THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY

The bitter fighting in the winter of 1944/45 is not as widely memorialized in Alsace as the Ardennes campaign in Belgium. The outcome of the war was far more ambiguous than in Belgium or the rest of France due to the confused matter of national identity in this border region. The best-known World War II museums in the province are preserved sections of the extensive 1940 Maginot fortifications. Some of these museums coincide with bunkers that were involved in the Nordwind campaign, such as the Esch casemate and the Hatten bunker, both located in the eastern outskirts of Hatten. These museums include displays devoted to the 1945 fighting, though the main focus is the fortifications themselves and their role in the Maginot system. There is a military museum dedicated to the Colmar Pocket fighting in Turckheim to the west of the city. Many of the regional history museums in the area contain exhibits on the war years as well. The towns that were the center of some of the fiercest battles have been rebuilt since the war. Wingen-sur-Moder is best known as the home of the Lalique glass works on the eastern side of the town. Hatten has the two bunker museums as mentioned above. There are numerous small memorials scattered through the region. The most prominent of these are a dozen or more tanks which have often been set up to commemorate particular events. For example, a postwar French Army M4A1E8 (76mm) is located in the center of Rosenau village to commemorate the French Army’s arrival at the Rhine; there is another Sherman tank at Place Lacarre in Colmar as a war memorial.