9/15/24: Luxembourg & World War II

 A few miles away from the town of Ettelbruck which Steven and I had just toured was the town of Diekirck. It's known now for Luxembourg's most famous beer but for those of an older generation as the location of the Battle of the Bulge, a pivotal battle during the war when American troops crossed the river here on January 18th, 1945. The city is home to the Grand Duchy's military headquarters and the country's most important military museum, the Musée National d'Histoire Militaire.

Before WW2, there was no sizeable patriotic tradition in Luxembourg but that changed in 1939 with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of national independence when many citizens became aware they belonged to a small but independent nation with its own traditions. No doubt Hitler's rise to power and the imminent threat of war from their next-door neighbor was behind a Minister's memorandum from the year before which stated that "it is the Government's opinion that the Independence celebrations must reach the goal of unifying all social classes through a common patriotic spirit and of proving our right to exist, our vitality and our desire to stay independent to the foreign countries."

Several months before invading Luxembourg, Hitler congratulated the Grand Duchy on its independence.

In 1940, right in the middle of the Phony War, Luxembourg still held onto its status of "disarmed neutrality." Its forces consisted of 268 police officers and 425 members of the Compagnie des volontaires. It was a case of too little, too late when the government ordered the construction of a defense line along their border with Germany to delay a German advance in the event of an attack. When Germany invaded the Grand Duchy on May 10th, 1940, the tiny country experienced the most somber period in its history because, for the second time since its independence in 1839, Luxembourg was at risk of disappearing as a sovereign nation. 

A few months later, when German became the only official language, streets, and stores were Germanized and French was banned. "Luxembourg must be German!"

To 'reeducate' the locals, the Germans took complete control of the media, strongarmed people into Nazi organizations, and 'cleansed' the schools and the world of culture of any elements considered 'un-German.' Reading this was so frightening as there are elements in present-day American society banning books on a level never done before and re-writing history books that have become the new norm.

In a policy called Gleichschaltung, all reminders of Luxembourg's independence were eradicated from the public realm: monuments, flags, stamps, and portraits of the Grand Duchess were gone. In the late summer of 1940, Luxembourgers wore patriotic badges as a symbol of protest against the German annexation plans and when the Nazis tore down the famous Gëlle Fra or Golden Lady monument from WW 1.

However, when the country was formally integrated into the German district in 1941, all political parties, Parliament, and the State Council were disbanded. The national economy was redirected to Germany's needs. That October, a clear majority of the population declared they were "three times Luxembourgish" when asked about their native language, nationality, and ethnicity in a census, refusing to comply with Nazi wishes. 

While Luxembourg's government in exile in London sought to regain the country's independence, some of its citizens joined Allied forces and the French and Belgian resisters. The Luxembourg Battery later participated in the liberation of Europe. 

At the end of August and the beginning of September 1942, spontaneous strikes occurred at many sites to decry the forced conscription of young Luxembourgers in the German Wehrmacht or united armed forces. To quash the strike, 21 ringleaders were sentenced to death and executed. 

To counter the German war effort, spying for the Allies and sabotage became the most common methods of resistance. Armed resistance was rare because of the fear of brutal reprisals against the local population. 

A crucial strategy to undermine the Nazi information monopoly included vandalizing Nazi propaganda as well as printing and distributing leaflets to the locals for counter-programming purposes. 

Luxembourgers supported the victims of Nazi oppression by spiriting army deserters, political dissidents, escaped Allied POWs, and shot-down airmen across the border into France and Belgium via a network of passeurs. Persecuted people were protected in hiding spots set up throughout the country. 

I urge you to click on this photo to enlarge the extremely moving prayer General George Patton, the Commander of the US Third Army, wrote to God in mid-December of 1944 beseeching Him for better weather for four days for his troops.

A huge hall was devoted to a mishmash of American equipment on one side and German on the other. War buffs would have loved examining the large collection of memorabilia.

On December 19th, 1944, after three days of intensive fighting and realizing the Germans would soon have control of Diekirck, the American commander ordered the retreat of the remaining troops from Diekirck to a new defensive line overlooking Ettlebruck. US Captain Harry Kemp of the Third Battalion of the 109th Infantry Regiment was the executive officer responsible for moving the troops through the town to the new defense line.

After being made aware that 5,000 plus civilians would fall under German domination, Kemp wrote an evacuation order to the local authorities that he wanted the town evacuated beginning at midnight. As a result, 95% of the local population left under darkness via the bridge over the Sauer River while the remaining US troops retreated via the main road toward Ettlebruck. As a result of Kemp's actions, the civilians were safe when the Germans invaded Diekirck just hours later.

On the 60th anniversary of Diekirck's liberation, Kemp was awarded the Luxembourg Commander of the  Order of Merit national decoration and was made an honorary citizen of Diekirck.

I was moved after reading that without the help of Allied forces, Luxembourg could never have regained its sovereignty and independence. And, furthermore, the Luxembourg people will remember a "profound gratitude toward the United States of America" after being liberated by the American armed forces.

Next post: I should name it The Castle Post for reasons you'll soon see!

Posted on October 12th, 2024 from Monastir, Tunisia where we just arrived yesterday after spending a week in Malta. Please take care of yourself and your loved one and hold them close.

9/15/24: Ettelbruck Town Walk & Vianden Wander

Since Steven and I had decided to forgo paying about $35 for a continental breakfast at our charming hotel in Vianden, we were in a bit of a pickle as there was no shop, bakery, or grocery store open on a Sunday morning to grab something to eat. The closest option meant returning to Ettlebruck, the town we had tried to visit the previous afternoon but had given up after not finding a parking spot. We'd passed an Aldi, a huge supermarket chain found over much of Europe but figured we could pick something up in Vianden. Ha, ha, the joke was on us, so we trotted back 30 minutes and feasted on croissants and petit pain au chocolat - yum, yum!

Roundabout sculptures near Patton's Memorial Park in Ettlebruck: 

Like many small towns we visited a few months ago in Japan, Ettlebruck also had custom sewer covers!

Seeing the banner for the previous day's Ettlebrooklyn Street Festival made sense as to why the town had been busier than normal. The banner made us think of our daughter, Nina, and her husband, who live in the 'other' Brooklyn, as in NYC!

At the Town Hall, we read that the first written reference to Ettlebruck dates from 901 when members of the Frankish nobility bequeathed their property in Hettilbrucka to the Benedictine abbey in Echternnach which we'd visited the day before. Until the French Revolution, the village known as Hof Ettlebruck remained under the control of the monks and only consisted of 300 inhabitants until the 17th century. Ettelbruck became a market town and commercial center after 1780 because of its location and transportation center. The 2009 census showed a population of 7,800 people, about half native Luxembourgers and the rest coming from 50 other nations. When I read that the Portuguese community was by far the largest, I understood why its members had been able to donate the statue we'd viewed yesterday. We noticed later the significant number of people of African heritage. 

We decided to follow the town's self-guided walk which took us to St. Sebastian Church just as parishioners were gathering after Mass had let out. 

The chestnut tree in the Place d'Eglise or church square was more than a century old and was the only one still standing of four avenues of trees that led to the church. The others had been destroyed by shells during the Ardennes Offensive aka the Battle of the Bulge.

Discovery of Gallo-Roman tombs nearby proved the existence of a population cluster from approximately 30BC to the 2nd century AD.

Three sculptures represent a farmer, a shopkeeper, and a teacher which symbolize the three socio-economic professional classes in the town's growth from village to the city it had become as an agricultural center. The current technical high school, founded in 1852 by nuns, welcomed girls to its agricultural management school in 1892, and later, an agricultural college trained young farmers from the Grand Duchy.

The Latin inscription engraved on the 1770 Wark Bridge could be translated as, "Calmly, the Wark crosses the imposed yoke."

You might have thought we were in the American Brooklyn when we spotted a sign for Kid's Fashion as it was in English!

Fortunately, these handsome facades were able to be preserved after the war. 

Inserted into the pavement in front of former Jewish-owned shops in Place Guillaume were blocks with small metal plates each bearing the name of Jewish victims of the Shoa in Luxembourg. The artistic project represents the world's largest decentralized monument. 

The Place de la Résistance was named in memory of all WW2 resistance members who fought against the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg. From August 1941 onward, resistance movements in the Ettlebruck area operated under Yvo Kerger's leadership. Like the fate of so many others, he was later arrested, and detained in several prisons before being killed at the Mauthausen concentration camp just before the Americans liberated it in May of 1945.

The sculpture by the former butter market represented a farmer's wife displaying her dairy products for sale who, while trying to choo away a stray cat with her ladle, knocks over one of the churns and spills the milk onto the ground!

For a brief time, Hotel Herckmans was the country's political center after the government fled to Ettlebruck following revolutionary unrest in the capital in 1848. Members of Parliament stayed in the hotel and met in the elementary school.

We walked a few blocks to reach Aeschenhivel or Ash Hill which garnered its name from the great fires of 1532 and 1543 when warring soldiers twice reduced Ettlebruck to ashes. As if that weren't enough, Dutch filibusters torched and pillaged the village in 1602, and during the Thirty Years War in 1635, most townships were destroyed in the country with the passage of the Imperial Army. But wait, there was still more - the plague almost wiped out the remaining population in 1659, and fires in 1778 and 1814 once again reduced most of the town to ashes.

The commemorative stone was placed in memory of two young neighborhood resistance fighters, Michel Dax and Jengo Thull who were shot on September 5th, 1942. They had participated in the nationwide general strike after Luxembourg youth was ordered to enroll in the German military.

The way to Bolgesteen, an ancient Ettelbruck neighborhood: 

Steven and I wondered if the recent political climate and anti-Semitic hatred had led to there not being a historical marker only at the town's synagogue.

Yes, Janina, the streets were this deserted when we visited!

Considering Ettelbruck didn't merit any mention in our tour book, we were more than pleasantly surprised by our time in the small town and the effort its town leaders had put forth to welcome visitors with its striking sculptures, murals, and informative walking tour. 

As the country's national military museum was located just a few miles away in the town of Diekirch, we went there to learn about Luxembourg's role in WW2 and the Battle of the Bulge as the town played a pivotal role in the war. I'll leave that to the next post, however, as it deserves more time and space.

From Diekirck we returned to Vianden whose white stone-walled castle had greeted us on our arrival the day before.

On the small town's main street or Grand Rue was the family-run Hotel Heintz which had once been a brewery and inn run by the Trinitarian monks and was now our abode.

Next door was the Trinitarian Church, the former monastery, which dated to 1248 and was expanded in 1644 and again in 1732. Though a work of major Gothic architecture in Luxembourg, its liturgical and artistic accessories reflected popular piety as practiced by the Trinitarian monks and parishioners. The church was also the burial place for Vianden's lords during the first centuries. 

The Main Altar dated from 1758 and was a typical example of the religious sculpture of the late Baroque period.  

The sculpted funeral slab which depicted Countess Marie of Spanheim, 1337-1400, daughter of the Earl of Vianden, looked so soft it almost didn't look like marble!

The historic Trinitarian organ from 1693 is one of the oldest in the country

The Holy Sacrament Altar was designed in the Baroque style in the early 17th century. It was likely the church's main altar until 1758 before being moved in 1953 to the chancel in the north nave. 

Perhaps Steven and I have seen too many utterly gorgeous churches in every small town throughout Sicily and here in Malta since visiting Luxembourg and that has colored my point of view, but I don't remember being wowed by the monastery.

What a shame the cloisters were being renovated as they had been the heart of the monastery.

We continued our stroll down the Grand Rue toward the center of the community. Though the street was narrow and two-way and the sidewalks were almost non-existent, some drivers liked to use it as a racetrack!

An open-air concert venue just off Grand Rue:

After the well-known French writer, Victor Hugo first visited Vianden in 1863, he returned several times including when France expelled him in 1871. Hugo is credited with helping organize a rescue when a fire broke out and destroyed many houses and compensating those affected. On the bridge was a replica stone bust sculpted by Rodin.

Across the street was the house where Hugo stayed and has become  Musée Littéraire 'Victor Hugo.'

It seemed that Hugo left his mark on several places in the small town as the hotel and restaurant were also named after him! We dined on a lovely meal there that night. 

We enjoyed more lovely views of the chateau overlooking Vianden as we walked along the river, knowing we’d see more of it on our last day in the area.

Just behind the monastery we'd visited earlier was the Sodality Church which traces its history to 1735 in a letter from Pope Clemens XII. Inside was an unusual two-sided banner.

The town's history museum was formed by knocking two houses together. At the end of the day, that was of more interest to us than actually touring it!

Next post: Diekirch's military museum as I mentioned above!

Posted on October 9th, 2024 from the city of Victoria, formerly known as Rabat, on the island of Gozo off the main island of Malta - have I thoroughly confused you yet? In less than two days, we're off to Tunisia where we'll also be visiting a city called Rabat so I hope we can keep it all straight. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.