War memorials serve as powerful sites of memory, symbols around which collective identity isdeveloped. Strasbourg’s monument aux morts is no exception, yet in content it is unique amongFrench monuments to the First World War. The monument aux morts depicts a mother mourningover her two dying sons, who fought on opposing sides of the conflict. My project addressesthemes of commemoration, borderland identity, and public spectacle. It seeks to show howStrasbourg’s unique geopolitical position, caught between the German Empire and the ThirdRepublic, contributed to its public representation of its wartime experience. Moreover, drawingon the concept of invented tradition, I posit that the monument’s 1936 inaugurationceremony served the ritual function of symbolically integrating the citizens of Strasbourg intothe French Republic – a process which was negotiated between national center and periphery
