The Alsatian trap : too ambitious amateurs ?



March 16, around 6 p.m., the telephone ringed in the office of Doctor Georges Hartmann (Georg Hartmann since 1941), radiologist at the hospital of Mulhouse. As usual, it was his boss, Fritz Graunitz, a Prussian from Knigsberg installed there in January 1941 following the expulsion of the French doctors, an inefficient and scorning individual, who answered the call:

- It is for you, your colleague of the Civil Hospital of Strasbourg.

- Hello, Anton, what can I do for you ?

- I would need baryta, my supply becomes exhausted, and Karlsruhe cannot send some to me before two weeks. Can you help me?

- No problem, I send you that tomorrow morning. Volunteers to make such errands are not missing...

- By the way, some fishes passed yesterday under my windows, and of a very large specie this time. Depth fishes

- You believe that they will come upriver now ?

- Oh yes, you can prepare your fishing rods !

The phone hardly hung up, Graunitz started an alas usual diatribe:

- But when will you cease speaking Alsatian, Gott im Himmel ! We are in Germany, here : one nation, one people, and the same language for all of us. And the telephone is reserved for the duty, not to discuss angling. Moreover, why would you go to fishing, you do not eat enough with what is available on the markets ? "

It was useless to answer. Graunitz was upset because it did not understand all was had been said, its principal mission not being to care the patients, but to bring to heel those who it called " the stubborn Alsatians mules ".

George Hartmann returned at home little afterwards. For him, the few sentences exchanged with his colleague were particularly clear : the Germans were again making a transit of warships through the Canal du Rhne au Rhin, and this time, it was necessary to act against. A plan was ready, but will it work ?

The following day, March 17, after having badly slept, he returned early at the hospital, walking along the main shopping street of Mulhouse, the Savage street, that the Germans had for a short time renamed Adolf-Hitler Strasse, before realizing their mistake... Despite the very early hour, Graunitz was already there and awaited him obviously :

- I have good news for you : tomorrow morning Thursday, you will go to the hospital of Altkirch. The incompetent Alsatian who plays radiologist there still fell sick, and since tomorrow is market day, the waiting room will be crowded. You will return the day after tomorrow. As ordered !

Obviously, Graunitz thought, by sending him to Altkirch, to persecute him once more. But he was mistaken. This provisional exile formed part of George Hartmann plans... And for the disease of his colleague of Altkirch, he knew what to think. On the other hand, he felt bitterly sorry for the patients who were going to be treated (or rather mistreated) by Graunitz in his absence. With a little luck, most of them would be born on the other side of the Rhine...

It returned early at home this day, and explained to his wife why it would go to Altkirch the next morning, and undoubtedly not return at the evening. As usual in such cases, he would sleepover by his brother Alphonse, who held an inn in Dannemarie.

March 18, George Hartmann travelled by bicycle to Altkirch. In the black night, he heard distantly boat horns. The Germans were on the way to cross Mulhouse with their convoy. Next evening would be crucial for the intended action While progressing on the road, he remembered the circumstances which led him here. Native of Dannemarie, it had been appointed resident doctor at the hospital of Mulhouse in 1933. He remained there, being promoted assistant chief radiologist. Sportsman, he liked walking or climbing in the surrounding mountains, either in the Vosges, either in the Swiss Alps, with his wife, but also with colleagues of the various Alsatian hospitals, and had established acquaintance with other members of the medical profession of the area, Swiss, Germans, and even English ones residing in Switzerland. At the declaration of the war, reservist, it had been mobilized as physician lieutenant at the military hospital of Colmar. Taken prisoner on June 18, 1940 when the Germans entered in Colmar, he was quickly released as Alsatian and returned at his job in Mulhouse. In March 1941, one of his patients, a woodcutter native from Winkel (near the Swiss border), gave him a letter :

- It is from your physician to explain me why you made all this way for an elbow radiography?

- No, Herr Doctor, it is for you personally. And I must transmit a response in two weeks.

- I dont know if you are daring or cheeky ! Good, come back in ten days, after all, its at the costs of the German sickness insurance...

Adsorbed by his work, he forgot this letter in his pocket, where his wife found it the evening. She asked whether she could open it, and he acknowledged without paying attention to what she said.

- Georges, its from Mr. Andrew Smith, the English dentist of Bern we met several times in Switzerland when it was still possible to go in the Alps. Be look at that, he asks if you could provide him some information on the everyday life in Alsace, how behave the Germans, and especially what are doing the soldiers. You must answer yes immediately, would this be only to avenge you for the miseries that Graunitz put on your back !.

- Not so loud ! If the neighbours heard you !

But the decision was taken, and was in line with his own opinion. It thus answered to Mr. Smith, and, gradually, associated a colleague of Strasbourg, then the young radiologist of Altkirch, without forgetting his own brother, innkeeper in the native town, to what it did not call a network, but could be so called. The lumberjack of Winkel, more smuggler that forester, posted the messages inside Switzerland, the locations where to cross the border right under the nose of the guards being numerous. So that his regular visits at the hospital do not end up being suspect, the mail finished by being conveyed to Winkel in the ramshackle van of a cousin grocer, known before the war in all the south of Alsace to bring food products as exotic as bananas in the most remote corners. All that bundled together gave a resistance network of perfect amateurism...

But military information that could be transmitted to Mr. Smith was quite seldom. Since 1941, the German military presence was limited, because of the de facto annexation, the repressive power being ensured by the numerous police forces or all the organizations emanating from the Nazi party. Outside the training of recruits coming from nearby Baden and the guards at the Swiss border, there was nothing of interest to observe. The only notable subjects were the transfers of troops coming and going between Germany and France.

The passage of a flotilla of motor torpedo boats in November 1941 was an unusual event. This transit caused long discussions with his brother Alphonse, who said that it would have been easy to prevent it by blowing a judiciously selected point of the Canal du Rhne au Rhin, not far from his house. The idea was transmitted to Mr. Smith, who eventually answered " Why not ? " if by chance the Germans tried again, and for that he would provide the needed detonators, the explosives themselves having been very discreetly salvaged in June 1940 when the French, in full retirement, undermined carelessly anything anywhere. Unfortunately, when the second convoy of motor torpedo boats, in October 1942, passed by, the detonators were still missing. It was only one month later than George Hartmann saw them for the first time, in his fluoroscope, by inspecting once more the leg protected by a plaster of the forester from Winkel. This day, it thanked God for not being cardiac, and poured a great part of its repertory of insults, whose Alsatian language is particularly rich, on the poor man... Since, these detonators were hidden in the case of some radiology apparatus at the hospital of Altkirch, well sheltered behind metal plates displaying death's-heads and the inscriptions "High voltage - Danger of dead - opening prohibited ". The first stage thus consisted in recovering those detonators. Also informed of the arrival of the "fishes" by the colleague of Strasbourg, the radiologist of Altkirch was gone on foot to inform Alphonse Hartmann, the innkeeper, and its disease was only some tiredness related to the night walk in both directions.

March 18, therefore, when coming at the hospital of Altkirch, George Hartmann saw that the waiting room was already full. He was not going to be unemployed for the day. Indeed, the last patient left only around 8 p.m.. Time to recover the detonators, mount on his bicycle, and to arrive at his brothers inn, it was nearly 9 p.m.. He entered by the back door, as usual, only to hear a hubbub of Teutonic voices. Overpowered by tiredness and the sudden discouragement, he dropped on a chair, and waited until his brother had some time to speak with him.

- The Germans are here, its screwed-up...

- No, no, they will leave soon.

- Its screwed-up nevertheless, if they are there, its for watching the Canal.

- Yes, but not here. They will do that at Valdieu.

- But its lost anywhere., because the German boats are now away !

- No, they could not go much farther than Illfurth. The sergeant explained me that they had a big problem on a lock, which put them late. And they expected anyway to stop for the night ahead of our "surprise". I leave you, I have to take care of my customers

- Yes, but do not sell them your Swiss smuggled tobacco !

- Sleep for a while, the night will be long !