Luxembourgish General Strike (1942)

Mon Aug 31, 1942

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On this day in 1942, a general strike broke out in Nazi-occupied Luxembourg after the government announced that young men were to be conscripted into the Wehrmacht. Hundreds of people, including student children, were arrested. Twenty strike leaders were executed.

The day prior, the leader of the Nazi Luxembourg government, Gustav Simon, announced that all Luxembourger males born between 1920 and 1927 were to be conscripted into the Wehrmacht to fight against the Allies.

On August 31st, 1942, work was virtually at a stand-still as rumors that strikes had broken out in the steel-works in the industrial south and the town of Wiltz were began to spread. By September 1st, enough of the country had gone on strike that the occupying Nazi government declared a national state of emergency.

Within hours, the strike leaders were rounded up and interrogated by the Gestapo. Twenty strike leaders were summarily tried by a special tribunal, sentenced to death, transferred to the Hinzert concentration camp, and executed.

Two thousand Luxembourgers were arrested, 83 were tried by the special tribunal and transferred to the Gestapo. 290 high school children, boys and girls, were arrested and sent to re-education camps in Germany.