Five local lads in occupied Luxembourg refused a conscription order to fight for the Germans in World War Two. They went into hiding in a home-made bunker near their hometown of Heinerscheid. Their brave stand is remembered to this day.
Marked trails fan out like capillaries around the rolling farmlands of Heinerscheid in the Clervaux Canton of Luxembourg. Several paths snake their way through dense moss-coated forests, dropping down a steep embankment towards the sparkling Our River.
The unassuming “Bunker” trail caught my eye instantly. I assumed it would be a hollowed-out, bat-filled remnant of Germany’s Siegfried Line – over 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps built in the late 1930s to ‘defend’ its border all the way from Holland to Switzerland. But I was wrong.
Off I headed with the dog leading the way, as always. On the way down, I realised you can take a more circuitous ‘muddy’ route or stay on the paved road that carries on from the signposted junction. The bunker is then clearly marked down a gravel road towards a boarded-up lodge. Another 50m further along, and nestled against an eerily quiet pine forest is a ‘Remember US’ information panel in English, Luxemburgish and German tucked in beside a monument and plaque dedicated to five brave Luxembourg lads.
The story of defiance it describes is just one of thousands, many untold, in the countries living under German occupation between 1940 and 1945. In Luxembourg’s case, a “strict Germanisation and Gleichschaltung” policy was activated, effectively subjugating “every area of public life” under the watchful eye of Hitler’s National Socialist Party.
Then, in 1942, Nazi district governor Gauleiter Gustav Simon declared compulsory military service for young Luxembourgers born between 1920 and 1926 – a cohort of more than 10,200 to be handed over to the Wehrmarcht. According to the info-panel, the announcement led to a series of impromptu strikes and reprisals – many of the leaders were executed or deported. While most Luxembourgers probably accepted their fate, around 3,500 deserted – tried to join the allied forces or went into hiding.
The Heinerscheid Five
The Heinerscheid Five – Pierre and Alphonse Jungels, Willy and Alphonse Kremer, and Josy Frères – chose the latter. When they became aware of Simon’s Zwangsrekruitierung drive they went underground … quite literally as it turned out.
They managed to keep off the radar for some time, but in August 1943 German security services intensified their raids in the Heinerscheid area. The Jungels brothers and Kremer twins no longer felt safe in the village so they relocated to a dense patch of firs in the Am Pesch forest beside the Our River. It was there that they started building their now famous Bunker.
The ‘Remember US’ panel ably describes what happened next: “There they were joined by Josy Frères, another réfractaire deserter from the German army. To erase all traces of their building activity they filled the soil from the diggings into buckets and carried it to a bog, about 200 yards away. Some villagers provided food, and other necessities like clothes, so the young men could subsist.”
The lads stayed hidden like that for many months, enduring the frigid Ardennes winter. Then one night they were joined by two surviving crew members of a crash-landed American B-24 bomber, Staff Sergeant Joe Kerpan and Second Lieutenant Robert Korth.
The Luxembourg Resistance were informed and soon came to retrieve the airmen with the intention of spiriting them back to the UK, via Belgium. “But after a few days they ran out of luck and were caught by the Germans when they were stopped at a checkpoint.”
Not how the story ends
Life carried on underground after the Americans left but the drudgery and privations were becoming unbearable, leading to what the info-panel describes as “a string of errors that were to cost them dearly”. The lads had started lighting fires to cook food and warm the bunker. On a few occasions they also ventured back into the village to see friends and family.
“One day, German soldiers who were on guard in one of the Siegfried Line pillboxes on the opposite slopes of the river valley noticed smoke rising from the stand of fir trees where the young Luxembourgers were hiding,” Remember US notes at the memorial site.
This was reported and led to a search by the local German police force who tracked the deserters down. On April 23, 1943 the police approached their dugout and an exchange of gunshots followed. All five avoided capture but they were not out of trouble yet.
Before they were able to arrange a new hideout, the police returned with reinforcements, which led to a Ned Kelly-style shootout (minus the home-made suit of armour). A local auxiliary policeman called ‘Weber’ fell victim during the skirmish.
Now armed with Weber’s machine gun, the lads managed to push the police force back beyond the tree line, but “giving up was no option for the Germans”, the info-panel continues ominously. Another assault was launched the next day. The Luxembourg Five resisted again, hitting back hard and wounding several police.
To avoid further casualties, the Germans and their recruits decided to blast the fugitives out: “The force of the explosion that ensued was so strong that the hideout was completely destroyed and the neighbouring trees were uprooted. None of the five young men was to survive this final onslaught.”
The crater from the explosion can still be seen, down a fern-lined track to the valley’s slippery edge. The remains of the five young men were reportedly taken to Germany and buried in secret. After the war, several villagers traced their whereabouts and had them repatriated to Heinerscheid “where they were put to rest with full military honours”.
Visit Luxembourg maps out the Eislek Pad hiking trail around Heinerscheid and Visit Ardennes covers a wide range of walking options in the Our Valley. War tourism enthusiasts can brush up on sites via World War 2 Revisited and Remember US, and should not miss Clervaux Château for a poignant retelling of the region’s struggles during the Battle of the Bulge – also famously captured in the neighbouring Bastogne War Museum in Belgium. Hotel Cornelyshaff in Heinerscheid village has a warm vibe and local Ourdaller beers to wash down hearty fare. Nearby, the more upmarket Château d’Urspelt is popular for romantic weekends and its wellness packages.
