The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
by Richard Doody

Mir Welle Bleiwe, Wat Mir Sin

SOVEREIGNTY

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s history as a sovereign nation dates from the 1830 revolt by Belgians and Luxembourgers against the rule of William I of the Netherlands. Under terms of the 1839 Treaty of London; William recognized Belgium’s independence, Luxembourg was divided with two thirds of its historic territory and half the population being incorporated as a Belgian province, the remainder, covering 999 square miles, was declared a sovereign Grand Duchy under personal rule of the Dutch throne while retaining membership in the loose knit German Confederation and its customs union, the Zollverein.
The German Confederation unraveled in the aftermath of the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and William III began negotiations to sell the Luxembourg to Napoleon III of France. Prussia threatened war. The Grand Duchy’s material resources were few but Luxembourg City stood astride the main invasion route between France and Germany. The capital’s fortifications, constructed by Marshal Vauban in the 17th century, were considered impregnable. None of Luxembourg’s neighbors felt safe with the "Gibraltar of the North" in the hands of another. A second London Conference was called to settled the matter peaceably. Under terms of the 1867 Treaty of London; the European powers recognized and guaranteed the sovereignty and neutrality of the Grand Duchy in perpetuity and the 7,000 man Prussian garrison was withdrawn from the city’s fortress. The fortifications were dismantled over the next 16 years to make way for a promenade and public gardens. The union of Dutch and Luxembourgeois monarchies continued until 1890 when succession to the Grand Duchy’s throne passed to another branch of the House of Nassau. Luxembourg continued its customs union with Germany until the end of World War I.

THE GREAT WAR

     Perpetuity ended on July 31, 1914 when German troops seized the railway station at Trois Vierges. Two days later the Kaiser’s troops launched a full scale invasion. The Grand Duchess and her elderly Premier, Paul Eyschen, met the invader on the approach to Luxembourg City’s Adolphe Bridge. A perfunctory protest was lodged with the German commander, General Tessmar, who ignored it. No resistance was offered by either the local gendarmrie or the Grand Duchy’s small army. The entire country was occupied in a day.
     German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg issued a statement on August 4th justifying the breech of Luxembourg’s neutrality. He charged that French troops were advancing on the Duchy’s borders at the same time as his own (in fact they had been ordered to withdraw further into France to avoid a confrontation) and went on the say that, "We have been obliged to ignore the just protests of Luxembourg. The injustice, I speak frankly, the injustice that we are committing we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military aims have been attained."
     Luxembourg’s government was permitted to function throughout the four year occupation but only to the extent that it didn’t impair the German war effort. There were few opportunities for Luxembourgers to express their resentment. The German regime kept a tight rein over the population with travel restrictions, censorship and rationing. Some 3,200 Luxembourgers, most of whom were already abroad when the war broke out, joined the French Army of these 2,800 were killed in action.

AFTERMATH

     General Tessmar announced German withdrawal from Luxembourg on November 6, 1918. An Armistice was five days in the offing but the German collapse was already apparent. A proclamation issued by General Pershing on November 18 declared the Grand Duchy liberated and announced the immanent arrival of American troops. American and French forces were quartered in Luxembourg for a brief period before beginning their occupation of the Rhineland.
     The failure of the Grand Duchy’s Government to resist and the Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide’s rather cordial relationship with the occupiers rendered both suspect in the eyes of the Allied Powers and those of more than a few Luxembourgers as well. After the liberation Marie Adelaide became the focus of popular resentment. A debate on the future of the monarchy commenced in the Chamber of Deputies on January 9, 1919 and sparked pro-Republican demonstrations in the capital’s streets. French troops were called upon to restore order. Three days later the Marie Adelaide abdicated in favor of her sister Charlotte.
     Belgian demands to incorporate the Grand Duchy and the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and South Limburg along with the German territories of Moresnet, Eupen and Malmedy in a Greater Belgium were rejected at the Paris Peace Conference. La Grande Belgique was stillborn but articles 40 and 41 of the Versailles Treaty expressed the intent of the Allied Powers to end German rights in Luxembourg in no uncertain terms.

Article 40: With regard to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Germany renounces the benefit of all provisions inserted in her favor in the Treaties of February 8, 1842; April 2, 1847; October 20-25, 1865; August 18, 1866; February 21 and May 11, 1867; May 10, 1871; June 11, 1872 and November 11, 1902 and in all Conventions consequent upon such Treaties. Germany recognizes that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ceased to form part of the German Zollverein as from January 1, 1919, renounces all rights to the exploitation of the railways, termination of the regime of neutrality of the Grand Duchy, and accepts in advance all the international agreements which may be concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers in relation to the Grand Duchy.

Article 41: Germany undertakes to grant to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, when a demand to that effect is made to her by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, the rights and advantages stipulated in favor of such Powers or their nationals in the present Treaty with regard to economic questions, to questions relative to transport and to aerial navigation

Luxembourg’s internal debate continued. The constitution was amended on May 15, 1919. Henceforth, sovereignty was vested in the Nation as represented by the Chamber of Deputies. The powers of the Grand Duke were limited to those conferred upon him by the constitution. Though, he retained the right to veto legislation passed by the Deputies no monarch has done so since. Universal suffrage was introduced at the same time.
Luxembourgers elected to retain Charlotte as Grand Duchess rather than establish a republic in a referendum held on September 28, 1919. The anti-clericalism of the French government was a decisive factor in the monarchist’s victory. A republic was viewed as a step towards annexation to France and Luxembourg’s staunch Catholic electorate feared the imposition of French laws dictating the separation of church and state. Luxembourgeoise francophobia did not extend to the economic realm. A second referendum question asked voters to choose their preferred economic partner. This time France was the pick over Belgium by an 8 to 1 margin. It was readily apparent that the larger French market offered brighter prospects for a prosperous union than that of Belgium. Unfortunately for the Luxembourgers, France lost interest and the Grand Duchy ended up negotiating a less favorable customs and currency union with the Belgians.

BETWEEN THE WARS

     Luxembourg’s economy fared rather poorly during the inter-war decades. The customs and currency union with Belgium proved a poor substitute for duty free access to the German market.
     Banking and brokerage regulations were liberalized in 1929 but the country failed to attract off-shore investments until after the Second World War.
     The Great Depression brought currency devaluation, foreign exchange controls and abandonment of the gold standard. The Duchy’s steel industry was hit hard. Only 21 of Luxembourg’s 47 blast-furnaces were operating when its economy hit bottom in 1934.
     Luxembourg’s impact on the European economy was minuscule but the made its mark on at least one aspect of the continent’s popular culture. Radio Luxembourg, a French owned station, went on the air in December, 1933. It broadcast in several languages but its English transmissions aroused the most controversy. British audiences were delighted with the station. The British Broadcasting Corporation presented programs it thought its listeners should hear. Radio Luxembourg broadcast programs it thought its listeners would like to hear. The threat to the BBC’s state sponsored monopoly was not taken lightly. English performers who appeared on Radio Luxembourg were threatened with banishment from the British airwaves. The British papers refused to print the station’s program scheduled. Fleet Street feared a loss of advertising revenues. Radio Luxembourg unlike the BBC broadcast commercial announcements. The British Post Office noted that the station’s choice of frequencies and the power level of its transmitters violated international conventions but the Duchy’s broadcasting authorities ignored the protests. Radio Luxembourg’s English service carried on for the next six decades, interrupted only by World War II. William Joyce aka Lord Haw Haw presented most of the station’s English programs during the German occupation.
     The Christian Democratic Party dominated Luxembourg politics during the 1920s and ‘30s.The party persued moderate to conservative policies in its governance. Attempts to establish home grown imitations of Germany’s National Socialist Party found few adherents.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR - PRELUDE

     Luxembourg began preparations for the inevitable in September, 1938. The Anschluss of Austria was fait accompli. Czechoslovakia was abandoned by the leaders of western democracy. Munich ignited Luxembourger’s smoldering suspicions of the Reich. The Grand Duchess Charlotte issued a decree calling for the addition of a second 300 man company to her country’s tiny army. The company was organized in February, 1939.
     The Nazi-Soviet Nonagression Pact was signed on August 25, 1939. Hitler fomented another crisis, this time with Poland. War between France and Germany seemed certain. Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies met for a final pre-war session on August 29, 1939 and voted to surrender full executive and legislative powers to the Grand Duchess and her cabinet for the duration of the conflict.
     After Britain and France issued their declarations of war with Germany on September 3rd; The Grand Duchess Charlotte joined King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in calling for a negotiated settlement. At the same time, she called for the recruitment of an additional 125 man company of volunteer reservists.
     The commandant of Luxembourg’s armed forces, Major Emile Speller, spent the interlude between the outbreak of the war and the German offensive in the west planning a campaign of passive defense. Luxembourgers knew they had no chance of holding their ground against the Wehrmacht. Speller aimed to minimize the loss of life and physical destruction by evacuating the border villages and to delay the German advance long enough to allow those who wish to seek refuge behind Allied lines to make their escape into France.

Invasion

     German forces invaded Luxembourg on the morning of May 10, 1940. Once again, as it had in 1914, the Reich excused its attack on the Grand Duchy as a military necessity dictated by Allied war plans. It claimed that the British and French were planning an attack on Germany through the Low Countries in collaboration with the Belgian and Dutch governments. The Luxembourg authorities were handed a memorandum explaining that under these circumstances:
     "The German Government, therefore, is obliged also to extend the military operations they have undertaken to the territory of Luxemburg.
     The German Government expects the government of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg will appreciate the situation created by the sole fault of Germany’s opponents and will take the necessary measures for insuring that the population of Luxemburg will put no obstacles in the way of German action.
     The German Government for their part desire to assure the government of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg that Germany does not intend, either now or in the future, by these measures to impair the integrity and political independence of the Grand Duchy."

The Government in Exile

     Reports of German troop movements reaching Luxembourg City during the night of May 9, 1940 prompted the immediate flight of the Royal Family and four of the Grand Duchy’s five cabinet ministers. The entourage arrived in Paris after a harrowing four day journey over the refugee clogged roads of eastern France.
     The Grand Duchy’s Paris legation announced the formation of a Luxembourg Legion to fight beside the Allies and called for the mobilization of all military age Luxembourgers resident in France on May 30th. The declaration came too late to effect the turn of events. The British evacuation had already begun at Dunkerque. The German advance on Paris proved unstoppable.
     Luxembourg’s government fled south with the French before escaping to Lisbon when the Franco-German Armistice was concluded in late June. The exiles continued on to London in early August. Prince Felix took a commission and Crown Prince Jean enlisted as a Private in the British Army. The Grand Duchess, her five youngest children and Premier Dupong left for America. Their convoy reached New York on October 4th. The United States was still neutral, so the royal party went on to Montreal where they spent the duration of the war. Foreign Minister Joseph Bech and Labor Minister Peter Krier remained in London to represent the Government in Exile to Britain.

Occupation

     The Reich began reneging on its assurances to Luxembourg shortly after the fall of France. Gustav Simon, Gauleiter of Coblenz-Trier, added the Grand Duchy to his realm on July 25, 1940. Simon’s administration was conducted with the sole aim of assimilating Luxembourgers within German society.
     The Volksdeutsche Bewegung (VDB), a Nazi front formed under the leadership of Professor Damian Kratzenberg, was the only authorized political party. The VDB’s philosophy was embodied in its slogan, "home to the Reich". It enrolled 84,000 members but the vast majority joined to avoid the loss of employment.
     Integration accelerated in August. The Gestapo took over police functions from the gendarmery. German was made the official language of government. French, the official language for 800 years and Letzebergesch, the local dialect, were banned. German was introduced as the exclusive language of school instruction. All publications including newspapers were required to be published exclusively in German. French sounding surnames were require to be Germanicized. The Belgo-Luxembourg economic union was abrogated and the Grand Duchy was incorporated into the German customs area, Reichmarks replaced Francs. German currency and foreign exchange controls were instituted.
     The Nuremburg Laws were applied to Luxembourg in September. The Grand Duchys’ 3500 Jews were encouraged to leave during the first months of the occupation. A few found refuge in Portugal. Others found temporary sanctuary in unoccupied France. Those who stayed where imprisoned in a concentration camp near the railway junction of Ulfligen and eventually deported to extermination camps in Poland.
     Simon continued on with his campaign to extinguish Luxembourg’s national identity. A census was conducted on October 10, 1941. The Grand Duchy’s inhabitants were required to declare themselves as German or Luxembourgish. A defiant 97% answered in the spirit of the national motto, "Mir welle bleiwe, wat mir sin" i.e. "we wish to remain, what we are". Letzebergsch was unintelligible to most Germans but the implications of the reply were not lost on the Gauleiter.
     Simon met humiliation with increased coercion. The clergy came under increasing assault. Church properties were expropriated. Clervaux’s famed abbey of Saints Maurice and Maur was turned into a school for the propagation of Nazi ideology. The property of all Luxembourgers other than those designated as "friends of Germany" was subject to seizure under a decree issued by Simon in March, 1942.
     German patience wore thin as tide began to turn in the east. Luxembourg was annexed to the Reich on August 30, 1942. The Grand Duchy became Gau Moselleland. Luxembourgers were declared German nationals and subject to conscription into the Wehrmacht.

Resistance

     Reaction to the unilateral actions of August 30, 1942 was immediate. A general strike began in Wiltz and Ettelbruck and spread throughout the country. German counter reaction was just as quick. The Gauleiter declared martial law and had the strike organizers arrest. Twenty five of them were executed. Industrial workers returned to work under threat of death. School aged participants were deported to work camps in Germany.
     Conscription was the most feared and fiercely contested aspect of the new order. The German forces had conducted an intense recruiting effort from the beginning of the occupation but fewer than 2,000 residents of the Grand Duchy had voluntarily enlisted and most of them were Reichdeutschers not Luxembourgers. The draft was imposed just as German fortunes took a turn for the worse. Few Luxembourgers relished a trip to the Russian Front. Resistance increased after reports of conditions in the east filtered back to Gau Moselleland. A few weeks after the German defeat at Stalingrad rioting broke out among the newest groups of draftees as they waited on Luxembourg’s railway platforms for their trip to the east. The conscript revolt of March 6, 1943 was suppressed with machine gun fire. The Wehrmacht drafted a total of 12,035 Luxembourgers of whom 2,752 were killed in action, 1,500 were wounded and 3,516 deserted. Many of those who evaded forced service were aided by a Resistance group called the Red Lions.
     Conditions on the home front also deteriorated as the war progressed. Luxembourg’s steelworkers went on strike in November, 1943 to protest long work hours and German requisitions. Hundreds were arrested and deported. Volunteers from Spain and forced laborers from Poland and Russia replaced the full 10% of the Grand Duchy’s population deported during the war.
     German attempts to erase Luxembourgers’ sense of national identity frequently backfired and in often unexpected ways. A group of Luxembourgers was deported to Peenemunde to provide forced labor in Werner von Braun’s rocket factory. They copied the plans for theV-1and slipped them to a guard. The guard was a conscript from Luxembourg. He took the plans with him when he went on home leave and gave them to the local Resistance. Another resistance network, the Luxembourg Patriotic League, helped 4,000 Allied airmen evade capture.
     The ban on Letzebergsch actually stimulated interest in the local dialect. French and German had been the Grand Duchy’s written languages. Letzebergsch was entirely conversational and no commonly accepted orthography i.e. spelling and grammar had been developed for it. A phonetic orthography was developed during the war to allow the Resistance to publish a newspaper D’Un’ion in Letzebergsch.

Liberation

     The bulk of German forces in Luxembourg were withdrawn in early September, 1944 to prepare for a last ditch defense of the fatherland at the Seigfried Line. General Courtney Hodges’ American First Army encountered little resistance when it entered the Grand Duchy on September 9th. Prince Felix and Crown Prince Jean arrived with the initial Allied units. Luxembourg City was liberated on September 10th. The Grand Duchy was cleared of German troops the following day when the Americans reached the border with the Reich on the Our and Sure Rivers.
     The American advance was halted for the moment. Gasoline supplies were diverted to British and Canadian forces who were bogged down in there efforts to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping. The Ardennes remained quiet for the next three months.
     The peace of the Grand Duchy was disturbed once more in the early hours of December 16th. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt’s panzers stormed westward across a 60 mile long front stretching from Saint Vith in Belgium south to Echternach, Luxembourg. The Germans planned to break through the Allied front line, sweep through the Ardennes and encircle the British and Canadians in northern Belgium.
     The Allied command was caught napping and slow to react. The Germans forced the U.S. 28th Division to retreat from Wiltz on December 19th. The last obstacle in the path to German victory was the U.S. 101st Airborne Division which held the vital crossroads at the Belgian city of Bastonge.
     The General Eisenhower prepared to launch a counter-offensive as the Germans marched into Wiltz. The U.S. 3rd Army under George S. Patton was preparing to launch an invasion of the Saar when it was directed to turn ninety degrees northward and march on Bastogne. The maneuver was completed in an astonishing two days. The Americans liberated the town of Ettlebruck on Christmas Eve and broke through the German lines surrounding Bastogne to relieve the 101st Airborne on December 26th. The U.S. 5th Armored Division launched a daring night crossing of the River Sure and liberated the town of Diekirch on January 18th. The Germans were pushed back to the positions they held at the start of the battle on January 28, 1945.
     Luxembourg’s final liberation was purchased at tremendous cost. The Battle of the Bulge was fought in the midst of the fiercest Ardennes winter of the century. Sixty thousand Allied soldiers fell victim to the enemy or the elements including 19,000 killed in action and 15,000 taken prisoner.

Restoration

     Allied victory in the Battle of the Bulge ended the German threat to Luxembourg. The Grand Duchy turned to the task of national restoration as the war in Europe entered its final days. A fifth of the country’s homes were destroyed in the final battle. Sixty thousand Luxembourgers were without shelter. There was little time to mourn the nation’s 5,000 dead. The problems of the living seemed more pressing as survivors straggled home from the concentration camps, forced labor and service in the armies of both friend and foe. Repatriation of foreign workers bought in by the Germans to replace recalcitrant Luxembourgers was another problem to be faced.
     The Grand Duchess Charlotte returned to Luxembourg on April 15,1945. The wartime cabinet, no longer in exile, continued rule by decree pending restoration of the country’s democratic institutions. The first post-war election for a new Chamber of Deputies was held on November 21st. The Christian Socialist Party won the largest block of seats. Premier Dupong continued in office and formed a coalition cabinet.
     Twelve hundred Luxembourgers were tried for collaboration. VDB leader Damian Kratzenberg and 11 others were convicted of treason and executed. The others were sentenced to lesser punishments in most cases dismissal from the civil service. The purge of the civil service proceeded too slowly to suit a few impatient citizens. Among them, wartime resistance leader Albert Winghert and two associates who were arrested in August, 1946 for conspiring to overthrow the Government. Premier Dupong later dismissed the affair as a bit of comic opera.
     Luxembourg was determined to have its say in shaping the peace. The Grand Duchy’s Army sent two companies to assist in occupying the French Zone of Germany. Luxembourg’s Minister to Washington, Hugues le Gallais, joined the Belgian and Dutch ambassadors in requesting representation for the Benelux countries at any peace treaty conference. Luxembourg presented the Allied Council of Foreign Ministers with a demand for 235 square miles of German territory in November, 1946. Cold War politics ended the possibility of convening a peace conference and the Ministers failed to act on the Grand Duchy’s territorial demands.
     Luxembourg abandoned neutrality in favor of collective security. After the war, the Grand Duchy joined both the United Nations and NATO as a charter member. It was party to most of the pioneering pacts that led to the creation of the present day European Community. It is, perhaps, more than mere coincidence that the father of the EEC,Robert Schuman, was a native of Luxembourg.

George S. Patton

George Smith Patton Junior was a peerless source and subject of controversy among his countrymen. Among Luxembourgers who survived the darkest days of the Grand Duchy’s history there is no controversy. Patton was and remains revered as the man who delivered their homeland from tyranny. General Patton was injured in an automobile accident on December 12, 1945.He clung to life for another nine days. It was he said, "a hell of a way for a soldier to die", George S. Patton was buried among the fallen liberators of the Grand Duchy at the Luxembourg American Cemetery in Hamm on Christmas Eve, 1945.

by Richard Doody