TRIER-ROOTS-L Archives

Archiver > TRIER-ROOTS > 2004-07 > 1091294537


From: Scott Plencner <>
Subject: Re: [TRIER-ROOTS-L] German Luxemburgers
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 10:22:17 -0700 (PDT)


I think that you should be careful when referring to Luxemburgers as Germans, although you are right when you say they come generally from the same stock and so forth. I felt your conclusions rather simplified a complicated situation and I wanted to respectfully add the little grey to the matter that it deserves.... if any of that made any sense.

You must remember that the idea of nationality is a new one. Before the nationalist movements of guys like Mazzini in Italy and Bismarck in Germany and others like them people did not think of themselves as German or italian or Polish or so forth. They referred to the palce where they were from, where people spoke the same dialect and had the same customs. These smaller local areas overlapped and boundaries were often indefinite. Most of these small areas were also named for the tribes that originally settled there when the Romans and everyone took to naming parts of Europe. There were no ethnic nation-states as we have today (although even these might quick disappear in the E.U.)

For hundreds of years since its foundation when local strongman Siegfried gathered together enough vassals to create the diea of Luxemburg in the 10th century, the area was independently run. The people held allegience to their local lords and to the earl and the Catholic Church. In the 14th century it became associated with the Holy Roman Empire, which contained residents of every ethnic makeup in Central Europe. Even the Austrian Hapsburg family controlled the area for a while. The area was part of France officially for a decade in the 17th century. For most of the 18th century Luxembourg belonged to the Austrian Netherlands until the French marched back in and conquered people happy to see them in the days of the Revolution.

The Luxemburgers identified with the French very strongly. They shared a religion and spoke French officially. In fact, they still do. There was open movement between the area and France proper and Luxemburgers of both the Belgian side and the idependent side have a heavy French background and outlook. (It must also be remembered that the Franks were a Germanic tribe from the same general place as the Prussians and Saxons and Flemish.)

In the 19th century as you have outlined, the country went through a series of landlords and the Germans rolled into town. The Germans used Luxembourg as a bufferzone between them and France and justified it by saying the Luxemburgers spoke German. Luxemburgish is a language related to but entirely different from German. During all of the German occupations, as was the case with the French occupations the people picked up a lot of the cultural tendencies of the Germans.

Bismarck's Germany, though, was fiercely anti-Catholic (since it was a threat to the power of the newly-invented antion-state) and the Luxemburgers and Trevians, for that matter, took exception to that. (Trevians still use the word "Prussian" in a negative sense.) The Luxemburgers and their Belgian neighbors revolted fiercely to the nation-state idea and regained independence.

Then the Germans foreceably occupied the area during WWI and were met with fierce and armed opposition. When they returned in WWII many martyrs lost their lives defending the duchy from German domination. Hitler declared Luxemburgers German citizens and I have seen his propganda to back up his claim, which as usual were based on genetics and all that. The Luxemburgers did not consider themselves German and were happy when American forces liberated them late in the war. During the occupation over 2500 Luxemburgers gave their lives as rebels and 6000 in toal died. The nation fought fiercely against drafts into the German army and ran a general strike with deadly consequences.

The Luxemburgers clearly do not feel German and never bought into that idea. The Belgian side is more heavily French-influenced, but both sides carry the same small local culture. Luxemburgers are not really German in a classical sense, which you also alluded too. They are reminders to the world actually that our idea of ethnic nation-states is a new one. They are remnants of the world that the modern world replaced and their existance despite the pressures around them testifies to their own national will.

I have some friends from Luxemburg who have discussed this with me and they always go back to WWII so this must have had a big influence on these ideas over there.

So I'm just chiming in.... and adding to your very interesting mail.


Scott Plencner
see my webpage www.geocities.com/splencner

researching Ott (Trier) and Nilles, Miller (Wiltz)



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