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Heinrich Himmler, saluted by a Luxembourg policeman, during his visit to Luxembourg in October 1940, several months after the invasion. The involvement of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in World War II began with its invasion by German forces on 10 May 1940 and lasted beyond its liberation by Allied forces in late 1944 and early 1945.
The German occupation of Luxembourg in World War II began in May 1940 after the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by Nazi Germany. [1] Although Luxembourg was officially neutral, it was situated at a strategic point at the end of the French Maginot Line. On 10 May 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands ...
On 13 July 1940, the Volksdeutsche Bewegung (VdB) was founded in Luxembourg City under the leadership of Damian Kratzenberg, a German teacher at the Athénée de Luxembourg. [2] 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.
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II. [1] This put Luxembourg's Grand Ducal government in a delicate situation. On one hand, the population's sympathies lay with the UK and France; on the other hand, due to the country's policy of neutrality since the Treaty of London in 1867, the government adopted a careful non-belligerent stance towards its neighbours.
The 1942 Luxembourg general strike strongly marked Luxembourg's resistance to the German occupier. Each year, the strike is commemorated on August 31 by the head of state and government officials. [citation needed] In 1965, a lighthouse-shaped "National Monument to the Strike" was opened in Wiltz.
The outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 and the ensuing Phoney War had made it possible to predict a violation of Luxembourgish neutrality, so that the government decided it would depart into exile if the country was completely occupied by German forces. While the departure of the Grand Duchess and her ministers was the result of a ...
Improvised Luxembourg resistance uniforms, dating to 1944 or 1945, in the collection of the National Museum of Military History. In parallel with individual acts of protest, the summer of 1940 saw the first attempts to organise resistance to the German occupation on a more permanent level.
Soldiers from Luxembourg training in an English town during World War II. During World War II, Luxembourg abandoned its policy of neutrality, when it joined the Allies in fighting Nazi Germany. It was again invaded and subject to German occupation in the Second World War in 1940, and was formally annexed into the Third Reich in 1942.