Gustav Simon was appointed Chef der Zivilverwaltung by the Oberkommando des Heeres on 21 July 1940. Luxembourg was then included into the CdZ-Gebiet Luxemburg on 29 July. While initially subordinate to the military commands in Belgium and northern France, Simon was confirmed in his appointment on 2 August by Adolf Hitler himself, indicating that he reported directly to the Führer and no one else. This granted him a wide degree of autonomy with regards to the military and civil authorities of Nazi Germany. Simon, who was also the Gauleiter of the neighbouring Gau Trier-Koblenz, later Moselland, led a propaganda and later terror campaign, known as Heim ins Reich, to convince the population that they were ethnic Germans and a natural part of the Third Reich. His objective was "to win Luxembourg back over to the German nation as soon as possible." He was convinced that Luxembourgers only needed a levelof education and enlightenment in order to voluntarily declare their loyalty to Germany. He deduced this from his belief that they were, in fact, German "by blood and by descent". To the Gauleiter, Luxembourgish independence was an "absurd idea," which existed only because the monarchy and government had nurtured it: if the Luxembourgers were shown evidence of their belonging to the German nation, the will to be independent must disappear.
Germanification
The administration of Simon arrived in Luxembourg fully persuaded that the "German-ness" of the Luxembourgers merely lay under a thin external layer of French influence. This in turn meant that, with a bit of determined "unraveling" by his administration, the German character of the population would essentially reveal itself. Simon had two clear goals:
The Nazification and Germanisation of Luxembourg, i.e., the extinction of everything that was not of German source, like French names and words of French origin or a French way of life
The destruction and dismemberment of the Luxembourgish state institutions, and the country's incorporation into the Third Reich
His very first series of decrees made this policy very clear:
6 August 1940: German became the only official language, and the usage of the French language was banned. The ban applied to official and administrative usage as well as everyday life. French expressions of courtesy such as "Bonjour", "Merci", "Monsieur", "Madame", etc. were included: people greeting each other had to say "Heil Hitler".
Till end 1940. German law was introduced including the Sondergerichte and the Nuremberg Laws.
31 January 1941: French-sounding family names, first names, and the names of streets, towns, shops and companies were Germanised, that is, translated into their German counterpart or simply replaced by something more Germanic. Henri became Heinrich, Dupont became Brückner.
A massive propaganda campaign was launched to influence the population, while not only dissidents and critics but also teachers, officials and leading business figures were threatened with losing their jobs unless they joined Nazi organisations, which led to much increased recruitment from all professions. A central registry documented the personal opinion regarding the Nazi regime of almost every citizen. People who were openly opposed to the regime lost their jobs or were deported, mainly to eastern Germany and in the worst cases sent to the death camps where many of them died. The occupation authorities attempted to cover Luxembourg with a net of political, social and cultural organisations, such as also existed in Germany, including the Hitlerjugend, the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the Winterhilfswerk, the NS-Frauenschaft, and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront.
