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From: EURMXK@sdcmvs.mvs.sas.com
Subject: Re: Warum "Letzebuergisch"?
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:27:00 GMT
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In article <4sqso3$s13@nemesis.eo.lu>,
hansenp@europeonline.com (Pascal Hansen) writes:
 
> knappen@iphcip1.physik.uni-mainz.de () wrote:
>
> >schultz@uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) schrieb:
>
> >    I believe Letzebuorg has just one dialect !?
> >    Luxemburg was never German, though it did belong to the Trier
> >    diacis (spelling) for a long time !!
>
> >To get the historical facts straight: Luxembourg was part
> >of the ,,Deutsches Reich'' from the beginning untill --correct me
> >if I'm wrong here-- the prussian-austrian war in 1866. Of course,
> >the states inside the Reich were almost independent, the Reich being
> >a loose commonwealth.
>
> No , no you're wrong. From 1815 to 1839 , Luxembourg belonged to the
> dutch king who made it the 19th province of the Netherlands. Before
> that period , it belonged to Spain , France and even to Austria. In
> 1839 it became independant. Well , 1839 is  generally regarded as the
> yeas of independance , although 1867 or even 1918 is correct.
> Before WW1 , one luxembourgish Prime Minister even said in public "in
> the other parts of Germany". So he regarded Luxembourg as a part of
> Germany , not really untrue , because it was part of the Zollverein
> (or was it called Zollunion ??)
>
Let's get the historical facts right - though this has nothing
to do with the language.
 
Luxembourg was always part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the 14th century
the Luxembourgian dynasty occupied the throne of the Empire before it
eventually passed on to the Habsburgs. (The most famous one of the
Luxembourgians was probably Charles IV - the one the Charles Brigde in
Prague is named after). Later on Luxembourg was part of the Burgundian
territories which passed to the Habsburgs by marriage in the late 15th
century. From then on till the end of the Holy Roman Empire it was part
of the first Spanish and then Austrian Netherlands - but as I mentioned
within the Holy Roman Empire.
 
The Holy Roman Empire was distinct from the Habsburg family possessions,
and the Empire was a patchwork of hundreds of bigger and minor
statelets, so Habsburg dynastic interest was the almost only unifying
principle at work there. Anyway, after the interlude of the French
occupation during Napoleonic times, the now "Grand Duchy of Luxembourg"
became part of the German Confederation ("Deutscher Bund") with the
King of the Netherlands entering the Confederation as Grand Duke
(so was the King of Great Britain as King of Hanover, and the
Danish King as Duke of Holstein, by the way).
 
One has to
 
"... clearly distinguish:
1.      between personal unions
        and unified nations.
2.      and between (degree of) independency
        and membership of certain unions."
 
as Roger Thijs pointed out who also quoted the respective passage
from the Final act of the Vienna Congress.
 
In 1839 after the split-up of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands
(in other words the separation of Belgium) the smaller part of
Luxembourg (or the territory as it is nowadays) remained within
the German Confederation (with the King of the Netherlands still
being Grand Duke) till its abolition in 1866.
After that, there was still a personal union between the Netherlands and
Luxembourg till 1890 when the male line of succession in the
Netherlands ended.
The customs-union ("Zollunion") with Germany ended in 1918.
 
I hope this settles the issue.
 
Regards, 
Manfred Kiefer
 
