After the armistice of November 11, 1918, the Allied troops entered Alsace. The occupation of Haut-Kœnigsbourg, a castle symbol of German imperial power, was hailed by the French popular press. At the end of the 1930s, Jean Renoir chose the Alsatian fortress as the setting for his film La Grande Illusion (the Great Illusion). Today it is recognized as a masterpiece of French and world cinema. Witness of a conflictual past between France and Germany, the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle is an appropriate backdrop for this film which defends, on the eve of the Second World War, a humanist and pacifist point of view.