Pierre Bucher

French physician and political figure noted as an ardent defender of Alsace's kinship with France during the German period. He was part of the circle of Saint-Léonard. According to Jean Schlumberger he was “the soul of Alsace”.

His father Jean (1829-1905) was an accountant at the Schlumberger factory. His mother Marie-Joséphine, née Vogelweith, died at the age of 27, on 26 July 1872, when he was nearly three years old. His sister was Jeanne Bucher who would create her eponymous gallery in Paris.

He did his higher education in Guebwiller, then in Strasbourg, where he studied medicine. It was there that he came into contact with artists, in particular Alfred Martzolff, Léon Hornecker, Paul Braunagel, Gustave Stoskopf, Joseph Sattler and above all Charles Spindler. This group later took the name Cercle de Saint-Léonard. Pierre Bucher then spent a year in Paris in 1896 and did internships in Germany and Switzerland.

He established himself as a doctor in Strasbourg in 1897 and specialized in nervous and infantile diseases. There he married Amélie Haehl.

In 1901, he took over the management of the Revue alsacienne illustrée created and owned by Charles Spindler, which aimed to publicize Alsatian culture and traditions by highlighting their French roots. In 1912, with Dr. Ferdinand Dollinger, he added to this journal the Cahiers alsaciens, which chronicled the moral and economic life of Alsace, and opposed Germanic culture. With the Dollinger brothers, Ferdinand and Léon, he founded the Alsatian Museum in Strasbourg.

On 30 July 1914 he was warned of his imminent arrest by the German police, and he fled to Switzerland, then joined the French army. All his property was seized by the Germans, and he was sentenced to death for high treason and desertion.

He joined the medical corps, but did not stay there, because the army wanted to use his great knowledge of Alsace. He was thus detached to the General Staff of General Pau, commander of the Army of Alsace.