Alphonse Adam, a literature student at the University of Strasbourg, founded in June 1941, along with fellow student Robert Kieffer, the resistance group “Front de la jeunesse alsacienne”. Originating from the Alsatian Catholic youth movement, this clandestine organisation carried out acts of sabotage, wrote and distributed anti-Nazi pamphlets, and assisted prisoners of war in escaping across the Vosges Mountains to the occupied zone of France. Following the decree of 25 August 1942, which mandated the forced conscription of Alsatians and Mosellans into the German army, the group called for military service refusal.

In January 1943, Alphonse Adam was arrested during an attempt to flee to Switzerland. Along with five other members of the resistance group, he was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof, the Nazi regime’s special court for political crimes, which had been relocated to Strasbourg. The sham trial was presided over by Roland Freisler, the infamous Berlin judge who would later sentence Julius Leber to death in October 1944. On 15 July 1943, a day after Bastille Day, the six young men were executed at Fort Desaix (near Port du Rhin, close to Kehl). Alphonse Adam was the only one who refused to have his eyes covered, facing death “with open eyes.”

Since November 2024, a commemorative plaque on the facade of their former school, the Collège Épiscopal Saint-Étienne, honours Alphonse Adam and Robert Kieffer. The school is within walking distance of Lycée Kléber.