US Memorial Diekirch

The US Memorial of Diekirch is located in the municipal park on the banks of the Sûre (Sauer) next to the pedestrian bridge that spans the river. It was inaugurated in 1984 on the initiative of the Diekirch National Museum of Military History. This was on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Luxembourg and the ‘Battle of the Bulge'. 

It pays tribute to all those US military units that were stationed, fought and  transited through Diekirch and surrounding areas from September 1944  to February 1945. 

Those units were the US 4th, 5th, 8th, 28th and 80th Infantry Divisions. The US 5th, 9th and 10th Armored Divisions. Delegations of veterans of some of those units attended the official unveiling. 

A bronze plaque at the bottom of the base  of the monument shows the former Diekirch railroad bridge, replaced later by the present concrete foot bridge. It was via that railroad bridge when in the late morning of 11 September 1944 units of the US 5th Armored Division liberated the town for the first time. 

The same bridge was used during the night of 19 to 20 December 1944 by approximately 6,000 civilians to flee and leave the town in great haste face to the approaching enemy closing in on the town. They were assisted by local police, resistance fighters and US soldiers to ensure that they would get safely across the river and make it back to safe areas further south. Finally, the partially destroyed bridge was used in turn in mid-January 1945 by unites of the US 5th Infantry Division during the Sauer river crossing operations. It was repaired by US Army engineers and subsequently by Luxembourg civil engineers to be re-used as again a railroad bridge until 1962.