Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...
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 It superseded three former administrative regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, on 1 January 2016 under the provisional name of Alsace-Champagne-A ...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
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park
The Northern Vosges Regional Natural Park ( French: ''Parc naturel régional des Vosges du Nord'') is a protected area of woodland, wetland, farmland and historical sites in the Grand Est region in northeastern France. The area was officially d ...
.
Geography
Ingolsheim is a small village with an economy based on agriculture. During the second half of the twentieth century French agriculture became very much more mechanized than hitherto, and many villagers work in the surrounding towns.
The village is positioned between
Soultz-sous-Forêts
Soultz-sous-Forêts (; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
The French revolution
In December 1788 Mary de Bode who had been born in England and her German born husband Baron de Bode arrived in Soul ...
and
Wissembourg
Wissembourg (; South Franconian: ''Weisseburch'' ; German: ''Weißenburg'' ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in northeastern France.
Wissembourg was a sub-prefecture of the department until 2015. The name ''Wissembourg'' ...
. Adjacent communes are
Cleebourg
Cleebourg (; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
Cleebourg was claimed by the Kings of Sweden from 1654 to 1787, stemming from their familial claim.
See also
* Communes of the Bas-Rhin department
...
,
Hunspach
Hunspach ( or ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. In 2020 it was voted the «Village préféré des Français» (France's favourite village).
Geography
The commune lies a short distance to the south ...
The origins of Ingolsheim go back more than a thousand years. It appears as "Ingoldeshaha" in an imperial record of
Otto II
Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.
Otto II was ...
, from the year 967. The name mutated through various versions before becoming "Ingolsheim".
The
reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
reached the village in 1558, and the parish was served by a
shared church
A shared church (), simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th-century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in the German-speaking lands of Europe ...
until the construction of a
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
church in 1900.
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 ...
was rendered the more shocking for the villagers by the proximity of the
Maginot line
The Maginot Line (; ), named after the Minister of War (France), French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by French Third Republic, France in the 1930s to deter invas ...
, less than a kilometre away, and in particular the nearby Schoenenbourg fortifications. The village was one of many Alsatian communities located near the frontier to be evacuated to
Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne (; , ; Upper Vienne) is a département in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwest-central France. Named after the Vienne River, it is one of the twelve départements that together constitute Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The prefecture an ...
, in this case to the village of
Bessines-sur-Gartempe
Bessines-sur-Gartempe (, literally ''Bessines on Gartempe''; Limousin: ''Becinas'') is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France.
Geography
The river Semme forms part of the commune's north-east ...
.
See also
*
Communes of the Bas-Rhin department
The following is a list of the 514 communes of the Bas-Rhin department of France.
The communes cooperate in the following intercommunalities (as of 2025):Ouvrage Schoenenbourg
Ouvrage Schoenenbourg is a Maginot Line fortification. It is located on the territory of the communes of Hunspach, Schœnenbourg and Ingolsheim, in the French ''département'' of Bas-Rhin, forming part of the Fortified Sector of Haguenau, f ...