Chapter XXVII: Section V: Alsace-Lorraine

The high contracting powers, recognizing the moral obligation to redress the wrong done by Germany in 1871, both to the rights of France and to the wishes of the population of Alsace and Lorraine, which were separated from their country in spite of solemn protests of their representatives of the Assembly of Bordeaux, agree upon the following articles:

=ARTICLE 51.=--The territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the preliminaries of peace signed at Versailles on the 26th February, 1871, and the treaty of Frankfort on the 10th May, 1871, are restored to French sovereignty as from the date of the armistice of the 11th November, 1918.

The provisions of the treaties establishing the delimination of the frontiers before 1871 shall be restored.

=ARTICLE 52.=--The German Government shall hand over without delay to the French Government all archives, registers, plans, titles, and documents of every kind concerning the civil, military, financial, judicial, or other administrations of the territories restored to French sovereignty. If any of these documents, archives, registers, titles, or plans have been misplaced, they will be restored by the German Government on the demand of the French Government.

=ARTICLE 53.=--Separate agreements shall be made between France and Germany dealing with the interests of the inhabitants of the territories referred to in Article 51, particularly as regards their civil rights, their business and the exercise of their professions, it being understood that Germany undertakes as from the present date to recognize and accept the regulations laid down in the annex hereto regarding the nationality of the inhabitants or natives of the said territories, not to claim at any time or in any place whatsoever as German nationals those who shall have been declared on any ground to be French, to receive all others in her territory, and to conform, as regards the property of German nationals in the territories indicated in Article 51, with the provisions of Article 297, and the Annex to Section 4 of Part X. (economic clauses) of the present treaty.

Those German nationals who without acquiring French nationality shall receive permission from the French Government to reside in the said territories shall not be subjected to the provisions of the said article.

=ARTICLE 54=.--Those persons who have regained French nationality in virtue of Paragraph 1 of the annex hereto, will be held to be Alsace-Lorrainers for the purposes of the present section.

The persons referred to in Paragraph 2 of the said annex will, from the day on which they have claimed French nationality, be held to be Alsace-Lorrainers with retroactive effect as from the 11th November, 1918. From those whose application is rejected, the privilege will terminate at the date of the refusal.

Such juridical persons will also have the status of Alsace-Lorrainers as have been recognized as possessing this quality, whether by the French administrative authorities or by a judicial decision.

=ARTICLE 55.=--The territories referred to in Article 51 shall return to France, free and quit of all public debts under the conditions laid down in Article 255 of Part IX. (financial clauses) of the present treaty.

=ARTICLE 56.=--In conformity with the provisions of Article 256 of Part IX. (financial clauses) of the present treaty, France shall enter into possession of all property and estate within the territories referred to in Article 51, which belong to the German Empire or German States, without any payment or credit on this account to any of the States ceding the territories.

This provision applies to all movable or immovable property of public or private domain, together with all rights whatsoever belonging to the German Empire or the German States or to their administrative areas.

Crown property and the property of the former Emperor or other German sovereigns shall be assimilated to property of the public domain.

=ARTICLE 57.=--Germany shall not take any action, either by means of stamping or by any other legal or administrative measures not applying equally to the rest of her territory, which may be to the detriment of the legal value or redeemability of German monetary instruments or moneys which at the date of the signature of the present treaty are legally current, and at that date are in the possession of the French Government.

=ARTICLE 58.=--A special convention will determine the conditions for repayment in marks of the exceptional war expenditure advanced during the course of the war by Alsace-Lorraine or by public bodies in Alsace-Lorraine on account of the empire in accordance with German law, such as payment to the families of persons mobilized, requisitions, billeting of troops, and assistance to persons who have been expelled. In fixing the amount of these sums Germany shall be credited with that portion which Alsace-Lorraine would have contributed to the empire to meet the expenses resulting from these payments, this contribution being calculated according to the proportion of the imperial revenue derived from Alsace-Lorraine in 1913.

=ARTICLE 59.=--The French Government will collect for its own account the imperial taxes, duties, and dues of every kind leviable in the territories referred to in Article 51 and not collected at the time of the armistice of the 11th November, 1918.

=ARTICLE 60.=--The German Government shall without delay restore to Alsace-Lorrainers, (individuals, juridical persons, and public institutions,) all property, rights, and interests belonging to them on the 11th November, 1918, in so far as these are situated in German territory.

=ARTICLE 61.=--The German Government undertakes to continue and complete without delay the execution of the financial clauses regarding Alsace-Lorraine contained in the armistice conventions.

=ARTICLE 62.=--The German Government undertakes to bear the expense of all civil and military pensions which had been earned in Alsace-Lorraine on the date of the 11th November, 1918, and the maintenance of which was a charge on the budget of the German Empire.

The German Government shall furnish each year the funds necessary for the payment in francs, at the average rate of exchange for that year, of the sums in marks to which persons resident in Alsace-Lorraine would have been entitled if Alsace-Lorraine had remained under German jurisdiction.

=ARTICLE 63.=--For the purposes of the obligation assumed by Germany in Part VIII. (reparations) of the present treaty to give compensation for damages caused to the civil populations of the Allied and Associated countries in the form of lines, the inhabitants of the territories referred to in Article 51 shall be assimilated to the above mentioned populations.

=ARTICLE 64.=--The regulations concerning the control of the Rhine and of the Moselle are laid down in Part XII. (ports, waterways, and railways) of the present treaty.

=ARTICLE 65.=--Within a period of three weeks after the coming into force of the present treaty the Port of Strasbourg and the Port of Kehl shall be constituted, for a period of seven years, a single unit from the point of view of exploitation.

The administration of this single unit will be carried on by a manager named by the Central Rhine Commission, which shall also have power to remove him. He shall be of French nationality. He will reside in Strasbourg and will be subject to the supervision of the Central Rhine Commission.

There will be established in the two ports free zones in conformity with