Lambert Schaus (18 January 1908 – 10 August 1976) was a
Luxembourg politician, jurist, and diplomat. He held office as a
government minister
A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, â ...
and
European Commissioner
A European Commissioner is a member of the 27-member European Commission. Each member within the Commission holds a specific portfolio. The commission is led by the President of the European Commission. In simple terms they are the equivalent ...
.
Schaus was born in
Luxembourg City
Luxembourg ( lb, Lëtzebuerg; french: Luxembourg; german: Luxemburg), also known as Luxembourg City ( lb, Stad Lëtzebuerg, link=no or ; french: Ville de Luxembourg, link=no; german: Stadt Luxemburg, link=no or ), is the capital city of the Lu ...
to a jeweller. He studied
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
in Paris, and also in
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
for one term. In 1932 Schaus was appointed as a lawyer at the Luxembourgish
court of appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
. Prior to the Second World War Schaus was active in local politics as a Luxembourg town councillor. When Schaus refused to support the
occupation of Luxembourg by Germany, he was arrested in 1941 by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
and interned in a
labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
where he worked to build motorways. Later he was made an office assistant in the district administration office of
Cochem
Cochem is the seat of and the biggest town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just over 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the Kusel district, as Germany's second smallest district seat. Since 7 J ...
and was later stationed in labour camps in the
Sudetenland
The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...
and
Black Forest
The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...
areas.
On returning to Luxembourg after the war he became economy and army minister in the government of
Pierre Dupong
Pierre Dupong (1 November 1885 – 23 December 1953)Thewes, Guy"Les gouvernements du Grand-Duché depuis 1848." Service information et presse. Luxembourg: Imprimerie Centrale, 2011. was a Luxembourgish politician and statesman. He was the 16th ...
in August 1946, representing the
CSV party. He was responsible for the difficult reconstruction and for the first standing army of the Grand Duchy. In July 1948 Schaus left the government and again became Luxembourg town councillor until 1952. From 1952 he became a special envoy, and from 1955, ambassador to
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, based in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
. In this role he was significantly involved in the development of European integration and led the Luxembourg delegation negotiating the formation of the
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
and
Euratom
The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) is an international organisation established by the Euratom Treaty on 25 March 1957 with the original purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, by developing nucl ...
.
On 18 June 1958 Schaus was appointed Luxembourg's representative on the inaugural
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
, the
Hallstein Commission
The Hallstein Commission is the European Commission that held office from 7 January 1958 to 30 June 1967. Its president was Walter Hallstein and held two separate mandates.
Work
It was the first commission on the European Economic Community and ...
, to replace the recently deceased
Michel Rasquin
Michel Rasquin (19 September 1899 – 27 April 1958) was a Luxembourgish journalist and socialist politician, and European Commissioner.
Rasquin was born in Pétange, Luxembourg, in 1899. After the Second World War, he was the president of the ...
. Schaus had responsibility for the Transport portfolio. He strove in particular for a common traffic policy among the EEC states as well as opening of the national markets for traffic and transport enterprises from other states. He was re-appointed to the second Hallstein commission in 1962 and served until 1967. He was succeeded by
Victor Bodson
Victor Nicolas Bodson (24 March 1902 – 29 June 1984) was a Luxembourgish politician and lawyer who held a number of political posts during his career. He is recognised as Righteous Among the Nations awarded by Yad Vashem for his actions during ...
.
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1908 births
1976 deaths
Alumni of the Athénée de Luxembourg
Ambassadors of Luxembourg to Belgium
Christian Social People's Party politicians
Councillors in Luxembourg City
Luxembourgian diplomats
Luxembourgian European Commissioners
20th-century Luxembourgian lawyers
Members of the Council of State of Luxembourg
Ministers for Defence of Luxembourg
People from Luxembourg City
Permanent Representatives of Luxembourg to NATO
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