Felix Streicher (F.)

The Forgotten Occupation: Politics, Everyday Life and Gender in the Luxembourg Occupation Zone in Germany (1945-55)

How do military occupations function on a daily basis? Through the lens of a history 'from below', Félix Streicher’s PhD project explores a case of foreign rule hitherto completely neglected in academic historical research: the Luxembourg occupation in post-war Germany. From 1945 to 1955, the newly formed Luxembourg Army occupied parts of the districts of Bitburg and Saarburg as a small Allied occupation power under French high command. Not only did this military intervention allow the Grand Duchy to cement its place in the new western alliances and to formulate its reparation and annexation claims against Germany, but it also created the most important framework for social encounters and interactions between Luxembourgers and Germans in the immediate post-war era. 

While the project will not shy away from an exploration of the high politics of occupation, the main focus of the research will be a detailed analysis of German-Luxembourg social interactions inside the occupation zone through the lens of a history of everyday life, space and gender. As such, the project will draw on a large corpus of international sources supplemented by oral history interviews with Luxembourg and German contemporaries. Ultimately, the PhD will also aim to produce an example of how Luxembourg history can effectively be integrated into a larger transnational framework and have a wider relevance for understanding the history of contemporary Europe.

Félix Streicher’s PhD project is funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (AFR-PhD Grant 14581674).