Written by Alex Lepesant
The object
At first glance, this iron hook weighing approximately 3kg might seem like nothing more than a relic of Luxembourg’s industrial history. However, this particular hook is not to be found in a museum dedicated to the Luxembourg steel industry but in the Musée national de la résistance.[1] This museum holds a broad variety of objects that tell the story of Luxembourg’s resistance during the Second World War. Recently, the hook was part of the museum’s temporary exhibition De Streik vun 1942. One might wonder how this hook ended up not only as part of the exhibition about the events of 1942, but as one of the major symbols of Luxembourg resistance. To answer that question, we have to take a deeper look at the strike itself, the reasons behind it and its ramifications.
The strike
On 30 August 1942, the Gauleiter Gustav Simon (the regional Nazi Party representative with responsibility for Luxembourg) announced the policy of forced conscription in front of an estimated 9,000 frenzied supporters. The information about those plans had already been intercepted a few days earlier by some members of the resistance in Wiltz.[2] They secretly organised for flyers calling for a general strike to be printed and sent back to Wiltz for distribution. In the early hours of 31 August 1942 the first planned protest movements took place all around the country. In Wiltz, the workers at a leather factory started off by refusing to enter their workplace. Large parts of the municipal administration and many tradesmen, business owners and teachers joined their cause. The immediate reaction of the German authorities was a strict ultimatum: If after a few hours the participants of the strike refused to resume their work, they would be killed. Especially stubborn and suspicious strikers were arrested on the same day and often interrogated under torture.
Uprising in Schifflange
A very similar course of events happened in some places in Luxembourg City and in the south of the country, where the majority of industrial sites were located. This was also the case at the ARBED[3] smelting works in Schifflange. The news of the events in Wiltz sparked rumours of a possible strike. About a dozen workers prepared the signal for the strike. Hans Adam was selected to trigger the steam pressure siren at exactly 6pm. In order to keep the siren going permanently he decided to attach the heavy hook to it. We can assume that the hook was the ideal tool and most importantly it was present at the time as a vital piece of equipment for lifting all sorts of heavy materials at the smelting works. How the hook was preserved after the incident and whether the hook we have in our museum is the actual hook used by Hans Adam is not known – but that doesn’t lessen the symbolic meaning.
The aftermath of the strike
Hans Adam triggered the siren at 6pm and escaped through the sewers. The smelting works came to a standstill and the workers who were supposed to stay until 10pm went home. At that point the severe consequences of the strike were still unknown. Very soon they turned out to be brutal. Gustav Simon, aware of the anti-Nazi sentiment behind the strikes, decided to declare a state of emergency and impose martial law in Luxembourg on 2 September 1942. Hundreds of people were arrested and interrogated in the aftermath of the strike. Those whom the Nazis identified as leaders of the strike were sentenced to death. Twenty out of twenty-one death sentences were carried out in Hinzert.[4] Hans Adam, however, was sentenced on 10 September, one day after the withdrawal of martial law. He was probably questioned arbitrarily, like many of the workers. He was therefore tried by a Sondergericht[5] and sentenced to death after admitting (following hours of brutal interrogation) that he triggered the siren. He was beheaded in Cologne on 11 September. The widow and children of Hans Adam and many others were deported to the eastern parts of the German Reich.
Legacy
By his actions, Hans Adam became a symbol of the Luxembourg resistance. The hook that he used is now inseparable from his story, so it has come to be a symbolic representation for a variety of things. First and foremost, it represents the tragic fate of Hans Adam and his family. But it is also a strong symbol of working-class resistance in Luxembourg in general and more specifically of the strike in Schifflange. It is embedded in the broad narrative of Luxembourgish historiography of the Second World War, which often emphasises the martyr role of Luxembourgers during the occupation.[6]
[1] National museum in Esch-sur-Alzette dedicated to the resistance movement during the Second World War.
[2] Small town in the north of Luxembourg – despite being in a predominantly rural region it was heavily destroyed during the war.
[3] Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange (Luxembourg steel company)
[4] Hinzert was a concentration camp near Trier.
[5] A “special court” that existed outside the ordinary legal system and was used to quickly eliminate any form of opposition.
[6] Majerus Benoît, Besetzte Vergangenheiten. Erinnerungskulturen des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Luxemburg – eine historiographische Baustelle, in: Hémecht, Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte, p. 23-43, 2012.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Guido Lessing (June 11, 2020). Iron hook. Intersections of Luxembourgish-Russian History. Retrieved April 29, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/ul9i