Bezirk Lothringen (today's , at the time translated into In official bilingual publications at the time the Bezirk Lothringen is translated as Département de la Lorraine. German was the official language and its promotion was furthered, but bearing the strong proportion of Francophone Lorrainese in mind several bilingual publications appeared especially referring to the area of their settlement in the west and south of the Department or referring to department-wide events and organisations. Cf. the title of the department's legal gazette: Amtsblatt für den Bezirk Lothringen / Recueil officiel des actes administratifs du Département de la Lorraine. i.e. Department of Lorraine), also called German Lorraine (Deutsch Lothringen), was a government region ("Bezirk") in the western part of Alsace-Lorraine when it was part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918.
History The Department or District of Lorraine differed from other Prussian government regions, as it was not a simple governorate. As a corporation of self-rule of the pertaining rural and urban districts and cantons, it was similar to regions in the then neighbouring Bavaria (Palatinate), which had been formed after the French model départements into which that region had been divided under French annexation. Thus the district parliaments delegated deputies to the General Council (parliament), the Bezirkstag von Lothringen (). The capital of the Department of Lorraine was Metz.
Territorial composition The department comprised the districts ("Kreise") of : Metz, independent city (Stadtkreis) "Kreis Bolchen", seated in Bolchen (Boulay) "Kreis Château-Salins", seated in Château-Salins "Kreis Diedenhofen-Ost", seated in Diedenhofen (Thionville) "Kreis Diedenhofen-West", seated in Diedenhofen (Thionville) "Kreis Forbach", seated in Forbach "Kreis Metz-Land", seated in Metz "Kreis Saarburg",Not to be confused with the former Rhenish Kreis Saarburg, seated in Saarburg in the Rhineland. seated in Saarburg (Sarrebourg) "Kreis Saargemünd", seated in Saargemünd (Sarreguemines)
The department of Lorraine corresponds exactly to the current département of Moselle. After the outbreak of the Second World War and the defeat of France in 1940, the département of Moselle, renamed CdZ-Gebiet Lothringen, was added to the Gau Westmark on 30 November 1940.Jacques Lorraine (Edmond Huntzbuchler): Les Allemands en France. Origines, Bretagne, Zone interdite Est, Bourgogne, Alsace et Lorraine, Alger-Oran: editions du Désert, 1945, pp. 121–124.
Department presidents (/today's ) 1871-1872 : Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, as préfet/Präfekt 1872-1873 : Botho zu Eulenburg, as department president 1873-1874 : Adolf von Arnim-Boitzenburg 1875-1876 : Robert von Puttkamer 1877-1880 : Friedrich Albrecht Karl Johann von Reitzenstein 1881-1882 : Adalbert von Flottwell 1883-1900 : Hans von Hammerstein-Loxten 1901-1912 : Johann Friedrich Alexander von Zeppelin-Aschhausen 1913-1918 : Karl von Gemmingen-Hornberg
Bibliography Amtsblatt für den Bezirk Lothringen / Recueil officiel des actes administratifs du Département de la Lorraine (departmental legal gazette; appeared December 1870 to 1918) Ernst Bruck, Das Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsrecht von Elsaß-Lothringen: 3 vols., Straßburg im Elsass: Trübner, 1908–1910. Stefan Fisch, „Das Elsaß im deutschen Kaiserreich (1870/71–1918)“, in: Das Elsass: Historische Landschaft im Wandel der Zeit, Michael Erbe (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 2003, pp. 123–146. . Georg Lang, Der Regierungs-Bezirk Lothringen: statistisch-topographisches Handbuch, Verwaltung-Schematismus und Adressbuch, Metz: Lang, 1874 Verhandlungen des Bezirkstages von Lothringen / Procès-verbaux des délibérations du Conseil Général de la Lorraine, Metz (proceedings of the departmental parliament sessions, appeared from 1874 to 1918)
External links "Bezirk Lothringen" on territorial.de
References