Luxembourg in World War Two
The Tiny Duchy that Roared Against Germany
Small Luxembourg, shamed by her performance under German occupation in World War One, vowed to fight in World War Two.
The army of Luxembourg, founded from a militia force in 1881, did not fight in World War One on the orders of the Grand Duchess of the country and endured a humiliating German occupation in its barracks. In 1938, with a new war looming, the tiny army was ordered expanded from 125 gendarmes and 140 volunteer soldiers to a force of some 425 all told. When war broke out, an uneasy Luxembourg maintained her neutrality while Hitler invaded Poland to the east and Scandinavia to the north. By 1940 Duchy had a force of 268 armed gendarmes and 425 army volunteers under her colors and termed the Lëtzebuerger Arméi. A defensive line of roadblocks termed the Schuster Line was built in this period of uneasiness. On April 3, 1940 it was ordered to evacuate the capitol city. When the Nazi army penetrated Luxembourg on May 10, 1940 at 4am they arrived to find several key points of the Duchy already occupied by German Brandenburger Special Forces unit termed Stosstrupp Lützelburg. With resistance useless, the Lëtzebuerger Arméi was ordered to remain in their barracksand the Royal Family and government evacuated to France along with nearly 40,000 refugees who chose not to endure another occupation. The two companies of Luxembourg infantry did in fact man portions of their defensive line around the capitol but returned to their barracks under orders to stack their arms.
Nazi occupation was more brutal than that of the Kaiser’s army twenty years before. French was suppressed, the Gëlle Fra monument to World War One veterans killed fighting Germany was demolished, the government was made helpless, trade unions abolished, and the local Jewish population deported to death camps in the east. Before the first three months of occupation were out the Germans abolished the Lëtzebuerger Arméi and gendarmes. On August 30, 1942, the German occupation government ordered all men born between the ages of 17 and 23 drafted into the German army. This led to riots and massive draft evasions with more than 60% of those called up evading. Some 10,200 unlucky Luxembourgers were successfully drafted into the German Army and almost 3,000 lost their lives fighting for Hitler. At least 968 more of these Luxembourgers deserted from the German army while stationed on the Eastern Front and were held at a special camp in Soviet Russia named Tambow. Conditions were horrible and almost two hundred of these boys died before the end of the war.
No less than eight resistance groups across the whole political spectrum from monarchist to communist emerged and formed one loose union by 1944. Fifty Seven of these resistance members lost their lives in operations against the Germans. They largely restricted themselves to psychological warfare, gathering intelligence and general harassment activities.
Hundreds of Luxembourger abroad served at the pleasure of the government in exile. On May 30, 1940, just twenty days after the country was occupied, the government in exile ordered all Luxembourg citizens aboard to mobilize into a Legion in the French Army. These volunteers later formed a special artillery battery attached to the 1 Re Belgian Brigade popularly known as the "Piron Brigade" of the Free Belgian Army organised in Britain to continue the fight. The unit was made of 113 volunteers and used four British 25pounder howitzers. These men landed at Normandy in 1944 and fought in the liberation of France.
Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944 by the 1st US Army, twenty six years after the US 3rd Army liberated the country from the Germans in World War One. The war however, did not end there for the tiny country. A large part of the Duchy was a battlefield during the year end Battle of the Bulge. To this day, large military cemeteries for nearly 10,000 German and American military dead, including US General George S Patton, remain in the country as a reminder of the tragedy endured there. The 3rd floor of the National Military Museum of History (Musée National D'Histoire Militaire) in Diekirchin near Luxembourg City houses exhibits on the Luxembourg army from 1815 to the present.
The Postwar army of Luxembourg distingushed itself in Korea, the Cold War, and in NATO actions.
Sources
Ministère de la Défence de Luxembourg - Lëtzebuerger Arméi
National Military Museum of the Duchy of Luxumbourg.
Reid, Andrew Luxembourg: A History from the Celts to the Present Day. AutherHouse UK 2005
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