ALSACE, THE GERMANIZED eastern province of France with boarders on Germany and Switzerland, has a few large cities like Strasbourg, Nancy, and Colmar, but for the most part it is a land of farms and small towns, a poor place, where in 1944 and 1945 the inhabitants (most of dubious loyalty to the Allied cause) eked out a hard living in picturesque but primitive houses and barns, set in the midst of steaming manure piles.