Benutzer:Rustikal/Luxemburger Kollaboration mit Nazi-Deutschland

Die Luxemburger Kollaboration mit Nazi-Deutschland bezeichnet die Zusammenarbeit von Luxemburger Dienststellen auf staatlicher oder kommunaler Ebene, Unternehmen, Gruppen oder Personen mit der Besatzungsmacht während der deutschen Besetzung Luxmeburgs während des 2. Weltkriegs. In die Disk übernehmen: Der Artikel basiert in der eingestellten Version vorrangig auf dem Artikel aus der englischsprachigen Wikipedia, der vor allem übersetzt und ggf. bei der Benennung der Quellen angepasst wurde. Elemente wurde auch aus der Fassung in Letzebuergisch übernommen.

Ein Luxemburger Gendarm/ Polizist grüßt Heinrich Himmler beim besuch in Luxemburg 1940

Während der Deutsche Besetzung von Luxemburg im 2. Weltkrieg haben manche Luxemburger Dinestellen , Unternehmen, Gruppen oder Personenen kollaboriert mit der das Land Nazi besetzenden Besatzungsmacht. Der Ausdruck Gielemännchen ("gelbe Männchen", ggf. auch gemient als Goldammer, assoziiert zu dem abwertend gemeinten Goldfasan) wurde angewendet auf manche Luxemburger, ursprünglich bezogen auf Mitglieder der Luxemburger Nazi-Bewegung, die gelbe Uniformen trugen, später angewendet auf Luxemburger Kollaborateure.

Vorkriegszeit

In der Zeit zwischen den Weltkriegen gab es verschiedene faschistische oder rechtsextreme Bewegungen in anderen Ländern West-Europas, ähnlicfh auch in Luxemburg. Diese bewegzungen hatten typischerweise gemein, dass sie nationalistisch waren, oft anti-semitisch, feindlich gegenüber sowohl Kapitalismus als auch Kommunismus, und sue wurden oft von der unteren Mittelklasse getragen. In Luxemburg gab es unter anderem die kaum wirkungsvollen Faschistische Partei Luxemburg und die Luxemburgische Nationale Arbeiter- und Mittelstandsbewegung, aber auch zwei etwas erfolgreichere Organisationen: die Luxemburger National Partei (LNP) veröffentlichte 1936 die erste Ausgabe des National-Echo. Wegen interner Streitigkeiten und Geldmangel ging die LNP aber bereist kurz danacg wieder ein, Versuche der Reaktivierung während der deutschen Besetzungszeit gelangen nicht.

Die Luxemburger Volksjugend (LVJ), auch Stoßtrupp Lützelburg, war erfolgreicher darin, junge Männer zu gewinnen. Sie folgte der Nazi-Ideologie entsprechend dem deutschen Vorbild und sah Adolf Hitler auch als ihren Führer.

Eine weniger offen politicche Organisation war die Luxemburger Gesellschaft für deutsche Literatur und Kunst (GEDELIT)), die auch eine Art Reservoir für künftige Kollaboratuere war. GEDELIT wurde 1934 gefründet, als Gegengewicht zur bereits erfolgreichen Alliance française. Seit der Gründung bestand gegenüber der GEDELIT der Verdacht, dass sie ein Werkzeug der deutschen Nazi-Regierung oder von deren Partei war.

However, the extent of these pre-war organisations' influence on the general population's behaviour in occupied Luxembourg remains unclear, as does the continuity (or lack thereof) between these groups and the Volksdeutsche Bewegung (VdB) or Luxembourg sections of the NSDAP. Among these groups, only the LVJ was politically successful, rebranding as the Volksjugend in 1940 and being incorporated into the Hitlerjugend in 1941. The historian Émile Krier has maintained that the Volksdeutsche Bewegung made use of existing pre-war networks when it was founded: Damian Kratzenberg, for example, was the head of GEDELIT, and became head of the country's section of the VdB. However, the evidence for the grassroots membership of the VdB having been members of previous fascist organisations is inconclusive.

Volksdeutsche Bewegung and NSDAP

Poster by the Volksdeutsche Bewegung. It reads: "Luxembourger. You are German. Your mother tongue is German. You belong to us!"

Collaborationist movements arose in the first few weeks after the invasion, but received no support from the German military administration, which was in place from May to July 1940. On 19 May, there was a meeting of 28 individuals who had belonged to several of the above-mentioned fascist movements, and who called for Luxembourg to be incorporated into Germany as a Gau. On 13 July, the VdB was officially founded. This included three factions: a group around Damian Kratzenberg, which had been Germanophile before the war and was most active in the cultural sphere; a group that was most interested in cooperating with the occupiers for economic reasons; finally, a third wing around a former journalist, Camille Dennemeyer. This last group was quite young, and exhibited an activism similar to that of the German Sturmabteilung. This wing was seen as harmful to the VdB's public perception, and in November 1940 Dennemeyer and his associates were dismissed from their posts in the movement.

Over the following months, the VdB was massively expanded: the country was divided into 4 districts (Kreise), which were subdivided into local branches (Ortsgruppen), so that by the end of the war there were about 120 local VdB groups. Membership rose until August 1942, when almost a third of the population were members.

The VdB was an ideological defender of Luxembourg's return to the German Empire. On 6 July 1940, when the VdB had not yet officially been founded, it released a public statement, declaring "Luxembourgers, hear the call of blood! It tells you that you are German by race and by language [...]" Its aim was to persuade Luxembourgers to become an indistinguishable part of Nazi Germany. Up until the end of the war, however, the VdB did not formulate a specific ideology, although its public discourse shows the following characteristics: vilification of Jews, condemnations of the Resistance and the grand-ducal family, and a strongly dichotomous argumentation, all of which does not constitute an ideology.

At the same time, the German occupiers were not interested in a self-sufficient collaboration movement. Senior posts in the movement were occupied by Germans, including 3 of 4 district leaders (Kreisleiter). Nevertheless, Nazism had such grave consequences in Luxembourg because there were people at every level of society who were ready to cooperate with the occupier, as illustrated by the 120 Ortsgruppenleiter (local branch leaders). Most of these men were Luxembourgers, and in fact the post was one of the highest that Luxembourgers could attain in the movement. The Ortsgruppenleiter performed continual informer services throughout the war which allowed the German occupiers to keep the country under control for 4 years. The authorities would ask an Ortsgruppenleiter for a political evaluation of an individual at many opportunities, for example when deciding whether to grant someone government benefits, membership in the VdB, access to education, leave for Wehrmacht members, or release from prison or concentration camps. Putting such power in the hands of the Ortsgruppenleiter also allowed them to pursue personal vendettas. These local officials also played a major role in the forced resettlement operations: the commissions in each Kreis that decided individual cases relied on reports from the Ortsgruppenleiter, who in turn used the threat of resettlement as a means of intimidation. Furthermore, they compiled and handed to the occupiers "blacklists" of potential hostages or "donors". After the "Three Acorns," a set of historic fortifications, were painted in the national colours of Luxembourg: red, white and blue, the Ortsgruppenleiter in Clausen presented the authorities with a list of 31 persons who would be able to pay the 100,000 Reichsmark that the occupiers demanded as punishment.

Apart from the VdB, the Nazis tried to cover Luxembourg with a net of political, social and cultural organisations. It became apparent that the VdB, being a mass organisation, was not suitable for forming a collaborationist elite, and so in September 1941 a Luxembourg section of the Nazi party was founded, which had grown to 4,000 members by the end of the war. Other Nazi organisations such as the Hitler Youth, the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the Winterhilfswerk, the NS-Frauenschaft and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront were also introduced in Luxembourg. These organisations subjected the country to a wave of propaganda, which aimed to bring the population "back into the [German] Empire" (Heim ins Reich). This propaganda was not restricted to a few large-scale public events, but attempted to reach the population day in, day out.

Social make-up

Studies have shown that collaboration was a phenomenon in all layers of society. Civil servants, however, were over-represented among the collaborators, and farmers were under-represented, while workers made up the same percentage of collaborators as they did of the general population. If historians today regard the Nazi Party as a "people's party" but with an over-representation of the lower middle class, similarly Luxembourg collaboration found supporters in every part of society, but with some parts being more strongly affected than others.

Some further demographic observations can be made: on average, the collaborators were younger than the general population. Studies show that it was 30- to 40-year-olds who predominated; the Ortsgruppenleiter, however, were significantly younger than the local elites who would usually have filled political roles before the occupation.

In terms of geography, the north and centre of the country were under-represented among collaborators, while the east and south were over-represented. Having had previous contact with Germany was a significant factor for collaborators, as 23% of the Ortsgruppenleiter were either German or of German descent. Several of them had German wives, and those with university degrees had all studied in a German-speaking country. After 1933, Germany appeared to many of these later collaborators as an example to be imitated; when visiting their families or former classmates, they were impressed by the "orderly" appearance that Germany presented.

Military collaboration

Luxembourg Flakhelfen manning anti-aircraft defenses during the occupation.

With the forced conscription of Luxembourgers into the Wehrmacht from September 1942, the divide between the occupiers and the occupied population increased widened dramatically. However, according to German reports about 1,500 to 2,000 Luxembourgers had volunteered by August 1942 for the German armed forces, including 300 for the Schutzstaffel (SS), and this does not seem to have been pure propaganda.

Economic collaboration

Germany was the most important trading partner of Luxembourg in the interwar period, but the manner in which these trade links developed and changed during the war has not yet been researched. The historian Émile Krier spoke of a process of "rationalisation and concentration" during the war, but this leaves the question as to who the beneficiaries and losers of this process were. Certainly, the Caisse d'Épargne, for example, profited enormously from the elimination of small banks.

According to one historian: "In a sense, one can argue that on 10 May 1940, it was not the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg that the Wehrmacht invaded, but ARBED." From the 1920s, ARBED had grown into a powerful multinational steel producer, which sold its products all over the world. Germany and Luxembourg were highly interdependent when it came to steel production: just before the war, Luxembourg imported 90% of its coke, an essential fuel for the blast furnaces, from Germany; by 1938, Luxembourg was exporting 47.22% of its iron and steel products to Nazi Germany, where these were badly needed due to the Nazis' rearmament programme. Luxembourg's iron ore reserves would make Germany self-sufficient in steel production; in the medium term, the Germans intended to combine the Luxembourg's steel and mining industries with those of Lorraine and the Saar.

From the first months of the occupation, then, the Germans tried hard to bring Luxembourg's steel companies, Hadir, Ougreé-Marihaye and ARBED, under their control. On 2 July 1940 Otto Steinbrinck, the Plenipotentiary for the Iron and Steel Industry in Luxembourg, Belgium and Northern France, called a meeting of the above companies' representatives. Whereas Hadir and Ougrée-Marihaye had their factories confiscated or placed under German supervision, ARBED was the only steel company to maintain its pre-war board of directors, including its managing director, Aloyse Meyer.

Several political and economic actors in the Reich had plans for ARBED, but it was ultimately the Gauleiter who determined its fate. He was intent on keeping the company intact, as it made the otherwise mostly rural Gau Moselland an industrial heavyweight.

In terms of production levels, after the catastrophic results of 1940 due to the invasion and ongoing war, steel production soon resumed but at a reduced rate. Luxembourg's steel factories no longer received a sufficient supply of coke, since the Germans believed it was more efficient to process Swedish ore, which had a higher iron content than that of minette mined in Luxembourg. However, when Nazi Germany moved to a strategy of total war, involving the mobilisation of all resources, the Armaments Minister Albert Speer ensured that from February 1942, Luxembourg's steel factories could work properly. Production increased steadily from mid-1942, and wartime production reached its peak in early 1944, when it also reached pre-war levels.

The production level of Luxembourg's heavy industry was neither held up by passive resistance on the part of the workers, nor obstruction by the management. This shatters Aloyse Meyer's post-war argument when defending himself against accusations of collaboration. Another argument, that Luxembourg managers had no room for manoeuver in the face of the all-powerful occupation authorities, also seems doubtful: Luxembourg managers remained in their posts until the general strike of 1942. The Luxembourg board of directors of ARBED remained in place until March 1942, when it was replaced by a board consisting of three Germans and two Luxembourgers, including Aloyse Meyer.

The latter was never made totally powerless: Like the Gauleiter, Meyer wanted to avoid ARBED being broken up, which made them allies in a sense. It was also the Gauleiter who ensured that Meyer was named head of the Luxembourg section of the Wirtschaftsgruppe Eisen schaffende Industrie, and a member of the board of directors of the Reichsgruppe Eisen, a semi-public body that coordinated steel production from May 1942, and as president of the Gauwirtschaftskammer Moselland (Gau Moselland Chamber of Commerce). Meyer remained ARBED's managing director, and the company continued to produce steel, until the German occupying forces left the country in September 1944. With its factories unscathed and its industrial capacity intact, ARBED was able to show a profit from 1946 again.

The historian Jacques Maas has described ARBED's attitude as one of "survival-collaboration" (collaboration-survie).

The question as to ARBED's willingness to make concessions to the German authorities was already heavily discussed during the post-war trial of Aloyse Meyer, the managing director. The different stances of ARBED and HADIR show that there was certainly some room for maneuver. Unlike the former, the management of HADIR refused to cooperate with the German occupiers. Yet many issues have yet to be examined by historians. It is unclear whether the decline in productivity per worker was due to passive resistance, a lack of raw materials, or a shortage of qualified workers in wartime. Similarly, about 1,000 Ostarbeiter were employed in Luxembourg's iron and steel industry, and their working conditions have yet to be examined. Paul Dostert claims that, in general, industry was able to continue production relatively undisturbed and still made considerable profits under German oversight, but these were disguised by the war-related production stoppages in 1940 and 1944–1945.

End of the war and aftermath

End of the war

In early September 1944, about 10,000 people left Luxembourg with the German civil administration: it is generally assumed that this consisted of 3,500 collaborators and their families. These people were distributed to the German districts (Kreise) of Mayen, Kreuznach, Bernkastel, and St Goar, and tensions soon developed between the refugees from Luxembourg and the German population, whose living conditions were precarious at this point. Furthermore, the fleeing Luxembourg collaborators still remained convinced of a German victory, to the extent that a secret police report mentioned that if the native (German) population heard the "Heil Hitler" greeting, they assumed there were Luxembourgers around.

Retribution

The main resistance groups had formed the umbrella group Unio'n in March, and they tried to establish a level of order after the German withdrawal but before the return of Luxembourg's government-in-exile: in this, they had the support of the American army. Without a legal footing, they arrested numerous collaborators. While this may in fact have prevented the deadly vigilante justice that occurred in other countries, the population's anger did also manifest itself in violent attacks on the arrested collaborators.

In 1945, 5,101 Luxembourgers, including 2,857 men and 2,244 women were in prison for political activities, constituting 1.79% of the population. 12 collaborators were sentenced to death and were shot in Reckenthal in Luxembourg City. 249 were sentenced to forced labour, 1366 were sentenced to prison and 645 were sent to workhouses. Approximately 0.8% of the population were legally punished, then. This included one former minister, the 1925–1926 prime minister Pierre Prüm, who was sentenced in 1946 to four years' imprisonment. At least one mayor was also deposed for political activities by grand-ducal decree on 4 April 1945.

Luxembourg's penal system was ill-prepared to take in such a large number of prisoners. In addition to the prison in Grund, there were about 20 other facilities, some of which had been built by the Germans during the war. Many of these were overcrowded, and had poor standards of hygiene.

Apart from their political activities, collaborators also had to account for their actions against Jews, denouncing forced conscripts in hiding, and spying on Luxembourg's population.

Kollaborateure nach Ende des Kriegs

Die Bedingungen für Kollaborateure und deren Familien waren nach Kriegsende schwierig. Wenn ein kollaborateur in Haft genionmmen wuerde, war dei familie inder regel ohne einkommen, und in manhchen Fällen wurde auch das Eigentum konfiziert. Oft musste die Ehefrau mit ihren Kindern den vorherigen Wohnort verlassen, sie ging häufig zurück zu ihren Eltern. Gewalt gegen Mitglieder von Familien von Kollaborteuren gab es bis mindestens 1947.

Andererseits gab es auch Kollaborateure, die ihre Verbindungen aus der Kriegszeit oder der Zeit zuvor nutzen konnten und sich dank der sozialen Kontakte nicht schlechter stellten als zuvor. Einige Geschäftsleite stellten bevorzugt frühere Kollaborateure ein.

Es gab einige Versuche von den 1950er bis zu den 1970er Jahren, die früheren Kollaboratoreure politisch zu organisieren, die jedoch sämtlich nicht erfolgreich waren.

Öffentliche Debatten

Für etliche jahre anch dem Krieg gab es in Luxmeburg ein Tabu, über das Thema Luxemburger Kollaboration zu sprechen. Der Historiker Henri Wehenkel schrieb: "[A] distinction was made [after the war] between the good and the bad, those who were termed resistants and those who were termed collaborators. Very soon, a consensus came about to only mention the former and to subject the latter to a sort of civic death, to silence and anonymity. [...] All Luxembourgers had resisted, no collaboration had taken place. National unity was re-established."

Seit den 1980er Jahren wurde diese Tabu zumindest teilweise gebrochen bzw. gelüftet. there has been a more nuanced state of affairs and the taboo has been at least partially lifted, as Kollaboration wurde dargestellt zum beiüpsiel in Roger Manderscheids Roman von Schacko Klak. Im Luxemburger Film Déi zwéi vum Bierg wurde das Thema 1985 ebenfalls angeprochen. Seitdem wird es auch in Luxemburg unter Geschichtswissenschaftlern oder im öffentlichen Gespräch noch immer nur selten behandelt.

Cultural references

• Schacko Klak, 1988 novel by Roger Manderscheid
• Déi zwei vum Bierg, 1985 film
• Vorlage:Ill, 2010 film by Marc Thoma

See also

• Volksdeutsche Bewegung (VdB)
• Collaboration with the Axis powers
• Luxembourg Resistance
• Luxembourg in World War II

Further reading

• Archives nationales (eds.). Collaboration: nazification? Le cas du Luxembourg à la lumière des situations française, belge et néerlandaise. Actes du colloque international, Centre culturel de rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster, May 2006. 479 p. Luxembourg: Imprimerie Hengen, 2008.
• Artuso, Vincent. La collaboration au Luxembourg durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale (1940–1945): Accommodation, Adaptation, Assimilation. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013. Vorlage:ISBN
• Cerf, Paul. De l’épuration au Luxembourg après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Luxembourg: Imprimerie Saint-Paul, 1980.
• Dostert, Paul. Luxemburg zwischen Selbstbehauptung und nationaler Selbstaufgabe. Die deutsche Besatzungspolitik und die Volksdeutsche Bewegung 1940–1945. Luxembourg: Imprimerie Saint-Paul, 1985. 309 pages
• Krier, Émile. "Die Luxemburger Wirtschaft im Zweiten Weltkrieg". In: Hémecht, Vol. 39, 1987. p. 393–399.
• Majerus, Benoît. "Les Ortsgruppenleiter au Luxembourg. Essai d'une analyse socio-économique." In: Hémecht, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2000. p. 101–122
• Schoentgen, Marc. "'Heim ins Reich'? Die ARBED-Konzernleitung während der deutschen Besatzung 1940–1944: zwischen Kollaboration und Widerstand". In: forum, No. 304 (February 2011). p. 29–35
• Scuto, Denis. "Le 10 mai 1940 et ses mythes à revoir - Les autorités luxembourgeoises et la persécution des juifs au Grand-Duché en 1940". Tageblatt, 10/11 May 2014, p. 2–5
• Volkmann, Hans-Erich. Luxemburg im Zeichen des Hakenkreuzes. Eine politische Wirtschaftsgeschichte. 1933 bis 1944. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010.
• Wey, Claude. Les fondements idéologiques et sociologiques de la collaboration luxembourgeoise pendant la Deuxième guerre mondiale. Paper written as part of the teaching practicum. Unpublished. Luxembourg 1981.

Kollaboration Kollaboration Luxemburg