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The main reasons why Luxembourgers collaborated were:

They supported the german ideology (mostly former german immigrants)

They expected personal advantaged from the Germans

They had fear of loosing their job or not finding one

They had fear of being tortured or of having the family tortured

In total there were about 4% of the population that collaborated actively with the Nazis

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Soon after the invasion of Luxembourg, the "Volksdeutsche Bewegung" (VdB) was founded by the luxembourgish german teacher Damian Kratzenberg. The VdB wanted to collaborate with Nazi Germany and integrate Luxembourg into the Germany under the slogan "Heim ins Reich". In the beginning, around 5.000 Luxembourgers were member in the VdB voluntarily. Later, the numbers mounted, because every civil servant would be fired, if they aren't member and other disadvantages for non-members were increasing.

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Before the Reich Laubour Service being mandatory, it was optional, which means that luxembourgish men had the choice if they wanted to join the german military or not. However, according to german reports, there were approximatly 2000 luxembourgish soldiers who volunteered for the german army.

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After Germany occupied Luxembourg, a national consciousness started to create itself in the citizens minds. This is why, in 1941, the first resistance groups were created. One very well known resistance group is the Lëtzeburger Roude Léiw. They operated secretly against the german military and their occupation in Luxembourg and their main roles were helping for example political refugees to cross the border and they encouraged the luxemburgish population to pull through. So they were really important to resist to the german forces and keep Luxembourg a country on it’s own.

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The brassard to mark the Jewish population in Luxembourg, 1941-42

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In the end of the 1930s, there were more than 4000 Jews in Luxembourg (3/4 were stateless or foreigners).
May 10th 1940, German troops occupied Luxembourg which led the Jews to flee to France or Belgium. Some of Southern population, like those living in Esch, were evacuated to France. Some ended up returning to Luxembourg, eventhough it was prohibited by the gauleiter Gustav Simon.
In October 1941 there were still 800 Jews living in Luxembourg and overtime they were deported to the ghettos and concentration camps in the East. The Luxembourgish Jews in France and Belgium were victims of prosecution and raided homes, buisinesses etc.

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Many Luxemburgers collaborated because of the ideology or because of fear, but there were also those who even profited from the collaboration. In the steel industry, for example, there were managers, that continued producing iron for Germany, that needed it for their army and made a lot of money.
But also in lower social classes, there is an economic collaboration. Many small companies joined the VdB or took Nazi positions to get more costumers. For example there was a tailor, that enlarged his production, because the Germans commanded their uniforms from him after he started collaborating.

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Gustav Simon came to Luxembourg in July 1940. Gustav Simon served as a Gauleiter of Gau Moselland. He served from 1931 to 1945. A Gauleiter was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). There were 43 Gauen in total. Gustav Simon was a model student of Hitler. On November 16 1942, Simon was named Reich Defense Commissioner for the Gau. Gustav wanted to make Luxembourg the first Gau country again. Gauleiter Gustav Simon wanted Luxembourg to recognize its affiliation with the German Reich as quickly as possible. Since he wanted to recognize, all the connections to France needed to disappear from the culture of Luxembourg.

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The paving stones of memory; Made in 1992 by Günter Demnig, these are memorials to honour the (Jewish) victims during the war. They are so small, you 'bow' down

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The Freymann family, consisting of one mother and two children, were Galician Jews who have lived in Luxembourg since 1911.
After the forced evacuation of the mother, Frieda, she got separated from her 2 younger children and was arrested in Gironde. First taken to Drancy and then to Auschwitz, where she was killed on the 28 September 1942.
Her children Sarah (15) and Heinrich (13) were arrested in Angers (F) and taken to Auschwitz on 20 July 1942. They passed later that year.

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Julien Cerf was born on the 24th April 1897 in Esch-Alzette. Julien Cerf and Camille Bonem (his wife) lived in the Alzette-Street N'57 on the 2nd Floor and they had a Store there. Julien and Camille had two kids, Georges and Paul. Julien and his family evacuated in May 1940. They evacuated to Montpellier (France). Julien joined the resistance movement but was betrayed by Marcel Reuter (Luxembourgish). Julien was imprisoned in the drancy camp on December 17th 1943. Julien was deported to Auschwitz by Transport N'63. Julien died on April 7th 1944. His wife and the kids returned to Esch-Alzette where they then lived in the uncle house N'2.

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When World War II started the Luxembourgish government was in a difficult situation: The population sympathized with France, however, they had a neutrality treaty since 1867.
Although Luxembourg was officially a neutral country, it was located at a strategic point to invade France since French defenses were weaker on the border with Luxembourg.
In addition, the nazis believed that Luxembourg should be part of Germany.

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During the Nazi-regime, a lot of luxembourgish people were forced to join The Reich Labour Service, which was an organization where the members were supposed to "serve their country." This lead to the fact that loads of men were obliged to join the german army and fight for the Reich. However, the mothers of these luxembourgish men were concerned about their children, they were worried because they didn't want their children to die for Germany.

This caused loads of strikes, where Luxembourgers stopped working to strike against the rules imposed by the german government. The first strike was in Wiltz, where over 100 strikers were arrested, 21 of them were sentenced to death and 260 students were sent to Germany to undergo the so-called "Umerziehung" where they were re-educated.

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This sentence is the chorus of a popular luxemburgish song, which reflected the increasing patriotism in the Grand Duchy during the middle of the 19th century. “We want to stay what we are” was a really important message, as the really small country has always felt in danger of being occupied by it’s neighbours.

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A Russian family who immigrated in 1921 to Esch. The family consisted of 5, Aron the father, Frieda the mother and 3 children aged 28, 25 and 20. They were evacuated in 1940 but returned to Luxembourg illegally.
Because of their Russian nationality, Jeanne and Aron were arrested but later released. Afterwards the husband and wife and one of their daughters, Jeanne,  were deported on 16 October 1941 to the Litzmannstadt ghetto and gassed in May 1942 at Chelmno.
Their only son Henri was forced into joining the French military and died a soldier.
Their other daughter Claire married and moved to France. She was the only Holocaust survivor of the family.

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While some people thought fighting against the Nazi ideology would be worth it, others were more focused on their country’s freedom.

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On May 10, 1940 Germany started the invasion of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Since the beginning of the war, many fortifications were built along the borders with Germany and France. Their goal was to slow down any invasion so that the troops of the allied countries could counterattack.
However, due to Luxembourg’s neutrality, they had no army to stop German troops and the country was almost totally occupied with very little resistance by the evening of May 10, 1940.
90.000 civilians were evacuated, half to France and half to others regions of Luxembourg. The government left the country as well to go to Spain, Portugal, the USA, Canada and finally London.

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While individual acts of protest appeared, the first organisations of resistence were attempted to be created on a more permanent level in summer 1940. The first to create such an organisation were the heads of the Catholic Scouts who were located in Esch-sur-Alzette, so the south of the country near the french border. Similar meetings to create organisations on a long term took place in Diekrich, Luxembourg city and Wiltz. When the Scout movement was banned, they still continued to act and exist underground under the name of Lëtzebuerger Scouten an der Resistenz. In late september 1940, Raymond Petit, who was a student at the Lycée of Echternach, created the LPL, Lëtzebuerger Patriote-Liga. Many more were created and soon the groups started to enter into contact and some of the groups later merged into bigger ones.

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Did the resistance exist as a unified entity?

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Did the resistance exist as a unified entity?

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In fact it did not, the resistance was put together of several seperate resistance organisations. The country was not any more unified during the WW2 than it was before, but the consciousness of people about their national identity started to come up more.
The different resistances did not even operate as a whole, they all had their own geographical base.

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In the picture: The names of two resistance groups, swords and a headstone with the natzi cross. Wach = wake up!

4% of the Luxembourish population were activly part of the resistance. They did a variety of things to spread information and to help people flee the country across the boarders. The resistance created posters and flyers containing important information for the Luxembourg people. Early in the mornings, they printed and put the flyers on for example trains, so that the information could reach as many people as possible.

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The second important thing that they did was collecting money and material to be able to provide help to people and families in need. Some needed to flee the coultry, which was a quite difficult thing to do, and the resistance created escape routes for people to get actross the boarders. The routes were organized by the Luxembourg people. They even helped english pilots to get across the boarder.

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Writing reports about the state of the country

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Writing reports about the state of the country

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One further thing that they did was writing reports about what was going on in Luxembourg. They sent the reports to the UK. The reports provided military information such as how many troops there were in Luxembourg, but also general information about what was going on in the country. The Luxembourg govenrment left the country on the day of the occupation, and thanks to the reports they could get information about the resistance and the state of their country. To know that the reports had reached their destination, hidden messages were put in the brittish newspapers.

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The gestapo stated that the activities of the Resistance consisted in propaganda activities, illegal meetings, printing flyers(to influence other Luxemburgers), producing weapons and explosives (to fight against the Germans) and organising illegal emigration as well as joining other countires’ armed forces.
An important part of the Luxemburgish Resistance was the underground press. Their aim was to counteract the German propaganda that had as a goal to portray Luxembourg as a part of Germany, under the statement “Heim ins Reich”, basically meaning let’s go home to the German Reich. But firming up Luxembourgers’ partiotism.
Starting in february 1941, the communist resistance started to print a newspaper called Die Wahrheit.
The resistance groups faced a problem of how to cross the belgian or french border secretly, as they were wishing to leave the country to later join resistance groups in other countries as for example Britain. Numerous men refused to serve in the Wehrmacht and those were the ones who were helped across the border by the resistance groups.

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The first administration was military administration between 11 May 1940 and 29 July 1940. On May 10, the German Government gave the general secretary of the Luxembourgish government a memorandum saying that Germany had no intention of changing the political independence of Luxembourg.
The next day, a military administration was set up. Luxembourgish interests were represented by a governmental commission that had a good relationship with the military authorities, as they tried to help with the country problems.
During this period Luxembourg had some independence but the Nazis thought that it was just another German territory so this administration was replaced by a civil administration.
Gustav Simon led this new administration and he started first a propaganda campaign to convince the population that they were Germans and that Luxembourgish independence was an absurd idea of the monarchy and the government. Afterwards, he also started a terror campaign.

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On the 10th of May 1940, Luxembourg was invaded by the German army. As they did not have an army themselves, they had no way to stop the invasion. On the first day of the invasion, 19 000 people fled from Luxembourg city to the south of France, and some to other parts of Luxembourg. Among the ones who left the country was the Grand Duchess and the luxembourgish government.

The people of Luxembourg were not able to stop the german invasion, but the population expressed their opposition and worked against the german regime in other ways. (Resistance)

There were collaborators too, that provided information to the germans about the resistance, and who volunteered in the german army.

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Soon intelligence work had it’s start in Luxembourg, even though the beginning was not easy. Even if they kept failing continously, they attempted again and again to send information to the British, like for example rocket testing sites.

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The Feiner family counted four people; the father Henri, the mother Sophie and their two children Rosa and Albert. Rosa ended up marrying a German Jew, Arno Bobrowsky. When Rosa ended up getting pregnant with their daughter Ruth, they decided to move in with Rosa's parents due to financial struggles.
In 1940 the Feiner family's hairsalon got confiscated. Henri gets forced to work in the quarry. The entire family, except for Henri and Sophie, was deported to the ghetto in Litzmannstadt on the 16 October 1941. In May 1942 they end up getting gassed in Chelmno.
Henri and Sophie ended up living in a Jewish retirement home in Fünfbrunnen. They sadly got deported as well to Theresienstadt, and later to Auschwitz where they were gassed on 6 September 1943.

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After the liberation, the Luxebourgers started processes for the collaborators. In total 12 persons were sentenced to death, 249 are sentenced to forced labour and 2000 went to prison.
In the time after the war, the Luxembourgers didn't talk much about collaboration, this side was suppressed in the society. The reprocessing slowly started 20 year ago.

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Due to Germanisation, all French-sounding names ended up being 'transformed' into their German equivalent. Such as Hertz, who ended up being named Handzel.
The Jewish population got an extra label. Jewish males got Israel as their second name, females on the other hand got Sarah as a second name. Ruth Bobrowsky would become Ruth Sarah Bobrowsky.