14 Facts About Luxembourgish Resistance

From 1943 at the latest, Luxembourgish Resistance members recognised a need to unify the various organisations.

The Luxembourgish Resistance was above all a regional phenomenon: each organisation had its geographical base, and none operated across the whole country.

Politically, two tendencies in the Luxembourgish Resistance can be distinguished, one left-wing and one right-wing.

The right-wing Luxembourgish Resistance groups were generally to be found in the north, based among rural communities.

Activities of the Luxembourgish Resistance, as described in a Gestapo report from 1941, consisted of illegal meetings, propaganda activities, printing flyers, procuring weapons and explosives, supporting family members of arrested persons, organising illegal emigration and joining other countries' armed forces.

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From February 1941, the communist Luxembourgish Resistance started publishing the newspaper entitled Die Wahrheit.

From summer of the same year, Luxembourgers working in the Belgian Luxembourgish Resistance started producing De freie Lotzeburger, 17 editions of which appeared between October 1941 and August 1942.

Those wishing to leave the country included escaped prisoners of war, Allied pilots who had been shot down, or Luxembourgish Resistance members wishing to travel to Britain to join the Allied armed forces, and this made an organised network necessary.

Additionally, from 1943, the Luxembourgish Resistance helped numerous young men who refused to serve in the Wehrmacht, to escape to France or Belgium.

An estimated 2,000 people were helped across the border of Luxembourg, and several of the Luxembourgish Resistance members lost their lives at these border crossings.

Luxembourgish Resistance members were aware of the value of intelligence for the British, who were for a while the only country resisting Nazi Germany.

In spite of this, the beginnings of intelligence work in Luxembourg were difficult, but the Luxembourgish Resistance attempted again and again to find ways to send information to the British.

Shortly before however, Luxembourgish Resistance members fought alone in the only major open battle fought between the Luxembourgish Resistance against soldiers of the Waffen-SS during the Battle of Vianden.

The Resistance organisations spread awareness of the nature and significance of the upcoming census, and distributed leaflets strongly encouraging the population to answer Draimol Letzebuerg.