a tracer produced a line on a paper sheet according to the movements, the accelerations, the vibrations, the shocks which it undergoes. Worn straight from the body or fixed to the door-luggage of a bicycle (Fig. 1), the instrument works as a seismograph recording graphically my journey, including the consequences of meeting the route, a harshness on the ground, a muscular fatigue or a fall. The routes so traveled and fixed on paper are always bound to the crossing of an obstacle or a frontier, real and concrete, political or symbolic, a limiting border physical or invisible, in charge, harmless. At the same time every paper of the project being carved of simple forms linked to the performance to come (in the obstacle to be exceeded), the pen meets then an obstacle in the irregular surface of the sheet of paper itself, too. The way it reacts response to the constraints that impede the flow of movement and reorient impulses of the Borderknots-performances and the border-behaviour in general. The drawing is the capture of an effort, a cartography of a more or less difficult and risky crossing. In its cash demonstration – cross 101 times a barrier (Borderknots - Crossing urban barriers, 2013); cross 28 times the French-German border as fast as possible (Borderknots - Europe round trip, 2013 / Fig. 2); or the relation between the unlimitedness of the obstacle and the simplicity of the obtained drawing (Borderknots - Crossing the Alps 1 and 2, 2014) – this effort sometimes lends to laughter: a certain irony participates unmistakably in the project. The political dimension takes however a more dominant aspect, particularly with the performances consisting in a penetrating into the representations of various countries present in the same city (consulates of Strasbourg / embassies in Brussels, 2013 / Fig. 3). The application of the stamp of every country straight on the drawing being made, is not only a proof of my path, but also outcomes of the negotiations (often difficult) begun in every stage with the various hierarchical authorities of the administrations around the artistic project. The maps thus produced and authenticated by seals, are at first glance abstract, but definitively very official drawings: like generalized visas for freedom of movement. Instead of a borderline, the title “Borderknots” propose making knots. It is to be said a tie, a link, but also a scrawl difficult to undo and representative of the complexity of certain limits. The lines marked by these machines during performances are in this way maps of the experiences of territories: straying, hesitating, starting over, jumping straight, crossing, turning backwards.

Script switching in nineteenth-century lower-class German handwriting

ABSTRACTThis paper examines intra-individual “script switching”, alternation between Kurrentschrift (“German script”) and “Latin script”, within nineteenth-century handwritten German texts. We attribute a semiotic value to the textual surface and assume that graphic variation conveys meaning and should therefore be considered a communicative practice. After an overview of the development of Kurrentschrift and of the functions and ideologies behind script switching with a particular focus on nineteenth-century German schools, our paper presents three case studies from different contexts of lower-class writing. First, we analyse the writings of a tailor in a southern German psychiatric hospital, who not only used script switching to comply with the relevant conventions, but also to make his texts appear “educated”. The second case study focuses on the French–German border region, which, especially Alsace-Lorraine, has historically been characterised by multilingualism and shifting national affiliations. Here, the use of different scripts and languages reflects both contemporary norms and the writers’ identity. Finally, we examine the letters of two Frisian sailors who had migrated to America and wrote home after adjusting to life in their new home country. Frequent switches between different scripts and languages index both cultural practices and their hybrid identity in a multilingual context.

Binding the Nation, Bounding the State: Germany and its Borders

The borders of Germany and of Europe have come under increased academic scrutiny over the last few years as questions of mobility and migration have surged to the forefront of public interest. Most such studies remain embedded in regional historiographies, although they are increasingly informed by interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical developments. Historians of the nineteeth- and twentieth-century French-German border emphasize transnational overlaps that arguably prefigured European cooperation, whereas studies of the Polish-German border stress the indifference and resentment generated by nationalism well into the twentieth century. Histories of divided Germany during the Cold War have transnationalized interpretations of everyday life in the GDR and the FRG, while studies of Europe since 1990 have probed the meanings and anxieties connected with Schengen. Taken together, these works show how interconnected discourses of ‘Europe’ have come together from experiences with borders that have varied greatly across time and space.

Near-Fault Broadband Ground Motion Simulations Using Empirical Green’s Functions: Application to the Upper Rhine Graben (France–Germany) Case Study

Seismic hazard estimation relies classically on databased ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) giving the expected motion level as a function of several parameters characterizing the source and the sites of interest. However, records of moderate to large earthquakes at short distances from the faults are still rare. For this reason, it is difficult to obtain a reliable ground motion prediction for such a class of events and distances where also the largest amount of damage is usually observed. A possible strategy to fill this lack of information is to generate synthetic accelerograms based on an accurate modeling of both extended fault rupture and wave propagation process. The development of such modeling strategies is essential for estimating seismic hazard close to faults in moderate seismic activity zones, where data are even scarcer. For that reason, we selected a target site in Upper Rhine Graben (URG), at the French–German border. URG is a region where faults producing micro-seismic activity are very close to the sites of interest (e.g., critical infrastructures like supply lines, nuclear power plants, etc.) needing a careful investigation of seismic hazard. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of performing near-fault broadband ground motion numerical simulations in a moderate seismic activity region such as URG and discuss some of the challenges related to such an application. The modeling strategy is to couple the multi-empirical Green’s function technique (multi-EGFt) with a k −2 kinematic source model. One of the advantages of the multi-EGFt is that it does not require a detailed knowledge of the propagation medium since the records of small events are used as the medium transfer function, if, at the target site, records of small earthquakes located on the target fault are available. The selection of suitable events to be used as multi- EGF is detailed and discussed in our specific situation where less number of events are available. We then showed the impact that each source parameter characterizing the k−2 model has on ground motion amplitude. Finally we performed ground motion simulations showing results for different probable earthquake scenarios in the URG. Dependency of ground motions and of their variability are analyzed at different frequencies in respect of rupture velocity, roughness degree of slip distribution (stress drop), and hypocenter location. In near-source conditions, ground motion variability is shown to be mostly governed by the uncertainty on source parameters. In our specific configuration (magnitude, distance), the directivity effect is only observed in a limited frequency range. Rather, broadband ground motions are shown to be sensitive to both average rupture velocity and its possible variability, and to slip roughness. Ending up with a comparison of simulation results and GMPEs, we conclude that source parameters and their variability should be set up carefully to obtain reliable broadband ground motion estimations. In particular, our study shows that slip roughness should be set up in respect of the target stress drop. This entails the need for a better understanding of the physics of earthquake source and its incorporation in the ground motion modeling.

Cartophilia: Maps and the Search for Identity in the French-German Borderland by Catherine Dunlop

Reviewed by: Cartophilia: Maps and the Search for Identity in the French-German Borderland by Catherine Dunlop Kory Olson Catherine Dunlop. Cartophilia: Maps and the Search for Identity in the French-German Borderland. Chicago: Chicago UP, 2015. 257 pp. Catherine Dunlop’s Cartophilia provides a thorough political and historical examination into the borderland and the shifting jurisdictional authority of Alsace-Lorraine in the decades around the Franco-Prussian War. Dunlop focuses her work on the creation of the man-made border between France and Germany along with its cartographic constructions and portrayals. Dunlop divides her book into two sections. The first half, “Mapping Borders,” examines the State’s role in the creation of international borders, most particularly the one established after French defeat in 1871. Her first three chapters provide a useful summary of state-based cartography in France and Germany throughout the nineteenth century, as the two nations began to map their domestic territories. For example, German states benefited considerably from French surveyors who followed Napoleonic military campaigns into their conquered lands. Dunlop also devotes energy to the general understanding of international boundaries prior to the Franco-Prussian War, where any demarcation of a French/German divide would extend well beyond the official state-sanctioned border. As for the period directly following the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, Dunlop excellently describes the collaborative approach between French and German officials as they marked, measured, and described the French-German border in the Vosges Mountains. We also learn more about the actual construction of the border itself. For countries such as France that traditionally referred to “natural” borders, such as mountains or water, the establishment of this artificial one (especially upon defeat to a neighbor) pleased few. Other examples of cartography appear in this first half of Dunlop’s volume as well. Maps of language zones created symbolic ruptures between European peoples, suggesting to viewers a correlation between linguistic divides and national borders (52). This trend took place primarily in Germany, where the idea of uniting German speakers even had its own vocabulary for language-specific divisions: Sprachgebeit (language area). [End Page 147] Furthermore, in the nineteenth-century desire for German unification, language maps became idealized spaces for nationalists to visualize how far the future borders of the German state should extend (75). So “seeing” Alsace and German-speaking Lorraine as part of a greater German Empire was more or less expected outre-Rhin. The second half of Dunlop’s book, Borderland Maps for Everyday Life, turns away from scientific maps in favor of “everyday use” ones that constructed up-close, experimental, and emotional views of land. Located far from the “center” of both the France republic and German empire, residents in Alsace-Lorraine related much more to their own medieval villages than to Paris or Berlin. So to be successful, new cartographers needed to acknowledge this mentality. Dunlop demonstrates how mapmakers transformed villages into positive picturesque locations through the use of cadastral maps, which included illustrations and cartouche boxes (text boxes) containing decorative images of the Alsatian countryside, while both nations were creating government-sanctioned visual representations of Alsatian hometowns. Wall maps, too, took on new importance during this time. In contrast to France, which tended to promote the nation or its capital city on classroom walls or in texts such as Le Tour de la France par deux enfants, Germany championed the local in its wall maps, which placed the student’s hometown within the territorial units of the German Empire. In addition to being able to situate their villages visually in relation to other provinces, students were given the opportunity to draw maps themselves in order to familiarize themselves with the shape of the region and to recognize their village’s role within that region. Beyond classroom materials, hiking maps and visual panoramas also help shed new light on the physical changes that the French and Germans imposed on their border territories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (133). On the French side, private civil societies helped catalogue the historical and picturesque sites in the Vosges as part of their inclusion into national patrimony. Although the government provided funds, private societies did the work and documented what they found...

Mapping a New Kind of European Boundary: The Language Border between Modern France and Germany

ABSTRACT During the nineteenth century, Europeans became fascinated with the idea of locating and mapping the borders between their languages. The barrier of language offered a new way of seeing, dividing and organizing European land according to cultural differences. The cartographic techniques that Europeans invented to map their language borders involved a combination of linguistic surveys, on-site observations and collaboration with locals. Once printed, language maps found a broad public audience and helped to structure debates over cultural identity in European borderlands. This article explores the nationalist and regionalist motivations behind linguistic map making along the French-German border, one of the most disputed in modern European history.

Ground deformation associated with post-mining activity at the French–German border revealed by novel InSAR time series method

We present a novel methodology for integration of multiple InSAR data sets for computation of two dimensional time series of ground deformation. The proposed approach allows combination of SAR data acquired with different acquisition parameters, temporal and spatial sampling and resolution, wavelength and polarization. Produced time series have combined coverage, improved temporal resolution and lower noise level. We apply this methodology for mapping coal mining related ground subsidence and uplift in the Greater Region of Luxembourg along the French–German border. For this we processed 167 Synthetic Aperture Radar ERS-1/2 and ENVISAT images acquired between 1995 and 2009 from one ascending (track 29) and one descending (track 337) tracks and created over five hundred interferograms that were used for time series analysis. Derived vertical and east–west linear deformation rates show with remarkable precision a region of localized ground deformation located above and caused by mining and post-mining activities. Time series of ground deformation display temporal variability: reversal from subsidence to uplift and acceleration of subsidence in the vertical component, and horizontal motion toward the center of the subsidence on the east–west component. InSAR results are validated by leveling measurements collected by the French Geological Survey (BRGM) during 2006–2008. We determined that deformation rate changes are mainly caused by water level variations in the mines. Due to higher temporal and spatial resolution the proposed space-borne method detected a larger number of subsidence and uplift areas in comparison to leveling measurements restricted to annual monitoring of benchmark points along roads. We also identified one deformation region that is not precisely located above the mining sites. Comparison of InSAR measurements with the water levels measured in the mining pits suggest that part of the water that filled the galleries after termination of the dewatering systems may come from this region. Providing that enough SAR data is available, this method opens new opportunities for detecting and locating man-made and natural ground deformation signals with high temporal resolution and precision.

Identification of European bat lyssavirus isolates with short genomic insertions

Molecular typing has consistently identified European bat lyssaviruses from Germany as EBLV type 1a (EBLV-1a). This report confirms the presence of the closely related EBLV-1b in southern Germany, a group previously reported from The Netherlands, France and Spain. Furthermore, two of three German EBLV-1b isolates contain a 6 base pair insertion within the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of the nucleoprotein gene. This feature was shared with a third EBLV-1b isolate from a region of France adjacent to the French-German border. Further investigation revealed a two base pair insertion in a single isolate of EBLV-2 at the same genomic location. Although the length of the nucleoprotein gene 3′UTRs do vary between lyssavirus genotypes, such insertions have not been recorded within genotypes and could be the result of duplications within the nucleoprotein mRNA transcript polyadenylation signal.

La médecine expérimentale au tribunal: Implications éthiques de quelques procès médicaux du XXe siècle européen (review)

Reviewed by Anne Marie Moulin CNRS-CEDEJ Cairo Christian Bonah, Étienne Lepicard, and Volker Roelcke, eds. La médecine expéri­mentale au tribunal: Implications éthiques de quelques procès médicaux du XXe siècle européen. Histoire des sciences des techniques et de la médecine. Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, 2003. x + 462 pp. E31.90 (paperbound, 2914610157). Law is fundamental to the process of civilization, and in a way, there is nothing special in the fact that medicine comes to the bar. Yet unmistakably the great trials depicted in this collective work—Lübeck (1930–31), Nuremberg (1947), Thalidomide (1967–70), and Contaminated Blood Affairs—represent pathological events that shook societies by condemning errors and crimes and forcing goverments to change their research and health policies in an innovative manner. It is often commonly received that bioethics is an invention of the late twentieth century, originating in the famous Nuremberg code, after a long period of medical “irresponsibility.” The book confirms that, fulfilling Claude Bernard’s agenda, medical experimentation in the nineteenth century enjoyed an unprecedented growth: it seemed accepted that academic freedom should not be restrained, and that the morality standards and code of behavior of the profession sufficed to avoid [End Page 787] any transgression. Yet these studies also reveal a more complex and contrasted history. First, the people concerned did not just submit silently to the schemes of the doctors. If governments were reluctant to interfere, judges wanted to limit medical autonomy and were ready to apply to doctors the common rules of law. Some affairs came to be openly discussed in journals, with debates on the legitimacy of introducing new drugs with uncharted effects, and on the patients’ rights to obtain information and to make decisions. Thus the famous Nuremberg trial represented by no means an absolute beginning. In fact, guidelines (Richtlinien) had been elaborated in Germany before the Lübeck drama. On the other side, Paul Weindling reveals some of the hidden agendas of the Nuremberg judges and an ethos more sympathetic to the doctors’ autonomy than is currently assumed. The account of the BCG trial at Lübeck (1930–31), which marks a climax in the book, points to the chauvinism rampant on both sides of the French-German border, and unravels the far-reaching political implications of the scientific choices: The French were eager to see the Lübeck accident as a plot against their precious vaccine, which was expected to counter the disastrous effect of tuberculosis on a population decimated by the Great War. On the German side, the real charges were leveled at a man absent from the box, Albert Calmette, the initiator of the vaccine that had killed seventy-six children with tuberculosis. This parallel story of France and Germany suggests that trials are strongly affected by the historical and geographic context, and also that the practical consequences inferred by countries highly differ. This book pleads for the implementation of a still broader international comparison, exploring the whole range of theoretical issues and of local solutions devised to avoid the repetition of errors. European countries have now harmonized their legislation as far as human experimentation is concerned, and have put the main emphasis on the formal aspects of consent—to the point that some think that medical research might be impeded in its development. Some patients, in the face of the increasing regulations, far from complaining that they are treated as human guinea pigs, claim free access to “compassionate” protocols and drugs, ahead of their official approval. The book leaves pending the issue of to what extent legalist thinking is likely to solve most problems and what space has to be left for developing a critical mind among citizens. It illustrates forcefully the role of historical accounts in rousing attention to the errors and illusions of the past. Its contents are very...

Le conflit franco-italien dans les Balkans 1915-1935.: Le rôle de la Yougoslavie

The conflict between France and Italy in the Balkans in fact was an attempt at reorganizing the Balkans and Central Europe following the disappearance of the Habsburg and Romanoff. The two Latin powers now had a unique opportunity to dictate a rearrangement of the Balkans, but their positions were diametrically opposed. Italy sought to establish domination in the Adriatic and the Balkans, whereas France sought to reorganize the region with the view to precluding Germany from recovering its former influence. At the same time, after Wilson?s political defeat in the Senate in 1919 Italian guarantees of the French-German border became vitally important to France. A compromise between Paris and Rome turned out to be unfeasible for several reasons. Expansionism of both the last liberal governments and Mussolini met with resolute opposition from Belgrade. Moreover, Paris was convinced that Italian domination not only would not bring stability to the Balkans, but on the contrary, that it would shatter the region?s Little Entente-based inner cohesion and facilitate Germany?s comeback. Thus most of diplomatic initiatives coming from Paris and Rome were mutually neutralized while German economic influence in the region irresistibly grew from the early 1930s. The agreement Mussolini-Laval reconciled the two Latin powers but it was now in the new circumstances created by the rise of Nazi Germany as a dominant force in Central Europe and the Balkans.

EPMA and µ‐SRXRF analysis and TEM‐based microstructure characterization of a set of Roman glass fragments

AbstractA set of Roman glass fragments, excavated at Bliesbruck–Reinheim (French–German border), were analysed by electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and micro‐synchrotron radiation‐induced x‐ray fluorescence (µ‐SRXRF) in order to determine the major, minor and trace chemical composition. Based on this analysis, five classes of mono‐coloured glass could be discerned. However, one piece of this set was not mono‐coloured, but consisted of a mixture of brown and white opaque glass. This fragment was investigated using EPMA and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in order to gain a better insight into its microstructure. Both colours proved to contain small crystalline inhomogeneities. Structural information reveals the form in which the detected elements are present and helps to explain the appearance (e.g. colour) of the material. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Human rabies prophylactics: the French experience

In 1968, fox rabies was introduced on the French territory, in the Moselle department and from that time, spread southwards and westwards from the French–German border at the speed of 40 km per year. Consequently, a program aimed at controlling and eradicating the disease was carried out. Collaboration between human and veterinary medicine has been the key of the success of this program. In 2001, rabies in terrestrial animals was eradicated from France, while no indigenous human rabies case had been reported. Meanwhile, post-exposure treatments (PET) had been closely monitored. Data on rabies cases in animals, rabies cases in humans, PET, surveillance of exposures to baits and oral vaccines for the wild fauna, and exposures outside the French territory will be successively considered and discussed.

Policing Across a Dimorphous Border: Challenge and Innovation at the French-German Border

AbstractNo Abstract

SH Propagator Matrix and Qs Estimates From Borehole- and Surface-Recorded Earthquake Data

Summary A new method is proposed for the solving of elastic and anelastic parameters of a medium between two seismometers, one in a borehole and one at the surface. This allows us to retrieve equivalent quality factors of the materials and, at the same time, gives wave velocities as well as reflection and transmission coefficients in a layered structure. the study of local site effects shows that the quality factor of shallow materials can be completely masked by resonance effects and near-surface amplification. Our method is based on the SH propagator matrix in the time domain. This separates the effects of resonance and amplification in the elastic structure from those of attenuation due either to scattering or physical attenuation, and we find that the elastic problem is decoupled from the anelastic one. After a synthetic test, we applied the method to seismic records made with a borehole-surface instrument operated in the Southern Rhine Graben valley, on the French-German border. Due to high seismic noise at the surface, we were only able to resolve a one-layered mean 500 m deep structure between the borehole and surface instrument. an apparent Qs of 40 is found between 1 and 5 Hz, a frequency band where classical methods failed. This is in close agreement with Qs at frequencies larger than 15 Hz obtained from the classical method based on the slope of spectral ratios.