When I was dealing with administrative family matters in Luxembourg recently, it came to me as a surprise that not just my parents are of Luxembourgish Nationality, but also to obtain myself a certificate that consequently I am Luxembourgish-German since birth. My mother is an Eastern-Prussian refugee and marrying my father in the 1960s, she also became Luxembourgish. After moving to Germany, the two forgot about it. My father sometimes was surprised that he receives Luxembourgish mail-in election ballots. This could have rung a bell, but instead, he took it just as an act of courtesy by the government of his birth country, maybe because he was a National sports champion back then.
I understand the Luxembourgish language quite well from childhood. Actively, I have never spoken it, because everything worked well in French and German. But I will give it a little push now, at least not to be “mistaken” as German in the streets. Actually, I started my professional career in Luxembourg at the age of 10, smuggling cigarettes in a self-built remote-controlled submarine through the Mosel river to sell them on the German side for a good margin. There are actually many childhood memories and adventures from that time and place. For those of you who only know Luxembourg as one of the world’s richest countries in terms of GDP per capita: it was not always like that, and it was a long way.
My childhood’s Luxembourg is mainly set in the steel city of Differdange, with chimneys, ore mines, Caterpillars and tunnels to France. The gas pipeline bringing in fuel for the steel mill, was our playground there, together with my cousins and some friends. Only when bringing back US army machine gun belts, we got a bit of a lecture that this is maybe dangerous. Grandma was busy cooking for lunch starting from just after breakfast. Once asked what was her secret to living so long, she responded that the only non-alcoholic thing she drinks is black coffee. She and her sister “Tata” (Luxembourgish for aunt) sometimes messed up the first and the second World War, as they lived through both of them. Grandpa went behind the house, smoking secretly. He wasn’t so fortunate with his health though. Everybody went through life somehow, and my recent return was like “Kleine Führung durch die Jugend” (Small tour through childhood) - the German poem by Erich Kästner (below).
