Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Council of Foreign Ministers, Volume II

850A.014/11–2746

Memorandum by the Luxembourg Government⁴⁰

[Translation]

New York, November 27, 1946.

On January 22, 1945, the Luxembourg Government submitted to the European Advisory Commission in London a memorandum reserving the right of the Luxembourg people to be considered fully compensated for the damage inflicted on it by Germany during the war by the cession of Prussian territories adjacent to Luxembourg.

This damage later proved to be much greater than the Grand Ducal Government had feared it would be in January 1945. One-third of the country was devastated and looted by the Germans during the Rundstedt⁴¹ offensive in December 1944. Out of a total of 58,000 dwellings in the Grand Duchy in 1940, 18,000 were entirely or partially destroyed. More than one-third of the population suffered damages. The disastrous economic, financial, and monetary measures taken by the German Government in Luxembourg, which was, in fact, annexed for four years, were of such scope that they periously affect the recovery forces of the country, which has a population of only 300,000 inhabitants. The total damage suffered by the Grand Duchy as a result of German aggression amounts to more than 600 million dollars, as shown by the figures submitted by the Grand Ducal Government to the Reparation Conference. It is obvious today that to it, solely the transfer to the Grand Duchy of adjacent German territories would be wholly inadequate compensation for its losses, especially since the territories and the villages located therein are themselves largely destroyed and devastated. Therefore, the Luxembourg Government considers it a duty to request that this situation be taken into account and that, in addition to the purely territorial compensation, economic compensation be granted to the Grand Duchy by allowing it to participate equitably in the exploitation of the natural resources of the Rhineland.

Territorial Proposals

The common boundary between the Grand Duchy and Germany is about 90 kilometers long. With the exception of a few kilometers, it is formed by the Our from the Belgian frontier to Wallendorf; by the Sure from Wallendorf to Wasserbillig; and by the Moselle from Wasserbillig to Schengen on the French frontier. These rivers and some of the 18 bridges over them are common to the two countries. Owing to this juridical situation, the Germans enjoy free and complete use of these waterways, with the right to establish permanent or temporary structures on them, particularly strategic structures, provided, of course, they do not touch the Luxembourg shore. The German military authorities made liberal use of this right as war approached and during hostilities, despite the protests of the Luxembourg Government, which had no legal means to prevent them. To put an end to this situation, which, since it was created by the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, has given rise to innumerable incidents, the Luxembourg Government is claiming exclusive ownership of the above-mentioned rivers and the cession of the adjacent German territories as delimited on the map attached hereto. (See Annex No. I)⁴²

The German territories whose cession the Luxembourg Government claims extend from 1 to 5 kilometers along the Moselle and the Sûre, and, in the north, from 5 to 10 kilometers along the Our inside Germany. Their transfer to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, far from being properly called an annexation is, in truth, only a disannexation. Indeed, these territories form only about one-fifth of the Luxembourg territories taken away from Luxembourg by the 1815 Treaty of Vienna and given to Prussia. All their inhabitants, numbering between 20,000 and 30,000, speak the Luxembourg language. In many places, Luxembourg citizens have woods and fields on the German banks, and vice versa. In their local trade, the German villages have for centuries been dependent on the small Luxembourg border towns of which they form the natural hinterland. No town of more than 1,500 inhabitants is in the territory claimed by the Grand Duchy.

According to the information available to the Grand Ducal Government, the great majority of the German population to be transferred would like to be united with the Grand Duchy both politically and economically.

If necessary, the wishes of the population could be ascertained by means of a referendum.

The Luxembourg Government and people are also opposed, in principle, to any annexation policy. Therefore, regardless of the importance it may attach to the historical and linguistic considerations and to the desire of the inhabitants to become Luxembourgers once more, these considerations in themselves alone might not have led the Luxembourg Government to claim the cession of the German territories, and especially of the German people, if such an annexation had not become necessary to the execution of two projects of vital economic importance to the Grand Duchy, which, if carried out, would compensate at least to a slight extent for the losses it has suffered, namely:

1. The acquisition and operation by the Grand Duchy of the railroad on the German bank of the Moselle; and

2. The construction of the large dam on the Our.

1. Railroad on the German Bank of the Moselle

This railroad is part of the railroad that connects the Lorraine Mining Basin in the south with the Rhine and the Ruhr Basin in the north. In normal times, the freight traffic on it (coal, coke, and ore) was very heavy. The section of railway whose cession the Luxembourg Government is claiming follows, on its route of about 25 kilometers along the boundary, the narrow Moselle valley, and departs from the river at only one place, for about 500 meters. This railroad serves the German towns located on the Moselle between Perl and Oberbillig. The towns and villages on the Luxembourg bank, which are not served by any Luxembourg railway, have access to the above-mentioned German railway by means of bridges at Schengen, Remich, Wormeldange, and Grevenmacher. It will be easy to make a junction between this railway and the Luxembourg system by the construction of a bridge at one of the terminal stations of the system, that is, Wasserbillig, Mertert, or Grevenmacher.

If the proposal of the Grand Ducal Government is accepted, it is only right and just that the German railway should be transferred to it in perfect working order; that Germany should pay whatever general expenses are necessary for the construction of the above-mentioned bridge and for the establishment of other structures to make the junction, as well as for rebuilding the bridges over the Moselle that were destroyed by German troops.

The cession to the Grand Duchy of the railway on the German bank will necessarily involve the cession of the German villages situated along its route, as well as the land appertaining to them. The population of these villages totals about 8,000 inhabitants. The woods, vineyards, and fields by which they support themselves and from which they cannot be separated by a political boundary extend for a distance of 1 to 5 kilometers along the hillsides adjacent to the Moselle Valley.

2. The Our Dam

In 1926, a consortium of large German industrial companies in the Rhineland, in cooperation with the Reich Government, had drawn up plans for a dam to be built on the Our River, a few kilometers above the Luxembourg town of Vianden. To give an idea of the size of this dam, suffice it to state that its reservoir was to extend for 25 kilometers, and that the time necessary to fill it was estimated at two years. The execution of the project was blocked by the Luxembourg Government of that time for strategic reasons at first, and particularly because the electric power to be produced by the hydraulic power plant was, according to the German plan, to have been used almost exclusively by Germany with no real economic advantage for the Grand Duchy.

As soon as the country was liberated, the Luxembourg Government directed that study on the 1926 project be resumed. Although this project has not yet been put into final form, it should be pointed out that it provides for the construction of a high-power peak-production plant, connecting with the Belgian, French, and Rhineland electric-power systems, whose hydraulic plant would be the supplier of peak-consumption current and, at the same time, the consumer of the night current produced by these systems. While providing power for the Grand Duchy, the dam would also serve as a regulator of the adjacent large electric systems. The importance of the dam to the economic life of the Grand Duchy and adjacent countries is obvious.

The profit-making capacity of the dam, whose capital is estimated at one and a half billion to two billion francs, can be ensured only if the expenses of building the dam and equipping the hydraulic plant are borne by Germany. The enormous claim which the Grand Duchy has against Germany by reason of the damage inflicted on it by that country authorizes the Luxembourg Government to propose that its request for the application of these expenses to that claim be complied with.

It seems to the Luxembourg Government that the construction of the Our dam on the German boundary by German workers domiciled in German territory should be considered very opportune by the Allies desiring to use all the economic resources of Germany to satisfy the claims of the governments signatory to the final act of the Paris Reparation Conference.

The tributaries of the Our—the Irsen, Ens, Prum, and others—whose waters are necessary to fill the reservoir of the dam, are in German territory.

The construction of the dam can be undertaken only if the control of these waters and their flow into the reservoir are permanently ensured by the cession to the Grand Duchy of the territories in which they have their source or which they traverse in their course.

The Luxembourg Government, realizing full well that the above considerations scarcely exhaust the topic, reserves the right to submit at a later date the final results of the studies now in progress.

Economic Proposals

The iron and steel installations in the Grand Duchy consist of 32 blast furnaces having an annual production capacity of 3 million tons of cast iron and five Thomas steel plants having a total capacity of 2,700,000 tons. In 1937, Luxembourg was eighth in world production of steel and sixth in the exportation of steel mill products.

These plants depend wholly on foreign supplies for their fuel. Their natural suppliers of coke and, in general, fuel, are the coal basins of Aix-la-Chapelle and the Ruhr. Eighty-five per cent, that is to say, 1,939,000 tons, of the average fuel consumption of our iron and steel industry (1935–1938), which amounted to 2,259,000 tons, came from the Ruhr.

The country’s recovery and future depend on the prosperity of its iron and steel industry (before the war, two-thirds of the working population were employed in it) and that, in turn, is conditioned on its fuel supplies. In the past, the leaders of the Luxembourg iron and steel industry intended to provide for fuel supplies by acquiring mining concessions in the Aix-la-Chapelle coal basin. The Luxembourg Company ARBED (Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange, S.A.) holds 95.6 per cent of the capital stock of the German company, Eschweiler-Bergwerks-Verein, north of Aix-la-Chapelle, whose coal production is about 5,000,000 tons, and its coke production capacity, about 1,200,000 tons a year. (See attached map, Annex 2.)⁴³

The Grand Ducal Government requests that the exploitation and production of the Eschweiler-Bergwerks-Verein mines, as Luxembourg property, be placed at the disposal of the Grand Duchy, and that it be empowered to act, in all respects, as if the products came from mines situated in Luxembourg territory, with the legal, economic, and financial consequences deriving from recognition of that situation.

Like other countries adjacent to Germany, Luxembourg further requests that it be accorded, as reparation and by reason of, and in proportion to, its pre-war supplies coming from the Aix-la-Chapelle district and the Ruhr, either direct supplies by Germany of coal and coke staggered over a number of years, or the concession and temporary exploitation of mines in that region. The Grand Ducal Government will define its request on this point more precisely at a later date.

40. This memorandum was transmitted to the Secretary of State under cover of the following note dated November 27, 1946, from the Luxembourg Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joseph Beck:

    “With a view to the examination of the German question by the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, I have the honor to submit to Your Excellency a memorandum setting forth the claims that the Luxembourg Government intends to make against Germany.

    “The Government of the Grand Duchy reserves the right to add to its memorandum in due course.”

41. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, German Commander in Chief West, September 1944–March 1945.
42. Not reproduced.
43. Not reproduced.