Hilsenheim (; gsw-FR, Helsa) is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin (; Alsatian: ''Unterelsàss'', ' or '; traditional german: links=no, Niederrhein; en, Lower Rhine) is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est super-region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its low ...

department in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

in north-eastern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

.INSEE commune file
/ref>

Geography

Neighbouring communes

Surrounding communes are Witternheim, Bindernheim und Wittisheim to the east, Muttersholtz in the south,

Ebersmunster Ebersmunster (german: Ebersmünster) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. It is famous for its 1727 baroque church, a work by Vorarlberg architect Peter Thumb. Population See also *Communes of the Bas- ...

to the west and Kogenheim, Sermersheim and Rossfeld to the north. Further afield,

Sélestat Sélestat (; Alsatian: ''Schlettstàdt''; German: ''Schlettstadt'') is a commune in the Grand Est region of France. An administrative division (sous-préfecture) of the Bas-Rhin department, the town lies on the Ill river, from the Rhine and th ...

is some to the southwest, and the Strasbourg conurbation is to the north. About 10 kilometres to the east is the river

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

, which here is tracked by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

frontier.

The land

The land, characteristic of the Ried district of which this is a part, is composed of rich alluvial deposits. Before the

was channeled much of the land was marshy and prone to flooding: even today there are many areas where the

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

is only two meters below the surface of the land. Currently the non-built land in the commune is divided between forests (27%) and arable farming (52%). The predominant arable crop is currently maize Brit ''(corn US English)''. Vineyards and orchards taking up most of the balance. In addition to agriculture the local economy features some small scale manufacturing and logistical activity.

Communication links

The village is the crossing point of numerous small local roads. The

Autoroute A35 The A35 autoroute is a toll free motorway in northeastern France. It is also known as the ''Autoroute des stork, cigognes'' and the ''Voie Rapide du Piémont des Vosges Mountains, Vosges''. It connects the Germany, German border in the Rhine va ...

is some twelve kilometres to the west and the German Autobahn A5 is some twenty kilometres to the east. The French autoroute is here toll free, but both the highways suffer from congestion and the risk of serious delays at peak times, so drivers setting out on a long drive to the north or south do well to listen to the traffic reports before choosing on which side of the

to travel. Between 1909 and 1944 a steam railway ''(le Riedbahnnel)'' connecting Sélestat to Sundhouse passed close to the village, but Hilsenheim never had its own station, and after the

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

, with the surge in car ownership that followed, the railway was abandoned and then progressively dismantled. A currently unused

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

pipeline also passes close to the village, beneath the road to Wittisheim.

Tension

The little town has a strong sense of its history, with many traditional Alsatian houses from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ever more scrupulously maintained and restored. There is, as in many villages of this kind within commuting distance of Strasbourg, a perceived tension between preserving Hilsenheim as a balanced and integrated community and the risk of progressively transforming it into a dormitory town increasingly dominated by the requirements and developments in the larger urban economies such as Sélestat ''(Schlettstadt in Alsatian and German)'' and, above all, Strasbourg.

History

Prehistory

Several Iron Age

tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...

testify to settlement here in prehistoric times: some in the Willermatt quarter were archeologically investigated early in the twentieth century. It is thought that the proximity of the Celtic site at Novientum (modern Ebersmunster) indicates that the Hilsenheim area will have been strongly influenced by tribes mentioned by

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...

and

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

such as the

Mediomatrici The Mediomatrici (Gaulish: ''*Medio-māteres'') were according to Caesar a Gaulish tribe at the frontier to the Belgicae dwelling in the present-day regions Lorraine, Upper Moselle during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name They are ment ...

and the

Triboci In classical antiquity, the Triboci or Tribocci were a Germanic people of eastern Gaul, inhabiting much of what is now Alsace. Name Besides the forms Triboci and Tribocci, Schneider has the form “Triboces” in the accusative plural. Pliny ha ...

: during the early centuries of the first millennium the overwhelming political power and cultural influence came from the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

themselves.

Roman period

Hilsenheim is on the old paved Roman road that connected

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

and Strasbourg. Today this follows the line of a rural road (RD212) called Heidenstraessel. Some three kilometres to the north of the village, at the edge of the road the water table breaks the surface of the land. This point is known locally as "Waechterquellen" which indicates a clear water source, and seems to have originated with a Roman guard post of some sort. According to local legend King Dagobert III of

Neustria Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It late ...

and of Austrasia drowned in this spring when his carriage ran into it. Directly to the south of the spring is an isolated fortified farm called The Riedhof, which may have been built on the foundations of a Roman fort, possibly an outlying fortification of the Fourth Legion garrison which guarded the important religious centre at Hellelum (modern Ehl, Bas-Rhin).

Franco-German competition

As the French

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

expanded towards its 'natural' eastern frontier, the

, Alsace found itself a French territory by the eighteenth century. Between 1871 and 1918, however, Hilsenheim, in common with the whole of

was annexed by

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Several of the town's public buildings including the

mairie In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

and some schools date from the period, and provide good examples of the heavy Wilhelmine architecture of imperial Germany. Ahead of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

citizens living closer to the German frontier were evacuated to central and western France, but the people of Hilsenheim, from the frontier, suffered German occupation. Several villagers were forcibly conscripted into the German Army and died on the Russian front. On the night of 15 March 1944 a Canadian

Lancaster bomber The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling ...

was shot down by German anti-aircraft guns, crashing near to the road towards Wittisheim. The seven crew members, members of the 408th squadron, are buried in Hilsenheim cemetery. Two Maginot line bunkers survive at the edge of the commune, both in ruins: one is on the Rue des Vergers (Orchard Road) on the edge of the village on the road towards Wittisheim, and the second is about east of the village on the road towards Bindernheim, level with a patch of woodland. In the winter of 1944/45 the village found itself on the edge of the Colmar Pocket, and during the heavy fighting that took place over the enclave, several buildings in Hilsenheim were destroyed including the church. This would be rebuilt during the 1950s to a contemporary design. After two months of intensive fighting, during which the population, still not evacuated, hid in their cellars, the village was finally liberated in January 1945 by the Moroccan

Goumier The Moroccan Goumiers (french: Les Goumiers Marocains) were indigenous Moroccan soldiers who served in auxiliary units attached to the French Army of Africa, between 1908 and 1956. While nominally in the service of the Sultan of Morocco, they s ...

s of the 15th

Tabor Tabor may refer to: Places Czech Republic * Tábor, a town in the South Bohemian Region ** Tábor District, the surrounding district * Tábor, a village and part of Velké Heraltice in the Moravian-Silesian Region Israel * Mount Tabor, Galilee ...

(2nd GTM), part of the First French Army under General de Lattre. The liberating forces continued east to the

while other First Army units took over their position in the village. During the fighting several villagers were killed, and more were killed subsequently because of mines set on some of the surrounding roads and fields.

The name

The name Hilsenheim can be analysed as a combination of two words, being "Hils", a Celtic word which refers to the hilt of a sword or to fighting, and "heim", a widely used old word for a home or a place: this explanation is consistent with the modern coat of arms used by the village. An alternative etymology suggests the word means "habitat above the water", and certainly any settlement in this area would, two thousand years ago, have rested on a raised piece of ground surrounded by marsh land: this interpretation is based on an Indo-European linguistic root indicating the vertical movement of water. The coat of arms incorporates the golden handle of a sword.