''Luxemburger Wort'' is a German-language Luxembourgish

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

. There is an English edition named the ''Luxembourg Times''.

History and profile

''Luxemburger Wort'' has been published since 1848. The paper was founded just three days after press censorship was abolished. The newspaper is mainly written in German, but includes small sections in both Luxembourgish and French. The paper is part of the Saint-Paul Luxembourg S.A. The paper is owned by the archbishopric and has a strong

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

leaning. From its very foundation, the newspaper opposed the ''Volksfreund'', founded by

Samuel Hirsch Samuel Hirsch, (June 8, 1815 – May 14, 1889) was a major Reform Judaism philosopher and rabbi who mainly worked and resided in present-day Germany in his earlier years. He promoted the radical German Reform Judaism movement and published several ...

, and the ''Judenrabbiner'', as well as the subsidy for the Jewish congregation. In the period from 1849 to 1880, on average it published two anti-Semitic articles per week. From 1938, the newspaper opposed Nazi Germany. In 1940, after the

German invasion of Luxembourg The German invasion of Luxembourg was part of Case Yellow (german: Fall Gelb), the German invasion of the Low Countries—Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—and France during World War II. The battle began on 10 May 1940 and lasted just ...

, the ''Luxemburger Wort'' was co-opted as part of the occupation. The director Jean Origer and the editors Batty Esch and Pierre Grégoire were arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Pierre Grégoire was the only one of them to survive imprisonment. After the liberation of Luxembourg, the paper produced the headline: ''Lëtzebuerg as fräi!'' ("Luxembourg is free!"). At the same time this was one of few editions that appeared entirely in Luxembourgish; the publishing house also changed its name from German into French as a symbolic act. After André Heiderscheid's replacement as editor-in-chief by Leon Zeches, the latter sought to 'de-ideologise' the newspaper and to distance it more strongly from the Christian Social People's Party. For example, the paper increasingly started to report on initiatives, debates and congresses of other political parties as well. From 17 March 2005 to 21 March 2008, the paper called itself ''d' Wort: Luxemburger Wort für Wahrheit und Recht''. In the period of 1995–1996 ''Luxemburger Wort'' had a circulation of 85,000 copies, making it the best-selling paper in the country. The circulation of the paper was 83,739 copies in 2003. In 2006 its circulation was 79,633 copies. The paper had a circulation of almost 70,000 copies a day and a daily readership of more than 180,000 (print and e-paper) in 2007, making it Luxembourg's most popular newspaper by both counts.

Editors

* Edouard Michelis (1848–1854) * Nicolas Breisdorff (1854–1885) * Jean-Baptiste Fallize (1884–1887) * Andreas Welter (1887–1889) * Jean Origer (1924–1940) * ''German occupation 1940–1944'' * Jean Bernard (1945–1958) * Alphonse Turpel (1958–1967) * André Heiderscheid (1967–1986) * Léon Zeches (1986–2009) * Marc Glesener (2010–2012) * Jean-Lou Siweck (2013–)

Footnotes

External links

* * * {{Authority control 1848 establishments in Luxembourg German-language newspapers published in Luxembourg Daily newspapers published in Luxembourg Publications established in 1848 Luxembourgian news websites