German occupation of Luxembourg during World War II
They encountered no significant resistance save for some bridges destroyed and some land mines, since the majority of the Luxembourgish Volunteer Corps stayed in their barracks.
[2] At 08:00, elements of the French 3rd Light Cavalry Division [fr] of General Robert Petiet, supported by the 1st Spahi Brigade of Colonel Jouffault[citation needed] and the 2nd company of the 5th Armoured Battalion, crossed the southern border to conduct a probe of German forces; these units later retreated behind the Maginot Line.
Grand Duchess Charlotte and the government of prime minister Pierre Dupong fled to France, Portugal and the United Kingdom, before finally settling in Canada for the duration of the war.
Luxembourgish interests were represented by a governmental commission under Albert Wehrer, which consisted of senior civil servants and had been legitimated by the Chamber of Deputies.
[4] Its main goal was to push the population towards a German-friendly position by means of propaganda, and it was this organisation that used the phrase Heim ins Reich.
Several Deputies and high-ranking civil servants were of the opinion that Luxembourg could retain a measure of autonomy under the military administration, as had occurred in World War I, and attempts were made to come to some sort of arrangement with Germany.
[3] Gustav Simon was appointed Chef der Zivilverwaltung (CdZ; "Chief of the Civil Administration") by the Oberkommando des Heeres on 21 July 1940.
[3] Simon had two clear goals: His very first series of decrees made this policy very clear: A massive propaganda campaign was launched to influence the population, while not only dissidents and critics but also teachers, officials and leading business figures were threatened with losing their jobs unless they joined Nazi organisations, which led to much increased recruitment from all professions.
People who were openly opposed to the regime lost their jobs or were deported, mainly to eastern Germany and in the worst cases sent to the death camps where many of them were murdered.
The occupation authorities attempted to cover Luxembourg with a net of political, social and cultural organisations, such as also existed in Germany, including the Hitler Youth, the League of German Girls, the Winterhilfswerk, the NS-Frauenschaft and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront.
[5] The Catholic Church in Luxembourg was relatively silent during the war, and took no public stance regarding the fate of the Jews or the Nazi regime.
On the one hand, the Bishop, Joseph Laurent Philippe, was bedridden due to illness, and was therefore in no state to provide active opposition.
On the other hand, the Bishop did not want to further antagonise the occupiers and endanger the already precarious religious life of the Church, which was heavily restricted during wartime.
Bishop Philippe did, however, refuse to meet with the Nazi leadership, and made preparations in case his post should fall vacant.
[4][6] At the same time, the diocese administration remained one of very few Luxembourgish institutions that stayed intact during the war, although this was in doubt for a while, and a deportation of the Bishop was considered by the occupation authorities.
[7]: 489 Many priests felt differently from the Bishop and used their influence on their congregations to strengthen their patriotic feelings, and protested against the occupation or became active in the Resistance.
German capital and companies — heavily present in the steel industry until then — left the country, and Luxembourg joined the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union (UEBL).
[8]: 399 On 29 January 1941 the Reichsmark became the only legal payment method, and the Cdz ordered all Luxembourgish curency to be handed in.
The activities of the Resistance were largely directed towards undermining the German monopoly on information, and providing moral support to the population, by spreading counter-propaganda by word-of-mouth, leaflets, posters and later whole newspapers.
Additionally, the Resistance helped Allied POWs and shot-down pilots, "deserters" from the Wehrmacht and other endangered Luxembourgers to cross the borders into Belgium or France.
[9] Several well-known Catholic and Communist households, and many parishes and priories, also kept a number of Jewish Luxembourgish civilians and foreign Jews hidden and safe.
From August 1940, the Spéngelskrich (the "War of Pins") took place as Luxembourgers wore patriotic pin-badges (depicting the national colours or the Grand duchess), precipitating attacks from the VdB.
On 31 August 1942, shortly after the announcement that conscription would be extended to all men born between 1920 and 1927, a strike began in the northern town of Wiltz.
20 were summarily tried before a special tribunal (in German, a "Standgericht") and executed by firing squad at nearby Hinzert concentration camp.
[14] In early September 1944, approximately 10,000 people left Luxembourg with the German civil administration: it is generally assumed that this consisted of 3,500 collaborators and their families.
Aside from numerous reactions of disapproval in cinemas when films of explicit propaganda or the news were shown, the Luxembourg public's hostility towards Nazi German and the occupation manifested itself in other domains of social, cultural and political life (boycotting official events, the census of 10 October 1941, strike of 31 August 1942).
Films such as Ohm Krüger, Cadets, or Sieg im Westen were intended to praise the German spirit, glorify heroic deaths, stigmatise Germany's enemies, appeal to unconditional submission to Nazi Germany and convince Luxembourgers that their destiny lay in the German fold; these films were accompanied by aggressive advertising.
[15] Yet at the same time, the public's majority anti-German attitude did not prevent it from becoming infatuated with a certain number of film productions that were fiercely conservative, if not explicitly Nazi.
This may explain the (relative) success of films such as the antisemitic Jud Süß, or Die goldene Stadt, a melodrama with racist undertones celebrating Germanic virtues and imbued with the "blood and soul" ideology.
Luxembourg was liberated by Allied forces in September 1944, specifically U.S. Army Combat Command A (CCA), 5th Armored Division.
