Émile Mayrisch

He was married to Aline de Saint-Hubert, who was a famous women's rights campaigner, socialite and philanthropist, and was President of the Luxembourg Red Cross.

In 1911, after long negotiations, Émile Mayrisch brought about a merger of the three largest Luxembourgish steelworks: ARBED (Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange) was born, of which he became the technical director.

Germany violated Luxembourg's neutrality by occupying the country, which was a real shock for not only political concerns, but also to the business world.

He made frequent trips to the Ruhr area and to Berlin, the base of the decision-makers of the Foreign Office and the War Ministry.

Economic calculations, political and social considerations, as well as humanitarian feelings formed an inextricable tangle in Mayrisch's mind.

[2] In 1918, with the ending of the Great War, the Grand Duchy was faced with some issues: the Allies pushed Luxembourg out of the Zollverein.

Towards the end of the war, he made contact with the French, and sent Jean Schlumberger, a writer and intelligence officer, a report on German wartime production.

In 1919 Émile Mayrisch founded Terres Rouges together with Schneider-Creusot, against the resistance of ARBED's president, the Belgian Gaston Barbanson.

Mayrisch soon became president of the board, and it was he who negotiated an agreement between the German, French, Belgian and Luxembourgish steel industry.

The Colpach group included André Gide, Walther Rathenau, Jacques Rivière, Paul Claudel, Jean Guéhenno, Annette Kolb, Théo van Rysselberghe, Maria Van Rysselberghe, Karl Jaspers, Bernard Groethuysen, Ernst Robert Curtius and Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi.

In 1922 Mayrisch bought most of the shares in the liberal Luxemburger Zeitung, in which he could bring his ideas on German-French understanding to the fore.