Gundershoffen

Gundershoffen Gunderschoffe
Gundershoffen in or shortly before 1898 Gundershoffen in or shortly before 1898
Coat of arms of Gundershoffen Coat of arms
Gundershoffen
Location within Alsace region Gundershoffen
Coordinates:
Country	France
Region	Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine
Department	Bas-Rhin
Arrondissement	Haguenau-Wissembourg
Canton	Reichshoffen
Government
• Mayor (2001–2008)	Claude Muckensturm
Area1	17.55 km2 (6.78 sq mi)
Population (2006)2	3,503
• Density	200/km2 (520/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	67176 / 67110
Elevation	163–261 m (535–856 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Gundershoffen (German: Gundershofen) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in north-eastern France.

History

Archaeological finds such as coins, pottery and statues from the third century testify to the presence of a settlement here in the Gallo-Roman period.

The earliest surviving written record of the place dates from 1232, where the name used for the settlement is Guntershoven, a name which endured at least until the seventeenth century.

The village was at one stage owned by the Dukes of Lorraine. Like many villages in Alsace, Gundershoffen was ravaged by the Thirty Years War with savage depopulation resulting: it was subsequently repopulated by families from Switzerland.

In 1940 the Germans recovered Alsace and the little town suffered badly from the fighting of the Second World War. Liberation appeared in the form of the US Army on December 3, 1944, but the area was recaptured by German troops. Only in March 1945 were the German fighters finally expelled.

Landmarks

Gundershoffen possesses an eighteenth-century Protestant church and a modern Catholic one.

The Jewish cemetery dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and continues to be used by Gundershoffen and by the neighbouring commune of Reichshoffen.

See also

• Communes of the Bas-Rhin department

References

• INSEE commune file