A house that is divided unto itself

SCHIZOPHRENIC is the best word to describe it, historian Leon Strauss told me in his book-lined study in Strasbourg's German quarter. "There are people who changed nationality five times," he explained. "My grandfather Edouard was born French in 1856, under Napoleon III. He became German in 1871. He went back to being French in 1918. Then, because he was Jewish, he had to flee the Germans in 1940. He died a refugee in central France at the age of 86."

After being violated so many times, after French and Germans tugged it back and forth, each imposing their language, Alsace is still not sure of its identity. "Among intellectuals, it's stylish to talk about the role of Alsace as a bridge between Europeans," Dominique Chansel, a professor at Strasbourg University said. "After being disputed territory for so long, Alsace has become a meeting place, a place of interaction.

The majority of Alsatians are strongly pro-European (after all, Strasbourg hosts the European parliament), but many of the rural population feel their Alsatian identity - exemplified by women's traditional winged bonnets, the migration of storks, beer and sauerkraut - is threatened by Europe and the rest of the world.

This anxiety is exploited by the extreme right-wing National Front, which gained more than 25 per cent of the Alsatian vote in the 1995 presidential election.

You have to go back a long way to find the roots of Alsace's identity crisis. In the 16th century, when it was part of the Germanic empire, Alsace was a centre of the Protestant reformation. But the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia gave the region to France, and in 1681, Louis XIV turned its red stone Reform church back into a Catholic cathedral.

Despite two centuries of French nationality, Alsatians continued to speak a German dialect. "The Germans based their claim to Alsace not on history," Mr Strauss said, "but on the idea of volk - that wherever people spoke German, they had reason to be German.

In 1914, after 43 years of German rule, Alsians were beginning to forget French and were growing accustomed to Kaiser Wilhelm 11 when the first

World War started. About 10,000 Alsatians fought on the French side; far more were sent by the Germans to the eastern front so they wouldn't have to fight their French relatives. In 1942, the Nazis would again send Alsatian conscripts eastward.

The euphoria of returning to France in 1918 was short-lived: Alsatians resisted attempts by the secular Paris government to stem the influence of Alsatian Catholic and Protestant clergy.

Paris further upset Alsatians by trying to reinstate French overnight, and some Alsatians missed German punktlichkeit - not just punctuality, but a whole ethic of cleanliness and order.

In 1926, Alsatians nostalgic for German rule published the manifesto of the Heimat Bund or Homeland League. Some of these autonomists would become fascinated with Nazism. The French government locked them up when war broke out in 1939, but the Germans freed them when they marched in a year later and annexed Alsace.

One League member, Hermann Bickler, headed the Nazi party in Strasbourg. He joined the SS and became a Gestapo chief in Paris, only to resurface years later as a prosperous businessman in northern Italy.

Unlike the rest of occupied France, Alsace and Moselle were considered part of Germany. Alsatians were forced to join Nazi movements like the Hitler Youth, and men - many of whom had earlier served in the French army - were taken into the Wehrmacht. These unwilling conscripts are known as the malgre nous - despite ourselves.

The survivors still receive French government pensions for having fought in the German army. They were captured en masse by the Soviets and ended up in prison camps deep inside frozen Russia. "Imagine the Soviets trying to understand Alsatians' dual identity," Prof Chansel said. "De Gaulle negotiated with Stalin to get them freed before the Germans. But they suffered a lot in the camps, and to this day Alsatians are very anti-Communist."

Some of the malgre nous were incorporated into the Waffen SS Das Reich Division, which massacred the inhabitants of the French town of Oradoursur-Gline. When a dozen of these young men were tried for war crimes in the early 1950s, Alsatians demonstrated in their defence, and the Paris government pardoned them.

Between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis, forbade the use of French in Alsace. All names - first and last - were Germanicised and symbols of Frenchness like the Basque beret were banned. Today, although Alsatians are proud of their German dialect and traditions, there is no desire to be part of Germany. "The Nazis behaved so badly that they accomplished in a few years what the French failed to do in 20 years," Mr Strauss said.