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Municipal flag of Sarreguemines - Image by Ivan Sache, 2 February 2018
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The municipality of Sarreguemines (21,236 inhabitants in 2015; 2,967 ha; municipal website) is located close to the border with Germany, 80 km of Metz, 90 km of Nancy, 100 km of Strasbourg, and 20 km of Sarrebrück.
In 777, Fulrad, a councillor of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne,
bequeathed his goods and domains to the St. Denis' royal abbey. Among
Fulrad's goods was a big estate located on the confluency of rivers Saar and Blies. The name of Sarreguemines (Saargemund) is related to the roots gemundia (Latin) and Gmund (German), meaning confluency.
The Sarreguemines farm was fortified in order to control the ford on
the Sarre and to perceive a tax (tonlieu). Progressively, a small
town surrounded with walls developed around a castle built on the hill
dominating the river (Schlossberg; lit., the castle's mountain). In
1125, the lord representing the St. Denis' abbey swapped with Duke
of Lorraine Ferry III Sarreguemines for lands located near
Bitche. Sarreguemines was then the see of a châtellenie, that is an
administrative and military division of the Duchy of Lorraine.
In the same period, Sarreguemines became an important trade town on the Brabant road, which connected Flanders to Italy via the St. Gothard pass in the Alps. In the 14th century, the town was
granted a franchise and became independent of the feudal powers. Jewish
and Lombard moneymakers contributed to its development.
In 1523, Sarreguemines had three fairs per year and was very wealthy. However, the town was sacked during the Great Peasants' Revolt in 1525 and, again, during the Thirty Years' War (1632-1662). After the incorporation of Sarreguemines to the Kingdom of France in 1679, an attempt of resettlement of the town failed because of Louis XIV's wars. In 1698, the Duchy of Lorraine was reestablished and Sarreguemines became the see of the Bailiwick of Germany, one of the four administrative divisions of the Duchy, corresponding to the German-speaking part of Lorraine. From 1700 to 1735, the town developed and grew up out of the medieval walls. Lorraine was progessively incorporated into the Kingdom of France; importation of wood from Holland and local textile industry increased the prosperity of the area.
In 1790, Sarreguemines was the capital of one of the nine
districts forming the new department of Moselle. In 1800,
Sarreguemines was the sous-prefecture of the fourth arrondissement
(replacing the district) of Moselle.
In 1815, the Treaty of Vienna placed Sarreguemines on the border with
Prussia. Industrialization started in 1830 with the set up of dynastic capitalism. Factories were established on the right bank of the Saar,
producing pottery, snuffboxes, cudly toys, safety matches, steam
engines and safes. In 1863-1866, the building of the Collieries' Canal
(Canal des Houillères) and of the railway speeded up the development
of Sarreguemines; the population of the town increased from 6,000 inhabitants in 1850 to
14,000 en 1900. Sarreguemines was then the second most important town in Moselle
after Metz.
From 1871 to 1918, Sarreguemines was incorporated to the German Empire
as a part of the Alsace-Moselle Reichland. It became a garrison town, with the building of two big barracks for cavalry and infantry. A new court
of justice, railway station and hospital were the base of the complete
redesign of the town.
In 1918, Sarreguemines was reincorporated to France and took benefit of
the neigbouring coal-mining basin. Located close
to the border with Germany, the town was included in the "red zone" of the
Maginot defense plan in 1930. The increasing threat of war with Germany
completely stopped the economical development of the town.
The inhabitants of Sarreguemines were all evacuated to Charente
(southwest of France) on 1 September 1939. In the neighbouring village
of Frauenberg, the writer Roland Dorgelès (1885-1973) coined the
expression la drôle de guerre (the Phoney War), used to designate the
period between the declaration of war and the German assault of June
1940. After the defeat of France, Sarreguemines, severely damaged by
bombings, was incorporated into the Third Reich.
Liberated by the American forces in December 1944, Sarreguemines was quickly rebuilt (1945-1955) around the remains of its historical center. A new industrial zone was inaugurated in May 1961 with the opening of the Continental tyre factory, while new
industries replaced the traditional textile and pottery activities
deemed obsolete. The municipality of Sarreguemines absorbed the
neighbouring rural municipalities of Neunkirch and Welferding (1964)
and Folpersviller (1971). The urban district of Sarreguemines was
created in 1972 and was succeeded in 2002 by the urban community of
Sarreguemines-Confluences (52,670 inhabitants).
Sarreguemines is renowned for pottery. The first, pre-industrial
earthenware factory was founded in 1790 by the brothers Nicolas-Henri
and Paul-Augustin Jacobi and their associate Joseph Fabry. Production
became industrial in the 1830s under the leadership of Paul
Utzschneider and Paul de Geiger. There were 3,000 workers in the
factory in the beginning of the 20th century. The Geiger family kept
the control of the factory until the end of the 20th century; in 1979,
the factory was purchased by the Lunéville-Saint-Clément group, also
owner of the historical factory of Lunéville, and production was mostly redirected towards tiles. The factory was renamed
Sarreguemines-Bâtiment in 1982.
The former house of the director of the factory was transformed
into the Earthenware Museum (website); it includes the wonderful Winter Garten built for Paul de Geiger in 1882. Another museum, housed by the Blies watermill, shows the traditional techniques and tools used in
Sarreguemines for earthenware production. One of the 30 original ovens,
made of brick and with a conical chimney, can still be seen behind the
Town Hall. The casino built in 1890 has been transformed into a
restaurant.
Geiger's social capitalism is recalled every year in June on St. Paul's
Day. A street festival recalls that Paul de Geiger offered a lunch to
his factory workers on his patron saint's day.
The Carnival of Sarreguemines takes place every year in the two weeks before Mardi Gras. Its traditional elements are the Kappensitzung, the cavalcade and the masked ball Balla balla. It ends on Ash Wednesday with the sentencing of Prince Carnival.
Sarreguemines hosts every year the Mir Redde Platt festival,
dedicated to the Frankish (Platt) language still spoken in the region
and in the neighbouring Luxembourg.
Ivan Sache, 6 February 2005
The flag of Sarreguemines (image; use confirmed by the municipal administration) is a banner of the municipal arms, "Per pale, 1. Or a cross double traversed gules, 2. Gules an alerion argent".
The arms of Sarreguemines were first featured on a plate describing the
official entrance of Henri II the Good (1563-1624), Duke of Lorraine
(1608-1624), in Nancy in 1610 (L’ordre tenu au marchez parmi la ville
de Nancy, capitale de la Lorraine, à l’entrée en icelle du
Sérénissime Prince Henri II du nom, par la grâce de Dieu, 64e duc de
Lorraine et 31e marquis... le 20 avril 1610, one of the twelve plates
engraved by Matthieu Mérian after drawings made by His Highness'
Councillor, Claude de la Ruelle and printed in Nancy in 1622 by Hermann
de Loye). The representative from "Geminde" bears arms divided per pale,
charge dexter with a Cross of Lorraine and sinister with an alerion.
The Cross of Lorraine, then believed to be the genuine representation of
the Cross of Jerusalem, appeared on the arms of René of Anjou (1409-1480), Duke of Lorraine (1431-1453); it was used as a symbol of resistance against Burgundy
The very same arms were granted by the herald of arms to the
representative of Sarreguemines who attended the funeral of Prince
Léopold-Clément (1707-1723), celebrated on 12 July 1723 in Lunéville.
Mayor Jean Cristall let engraving on 2 September 1704 on the
four sides of the municipal fountain the coat of arms of Lorraine, which
Duke Leopold (1679-1729) would impose in 1707 to the prévôtés of
Sarreguemines, Amance, Boulay, Château-Salains, Hattonchâtel, Prény,
and Sainte-Marie-aux Mines. The seal used in 1709 in Sarreguemines
features a simple shield flanked on each side by a Cross of Lorraine.
In 1844, the Mayor of Sarreguemines informed the librarian of the Palais
Royal that the arms of the town featured three "larks" (French,
alouettes, probably mistaken for alérions) placed on the same line.
The préfet of the departement of Moselle confirmed in 1853 that these
were the "simple arms of Lorraine". These arms were featured on the
student's uniforms, on municipal buildings, on the society's banners and
on local earthenware.
The old arms were revived in the 19th century by two local heraldists,
Jean Cayon (1810-1855; Armorial des villes, bourgs et communautés de la
Lorraine et du Barrois, 1853) and Constant Lapaix (Armorial des
villes, bourgs et villages de la Lorraine, du Barrois et des
Trois-Évêchés, 1877). In 1887, Nicolas Box, author of Notice sur les pays de la Sarre, asked Mayor Freudenfeld to officially readopt the
arms. The archivist Henri Lempfrid, however, rejected them as a "whim".
His successor in 1898, Henri Grossmann, provided evidence that Box'
request was legitimate.
On 8 June 1909, Mayor Zoepfel, based on recommendations made by
Grossmann, then Director of the Secondary School of Wissembourg, Max Besler,
Director of the Secondary School of Sarreguemines, and the archivist
Rosenkraenzer, asked the préfet to re-establish the old arms. In 1912,
E. Cavalier, archivist of Lorraine, assisted by the scholar Léon Germain
de Maidy (1853-1927), found the old arms of Sarreguemines in a
manuscript written in 1723 by Damier Bugnon, First Geographer and
Engineer of His Royal Highness, kept at the Nancy municipal library
(Armoiries nouvelles dans le manuscrit nobiliaire de Lorraine, liste ou
estat des prévostés avec leurs armes fixéz à chacune par le
hérau(t) d’arme(s) à la cérémonie de la pompe funèbre de feu Mgr le prince Léopold-Clément en 1723).
The arms, redesigned by Pr. K. Eyth, from Karlsruhe, in compliance with the rules of German heraldry (the alerion with a beak, eyes, two legs
and wings pointing downwards), were granted on 31 March 1913 by Emperor
Wilhelm II. In 1919, following the return of Sarreguemines to France,
Mayor Henri Nominé re-established the original design from 1610, with
minor variations in the alerion.
In 1942, the German authorities planned to suppress the Cross of
Lorraine and to restore the alerion's beak and legs; considered as not
kriegswichtig, the project was postponed "after the war" in 1943, and
therefore never implemented.
The greater arms of Sarreguemines have the shield surmounted by a
three-towered mural crown; in base hangs the Cross of War 1939-1945 with
palm, awarded by Decree on 30 June 1948. In 1949, the municipal artist
Georges Hermann redesigned the alerion in a more elegant and modern way.
[Historical account by the local historian Henri Hiegel (1910-2001),
municipal website]
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 2 February 2018