Creutzwald (; ) is a commune in the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

département in

Grand Est Grand Est (; ) is an Regions of France, administrative region in northeastern France. It superseded three former administrative regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, on 1 January 2016 under the provisional name of Alsace-Champagne-A ...

in north-eastern France, located on the German border, just south of

Überherrn Überherrn () is a municipality in the district of Saarlouis, in Saarland, Germany. It is situated along the river Bist on the border with France, approx. southwest of Saarlouis, and west of Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ...

(with which it is twinned) and west of Lauterbach-Völklingen, both in the

Saarland Saarland (, ; ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in ...

. With Germany, it manages the

Warndt The Warndt () is an extensive forest area of approximately including parts of the German Saarland and the French region Grand Est west of Saarbrücken. The geology of the Warndt is composed of Buntsandstein permeated by veins of iron ore and dep ...

forest.

History

The town was formed in 1810, by the merging of the three villages of ''La Croix'', ''La Houve'', and ''Wilhelmsbronn''. It continued to be known as Creutzwald-la-Croix until 1961, when the name was simplified. Until that point, it had been redundant, as the German word ''Kreuz'', and French ''Croix'' both mean "cross". Like the other communes of the present-day Moselle department, Creutzwald was annexed to the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

from 1871 to 1918. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the commune was annexed by the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

. It was not liberated until December 1944. Creutzwald was the last town in France to have a working

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

, in La Houve, which closed on 23 April 2004.

Population

Administration

Together with the municipalities of Bisten-en-Lorraine, Guerting, Ham-sous-Varsberg and Varsberg, it forms the

Communauté de communes A (, "community of communes") is a federation of municipalities (communes) in France. It forms a framework within which local tasks are carried out together. It is the least-integrated form of ''intercommunalité'' (intercommunality). As of 1 J ...

of Warndt, of which it is the seat. Since 2015, it is part of the canton of Boulay-Moselle.

Industrial and handcraft activities

Glass

The first industrial development of the commune was linked to glass, thanks to the abundance of wood in the forests and the presence of silica sand in the soil. The first glass factories were set up between 1602 and 1603 by the Condé family, gentlemen glassmakers from Champagne. Several glass factories operated simultaneously in Creutzwald until the middle of the 17th century, when they gradually declined. The last one, La Houve, was established in 1705 to revive the activity, and was bought by the glass factory of Meisenthal in 1843.

Steel and iron

The iron and steel industry started in the La Houve forest. It was initiated by the Quien family, who installed two blast furnaces initially fuelled by charcoal. The hydraulic power produced by the water of the Bisten enabled the blowers to be put into action to increase the temperature in the furnaces. The iron industry flourished until the revolution, which stopped this activity. In 1814, François Payssé revived the iron and steel production. Then the factory passed into the hands of the Schlincker family. The blast furnaces were shut down and only the cast iron casting remained. The Quinchez family took over the running of the company. Finally, in 1929, the factory was directed by the Schmitt brothers. It was closed after the Second World War.

Media

Since February 1988, Creutzwald has been notable for having its own television channel called 'CVS', currently led by the wider 'ÉNES' electricity board. One of the first local television stations of its kind in France, 'CVS' runs a weekly broadcast of around 30 minutes, which informs the town's inhabitants of current affairs taking place in and around Creutzwald. The channel is available at all hours of the day, and will often run important news and announcements otherwise.

References

External links

Creutzwald Webzine (News media)
{{Authority control Communes of Moselle (department)