Second-class Occupiers?

Little Luxembourg – a country one hundredth the size of Britain by area, with a population of only 291,000 in 1947 – was one of the Allied occupation powers in Germany after the Second World War. That there was a political and military intervention by such a small nation might even surprise experts in post-war European history. Yet this curious episode was a historical reality: From November 1945 to July 1955, the newly formed Luxembourgish Army which had been re-established after the country was liberated in late 1944 occupied parts of the German Landkreise of Bitburg and Saarburg, as an Allied occupation power under French high command.