Contemporary history of Luxembourg

Introducing the Warlux website on Luxembourgish soldiers during WWII

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Introducing the Warlux website on Luxembourgish soldiers during WWII
The Warlux website, focusing on wartime experiences of young Luxembourgish men who served in the German labour service and armed forces during World War II, is now online.

The Warlux team is happy to announce the launch of their website, focusing on wartime experiences of young Luxembourgish men who served in the German labour service and armed forces during World War II. This platform offers a comprehensive view of the project's research activities and main findings, providing a valuable insight into its data collection, containing information on soldiers and recruits from Schifflange and original transcribed war letters.

On warlux.uni.lu, you'll find a wealth of information about the research project and a rich database.

Warlux project: The website offers a detailed overview of the project's research activities, the collected data, the organised events, publications and key findings.

The Warlux database is twofold:

  • Schifflange recruits and soldiers: The database presents information on 304 young men from Schifflange born between 1920 and 1927, who served in the Reichsarbeitsdienst and/or Wehrmacht. It provides biographical information of the soldiers and sheds light on their service, their whereabouts at the war's end, and instances of desertion or draft evasion.
  • Digital War Letters Collection: Featuring 163 transcribed letters exchanged by Luxembourgish Wehrmacht soldiers during World War II, this collection offers a glimpse into the correspondence between soldiers, their families, and prisoners in POW camps. These letters are part of the larger Warlux digital collection, which includes previously undisclosed firsthand documents donated by the Luxembourgish population during the project's crowdsourcing campaign.

The website is available in German and in English. Despite the project's official conclusion in March 2024, the website will continue to be developed and additional information will be made available to the public once data restrictions can be lifted.

Also as part of the Warlux project, an edited volume exploring the impact of war experiences on non-German nationals serving in the German armed forces and labour organisations, is planned for release by the end of 2024 in the De Gruyter Transnational Contemporary History of Luxembourg series.

For any questions, you can contact warlux@uni.lu.

 

warlux.uni.lu