Volksdeutsche Bewegung

Volksdeutsche Bewegung (German; literally "Ethnic German Movement") was a Nazi movement in Luxembourg that flourished under the German-occupied Luxembourg during World War II.

Formed by Damian Kratzenberg, a university professor with a German background, the movement only emerged after the invasion and was declared the only legal political movement in Luxembourg by the Nazis. Using the slogan Heim ins Reich (Home to the Reich), their declared aim was the full incorporation of Luxembourg into Nazi Germany. The policy was supported by Nazis who used the Bewegung as means towards this end. The aim was accomplished in August 1942, although the VDB continued to operate and peaked at 84,000 members. Many of these joined when it became clear that membership was necessary to retain employment. A number of leading members also held dual membership of the National Socialist German Workers Party after incorporation. The movement disappeared after the war, and Kratzenberg was executed in 1946.

The predecessors of the Volksdeutsche Bewegung, the "Luxemburger Gesellschaft für Deutsche Literatur und Kunst“ (GEDELIT; Luxembourgish Society for German Literature and Art), was led from 1935 by Damian Kratzenberg. Kratzenberg, a Luxembourgish National Socialist, advocated for the integration of the Grand Duchy into the German Empire, and advanced the "Deutschtum" (German-ness) of the Luxembourgers as a historical and linguistic justification for this. The "GEDELIT" engaged in propaganda in schools and assembled Nazi-sympathising groups of students in GEDELIT premises.

After the German Wehrmacht occupied the neutral Grand Duchy on 10 May 1940, 7 days later the "Volksdeutsche Bewegung" was founded in the city of Luxembourg. In his function as the president of the Volksdeutsche Bewegung, Kratzenberg now reported to the head of the civilian administration, the Gauleiter Gustav Simon.

In 1941 the civil administrator ordered a referendum, disguised as a census, in which the Luxembourgers were supposed to admit their German ethnicity and thus give their blessing to a "voluntary" joining of the Third Reich.

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