Earlier this year, a trial began in the case of the “Bommeleeër Affär”, a series of bombings that which shook “dull and boring” Luxembourg in the mid-1980s. Targets included infrastructure run by former electricity monopoly Cegedel and the Olympic swimming pool in Kirchberg (photo). On Friday, writer Fausto Gardini offered a primer on this period of the Grand Duchy’s history, and Tuesday he explained why NATO allies felt under siege. Here, in the third and final of three excerpts from his new e-book, Luxembourg Under Fire, Gardini examines the secret organisations implicated in the affair.

Excerpt from “Luxembourg Under Fire”

West European “stay-behind networks” were secret national units of patriotic civilians and military-trained to go undercover in the event of a Soviet invasion. Their aim was to continue fighting by sabotaging infrastructure, disrupting the normal functioning of the occupied country and also by targeting important dignitaries of the invader as well as collaborators and traitors.

The existence of stay-behind networks is no longer in doubt. Known parliamentary inquests about domestic networks have been conducted in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland.

As concerns Luxembourg, the best research on the subject has been published in August of 2008 by the Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement (CF2R) in a document: “Note Historique No 17” by Gérald Arboit and entitled “Retour sur les réseaux Stay Behind en Europe: Le cas de l’organisation luxembourgeoise”. The document covers the history of the stay-behind network in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg from its origin in post-World War II until its purported termination in 1991.

Fausto Gardini is a Luxembourger living in the United States. His current e-book, Luxembourg Under Fire: Luxembourg’s Bommeleeër Affär is available on amazon.com for €5.52. Gardini’s previous books include The American Aunt (2011), Luxembourg On My Mind, Volumes I (2011) and II (2012) and Storms Over Luxembourg (2012). He also writes the Luxembourg-US history blog Luxembourgensia.