On 05.09.19 21:31, Michael H Deckers wrote:

   On 2019-09-05 16:20, Alois Treindl wrote:

...

This is just a question to some well informed readers of this mailing list.

Liberated France ended daylight saving time on 8 October 1944, 01:00, as represented in zone Europe/Paris.

Eastern parts of France were still occupied by the German army at that time, and Germany ended DST in 1944 on 2 October 1922, 02:00s = 03:00, as represented in TZ by Europe/Berlin, rule C-Eur.

For occupied France however, Shanks claims the end of DST on 3 Oct 1944 03:00. For all other countries in Europe on German time at that moment, Shanks holds that DST ended 2 October, like in Germany itself.

I cannot find a source supporting Shanks' claim for the deviation in France.

Does anyone have information supporting Shanks' claim?

      I only have a source arguing against that claim of Shanks'.

      The paper [Yvonne Poulle: "La France à l’heure allemande"], online y       at [https://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1999_num_157_2_450989],       describes at length how France arrived at a common civil time scale in       both occupied and free territory. It seems to say [p 501] that the switch       to summer time (UT + 02 h) in 1944 followed German rules, while the       switch back to UT + 01 h was as ordered by the provisional government.

      Michael Deckers.

Thank you for this interesting link. There is no mention of October 1944 in this interesting document. I only find a decree by the (liberated) French government about the end of DST on 8 Oct 1944. The parts of France occupied by Germany on 3 October 1944 correspond roughly to the provinces Alsace and Lorraine (German: Elsass und Lothringen) which had been part of the German Reich between 1971 and 1918 and then went back to France. Germany under the Nazis considered them de facto as part of Germany since 1940, but the legal status was undefined - they were not mentioned in the contract with France of 1940. I think one is safe to assume that the DST regulation for 1944 was de facto valid for these two provinces, as far as they were still in German hands. In our Astrodienst time zone database, I will modify the date given by Shanks from 3 Oct to 2 Oct, for the occupied areas. The German law does not mention them. It mentions only some eastern areas under German administration.

On 2019-09-06 05:43, Michael H Deckers via tz wrote:

On 2019-09-06 09:25, Alois Treindl wrote:

...

Germany under the Nazis considered them de facto as part of Germany since 1940, but the legal status was undefined - they were not mentioned in the contract with France of 1940.

I think one is safe to assume that the DST regulation for 1944 was de facto valid for these two provinces, as far as they were still in German hands. In our Astrodienst time zone database, I will modify the date given by Shanks from 3 Oct to 2 Oct, for the occupied areas.

The German law does not mention them. It mentions only some eastern areas under German administration.

Yes, the German military doubtless used the time as specified by that decree in their communications. But civil time in the rural regions of Alsatia and Lorraine is a different matter.

Civil time in rural regions has normally been set by urban-based authorities, and it is likely cities like Straßburg, Mülhausen, Metz, Diedenhofen, Kolmar conformed to the Reich, and the rural areas followed.

Railroad time and time at city hall was disseminated from Paris. At the time, it was not so easy to deviate from that time (even if it was only for subtracting one hour) because lots of time tables, deadlines, and office hours were involved. And I do not see a reason why the German military would even try to enforce such a change.

Reichsland and occupied territory railways, starting with Austria, were incorporated into Deutsche Reichsbahn, including conversion of thousands of km of Russian guage to European standard guage, to expedite movement of troops and materiel: time tables prioritized military and logistical movements.

Things are different for Strasbourg: most French speaking people had been expelled and the city had formally been included into the German Reich, so they certainly kept German civil time in 1944 until the liberation in November. And there may be other cities near the border (such as Thionville, Colmar, Mulhouse,..) which are similar.

Expulsions and emigrations resulted from treaties after each of the wars from the Napoleonic to WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace-Lorraine#World_War_II (see article references 18-21) says that in 1942 the Alsace and Moselle Reichsland was merged into Reichsgaue, citizens decreed Germans, conscripted into the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front, Waffen SS, and SS Panzer, and language policies flipped to require German be learned, and French forbidden. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.