This was an entirely German library, a tangible seal of their claim of right to Strasbourg. This re-Germanisation programme was largely successful: by 1918 only a quarter of the population of Alsace could read French. This stimulated an equally determined campaign after 1918 to render Alsace francophone, initiated with the creation of 800 new French-language libraries. By 1927, this Oeuvre du Livre Français had supplied 200,000 books to 2,275 libraries. … Such library politics in the service of state building was the inevitable fate of a contested border zone.

Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile Hist…, loc. 739