CdZ area Luxembourg
The CdZ area Luxembourg existed from 1940 to 1944. It was the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , which was under a German head of civil administration (CdZ) and was intended to be incorporated into the German Reich .
history
The occupation
Right at the beginning of the French campaign , Luxembourg was occupied on May 10, 1940 by German troops from the direction of Trier and placed under German military administration. On July 25, 1940, Gustav Simon , the Gauleiter of the Gau of the NSDAP Koblenz-Trier, took over the civil administration in Luxembourg under the military commander in Brussels .
German civil administration
By the Führer decree of August 2, 1940, Luxembourg was placed under a German head of civil administration. He was responsible for managing the entire civilian administration. He was directly subordinate to Adolf Hitler , received general instructions and guidelines from him and had to "take care of the reconstruction of Luxembourg according to the technical instructions of the Supreme Reich Authorities". The Gauleiter of the NSDAP Gustav Simon in Koblenz was appointed head of the civil administration in Luxembourg , his representative the Trier district president Heinrich Christian Siekmeier . The city of Luxembourg became the seat of the administration .
On October 22, 1940, the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies and the Luxembourg State Council , which had remained in office as the national administration, were dissolved. Their powers were transferred to the head of civil administration on January 1, 1941.
On August 31, 1942, due to the planned introduction of compulsory military service in Luxembourg, a civil state of emergency was imposed, initially in the city of Esch / Alzig ( Esch-sur-Alzette ) with the establishment of a trial court , later also in the city of Dudelange with the establishment of a trial court and finally throughout Luxembourg. On October 8, 1942, the civil emergency in the Diekirch and Grevenmacher districts was lifted on October 10, 1942 in the Luxembourg city district and in the Esch district .
The planned full integration of Luxembourg into the German Empire and its bracketing with the southern Rhine province to form a new Reichsgau Moselland did not take place until the end of the war.
The end
After the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 , the American advance reached the west wall on the old German border near Trier by mid-September 1944 . This ended the German administration of Luxembourg for the time being. For about a month, the north of Luxembourg was again occupied by the Germans by way of the Ardennes Offensive , from mid-December 1944 to mid-January 1945. Since the end of the Second World War , Luxembourg has been an independent Grand Duchy again.
After the war, the Luxembourg courts opened against 162 Empire German court proceedings and there were 44 death sentences , 15 acquittals and 103 method settings. Simon escaped prosecution in Luxembourg by suicide in 1945 and Siekmeier was sentenced to seven years in prison. In 5,242 Luxembourg courts delivered judgments on collaboration cases , including 12 death sentences.
Administrative division
Initially, the country was divided into districts. After that, the city of Luxembourg and the districts of Diekirch , Grevenmacher and Luxembourg existed , all temporarily headed by German administrative commissioners. On December 1, 1940, the administrative structure in Luxembourg was brought into line with the German situation. After that, the city district of Luxembourg was formed under a mayor and the districts of Diekirch, Esch with the district office in Esch / Alzig (Esch-sur-Alzette) and Grevenmacher each under a district administrator. On April 1, 1942, the communities in the Diekirch district were restructured. On April 1, 1943, the municipalities of Hesperingen (partially), Niederanwen (partially), Straßen and Walferdingen were incorporated into the Luxembourg city district from the district of Esch. On April 1, 1943, the communities in the Diekirch district were again restructured. On January 4, 1944, the division of the Grevenmacher district into offices and communities was redefined. Most recently, on May 23, 1944, the division of the district of Esch into offices and municipalities was redefined.
Local constitution
Initially, Luxembourg local law continued to apply. With the introduction of the German administrative structure in Luxembourg, from December 1, 1940, the municipalities were administered according to the law of the German Municipal Code of January 30, 1935, which provided for the implementation of the Führer principle at the municipal level. Up to the enactment of the district order, which no longer came into being, the districts were administered in accordance with the German municipal code. On January 1, 1942, the Prussian official regulations of October 8, 1934 were introduced. This meant that the previous cantons fell away. As in the Rhine Province, several municipalities were now jointly administered by an official mayor. Initially, the previous place names continued to apply for the time being . On March 12, 1941, the place names were confirmed in their previous version, but some were also renamed to a "more German" version.
Finances
On August 26, 1940, the Reichsmark was introduced as legal tender in Luxembourg (10 Luxembourg francs = 1 Reichsmark). The German tax system was also introduced.
Judiciary
After Luxembourg left the area of operations of the army , a German special court was established in Luxembourg on August 20, 1940, retroactively to August 14, 1940 . On November 15, 1940, the former Luxembourg peace courts were converted into local courts , the previous district courts into regional courts . In Luxembourg, in place of the Higher Court, higher regional court senates were formed as the judicial “top” . German labor justice was introduced on June 1, 1941, German criminal law was introduced in Luxembourg on January 1, 1942, and German civil law was introduced on April 1, 1942.
post Office
Starting from the Reichspostdirektion Trier, service post offices were set up in Luxembourg from August 20, 1940. On April 1, 1941, the Luxembourg Post was taken over by the Reichspost; this ended the validity of Luxembourg postage stamps with overprint. Since October 1943, Luxembourg was integrated into the Reich German system of postcodes . The post code was 22.
Wehrmacht
After the decree of August 2, 1940, the commanders-in-chief of the German armies initially continued to exercise military sovereignty in Luxembourg . By decree of October 12, 1940, the exercise of the military sovereignty was transferred to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army ) according to the provisions valid in the German Reich. Accordingly, on October 17, 1940, Luxembourg was added to Military District XII in Wiesbaden. On November 3, 1941, military surveillance for German nationals was introduced in Luxembourg. On September 1, 1942, German conscription was introduced in Luxembourg. By ordinance of August 30, 1942, compulsory military service in the German armed forces was, in violation of international law, extended to include the “German people belonging to the people” in Luxembourg, the forced recruits , for those born between 1920 and 1924.
Other ways to complete "Germanization"
Already on August 6, 1940, as the sole official language of the German language (High German) admitted. This applied to the language of the court, the press , correspondence , inscriptions, place names, club names, signposts , etc. First names were only allowed to be used in German. On February 18, 1941, the public wearing and sale of berets was banned. On June 1, 1941, German people were banned from using the French language in public. On October 10, 1941, the creation of a national register was initiated. Since October 14, 1941 was with prison or in severe cases put to death the border are who undertook the German people Related to breach exceed "to reside permanently abroad and thus around his obligations to the German national community to revoke".
On January 4, 1942, the Volksdeutsche movement in Luxembourg “as the bearer of the ethnic German idea and as a champion of the National Socialist worldview” became a public corporation . The mark of membership was the badge with the inscription " Heim ins Reich " on a black border with the red swastika on a white background. The red lion on the old Lützelburg coat of arms was designated as the symbol of the ethnic German movement in Luxembourg.
On August 23, 1942, the ordinance on citizenship was issued, according to which the German-born Luxembourgers acquired this if they were drafted into the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS or recognized as proven Germans. The ordinance of August 30, 1942 stipulated that members of the ethnic German movement of German origin acquire German citizenship if they were accepted into the NSDAP, otherwise only upon revocation . This revocation could only have been exercised within 10 years.
Counties in the CdZ area Luxembourg (as of September 1, 1944)
Urban district
Counties
- Diekirch
- Esch based in Esch / Alzig
- Grevenmacher
literature
- Hans-Erich Volkmann: Luxembourg under the sign of the swastika: a political economic history 1933 to 1944 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77067-7 .
See also
- Deportation of Jews from Luxembourg
- CdZ Alsace
- CdZ area Carinthia and Carniola
- CdZ area of Lorraine
- CdZ area Lower Styria
Individual evidence
- ↑ Emile Krier: Luxembourg at the end of the occupation and the new beginning ( memento of the original from November 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Regionalgeschichte.net, accessed November 16, 2016
- ↑ Nuremberg Trial, morning session, January 22, 1946 , zeno.org, official German translation, accessed November 16, 2016
- ↑ Norbert Haase:From “Ons Jongen”, “Malgré-nous” and others - The Fate of Foreign Forced Recruits in World War II, pdf, lecture at the University of Strasbourg, August 27, 2011
