Luxembourg’s occupation in Germany: history, conflicts and rapprochement

After five years of occupation by the Third Reich, Luxembourg became an occupying power itself, entrusted with the districts of Bitburg and Saarburg, which were officially under French authority in the wake of the Second World War.

Luxembourg historian Félix Streicher has intensively researched this little-known chapter of Luxembourg history.

The Grand Duchy’s soldiers took draconian and cruel revenge for the crimes committed by Nazi Germany. It would take years for relations between both countries to normalise, but black market trades, pub dances and a number of marriages quickly showed cracks in the initially harsh treatment of the German neighbours.

Of occupiers and the occupied

Relations between the occupiers and occupied underwent a process of change – at least on a small scale, said Streicher. “The reality is much more complex,” he said, as a variety of relationships developed over the entire occupation period.

View of the private photo album of a Luxembourg soldier who was stationed in Germany © Photo credit: Anouk Antony

Relations between the occupiers and occupied underwent a process of change – at least on a small scale, said Streicher. “The reality is much more complex,” he said, as a variety of relationships developed over the entire occupation period.

“The Luxembourg soldiers – especially the conscripts – also wanted to benefit financially from their time in the Eifel and smuggled luxury goods to Germany: cigarettes, cameras and pretty much anything that could be sold on the black market,” said Streicher.

During raids by German or French police officers, spontaneous alliances were formed between Germans and Luxembourgers, he said, for example in the winter of 1946: “In Bitburg, a military lorry drove past a police patrol that was in the process of arresting German ‘hoarders’,” the historian explained. Hoarders would amass stockpiles of goods to then sell them onward at inflated prices.

“The Luxembourg soldiers confronted the German officers. One of the Luxembourg soldiers even pulled out his knife and defended the black market traders – the German hoarders – from the German police, ultimately sending the officers fleeing with his swearing and demonstratively threatening demeanour.”

While Germans and Luxembourg soldiers would regularly come to blows in local pubs at the start of the occupation, over time, the area’s watering holes became meeting places.

“People met to dance, play cards or simply socialise. And of course the young Luxembourgish men, who were often stationed in the Eifel for a whole year, loved to dance with the young German women,” said Streicher.

Some 11 marriages were registered between Luxembourg soldiers and German women during the entire occupation period, which lasted until 1955. Marriages with Germans were strongly frowned upon in Luxembourg at the time, said Streicher. “Luxembourg politicians actively tried to prevent such marriages,” he said.

The overall number of marriages that emerged from the occupation is likely higher, as some conscripts only tied the knot after leaving military service. As they did not take place under army supervision, “the exact number of these marriages is not known,” Streicher said.

Some of the young soldiers even left their military careers in favour of a relationship or marriage with a German woman.

“You would actually expect these Luxembourgish men, who ended up marrying a German woman, to have a deep-seated hatred of Germany,” Streicher said. And yet, these men built a new life for themselves in Germany. “How you explain something like that to your parents, or how you legitimise it for yourself?”

Far from political and collective resentment, individual soldiers developed a differentiated image of Germany.

Withdrawal to Luxembourg

As personal relationships improved, the political dimension evolved as well, in particular after the founding of the Federal Republic of German in 1949. Occupiers slowly turned into partner countries of the West German state, which regained most of its political sovereignty through the Paris Treaties of 1954.

The Bundeswehr – Germany’s army – was founded in 1955. At this point, the Allied occupation officially ended.

“However, the Western Allies remained stationed in Germany – albeit no longer as occupying forces, but as stationing forces that had to bear their own costs from that moment on,” said Streicher.

Luxembourg soldiers in Perl (then Saarburg district), 21 March 1946 © Photo credit: Unknown photographer. National Military History Museum

Luxembourg for some time, however, had lost interest in its presence in the German Greater Region. The goals originally pursued were considered to have been fulfilled or failed, said Streicher. “On the one hand, Luxembourg had successfully demonstrated its international intervention policy alongside the Allies by participating in the occupation. On the other hand, the annexation plans had finally failed.”

In the immediate aftermath of the war, Luxembourg had advocated for the area up to Bitburg to be returned to the Grand Duchy. These were lands lost to Prussia in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna, which elevated Luxembourg to a sovereign state in personal union with King William (Guillaume) of Orange-Nassau, the Netherlands’ monarch.

Luxembourg withdrew all its troops from Germany in July 1955.

Recognition

But what remained after these ten years?

While in some cases, closer ties developed during the occupation, Streicher dispelled the idea that Luxembourg soldiers arrived as occupiers and left as friends. “The Luxembourgers came as occupiers and left as occupiers,” he said.

Large sections of the German population were relieved. Despite some rapprochement, there were repeated incidents right up to the end, he said.

While hostilities remained, Luxembourg soldiers stationed in neighbouring Germany found that locals spoke a language similar to their own.

Luxembourg soldiers in Nittel in the winter of 1945/46 © Photo credit:
Unbekannter Fotograf / Privatsammlung Camille Leick

While hostilities remained, Luxembourg soldiers stationed in neighbouring Germany found that locals spoke a language similar to their own.

“Both sides are strongly Catholic, which made it easier to deconstruct the previously deeply rooted hatred of Germany on an individual level. People suddenly recognised each other as people with similar traditions, similar values and a surprisingly close everyday culture,” said Streicher.

Only without a Luxembourg occupation regime in the Eifel and the Saar was the newly founded federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate able to approach Luxembourg openly – at both regional and state level – and conclude agreements that were intended to promote good neighbourly relations.

“It is particularly noteworthy that from the early 1950s, regional politicians on both sides of the border made a decisive contribution to the normalisation and later deepening of the relationship. The Bitburg district administrator, mayor Victor Abens of Vianden and other local actors actively worked towards a positive, co-operative border relationship,” Streicher said.

Removal of remains

Few traces remain of the ten-year stay of Luxembourg forces in the region.

“One example – and at the same time a symbol of the ultimately good relationship between Bitburg and Luxembourg – is the bell that the Luxembourg garrison donated to the Church of Our Lady when it left Bitburg. This bell still rings today,” said Streicher.

There is also a statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Our Lady in Bitburg, which is modelled on the image of the Virgin Mary in Luxembourg’s Notre-Dame cathedral.

But the Luxembourg soldiers didn’t just donate religious objects. They also removed the remains of national hero John of Bohemia from the hermitage of Kastel-Staadt on the Saar, where his remains had been resting since 1838 in a burial chapel built by the Prussians.

To this day, the coffin in the Kastel-Staadt hermitage remains empty. “It is often stated in Luxembourg texts or publications in recent years that the transfer of the remains was a ‘cloak-and-dagger operation’. This is completely false,” said Streicher. In the summer of 1946, John of Bohemia was returned to Luxembourg with great triumph and nationalist pride in a publicly staged and celebrated act.

It was not only the Germans – who lost an important tourist attraction – who were displeased, according to Streicher.

In his dispatch to London, the British ambassador who attended the ceremony was clearly irritated by the unexpected euphoria that erupted among the Luxembourgers.

But the return of the medieval national hero in 1946 served to strengthen the national self-esteem of a small country that wanted to put the horrors of the occupation and the Second World War behind it.

About the historian

Félix Streicher © Photo credit: Anouk Antony

Félix Streicher is a historian and researcher at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po in Paris. He studied history in Heidelberg and Paris and defended his doctoral thesis on the history of the Luxembourg occupation zone in Germany (1945-1945) at Maastricht University in September 2025, funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR).

He is currently researching the history of resistance in Luxembourg during the Second World War for the “Fondation Nationale de la Résistance”.

(This story was first published in the Luxemburger Wort. Translated using AI, edited by Cordula Schnuer)