Luxembourg

Famous Luxembourger People: Luxembourger Artists, Scientists, Leaders, Musicians, Politicians and Athletes

The Grand Duchy Luxembourg, the sixth smallest nation in the world has its share of famous personalities that have made a mark in different fields – from the arts, politics, literature, sports and science. They are just some of many famous Luxembourgers who have lifted Luxembourg’s name worldwide and made a difference in our world. Their purpose and stories inspired awe if not greatness.

:: List of Famous People from Luxembourg ::

Joseph Jean Ferdinand Kutter
Joseph Kutter was born on December 12, 1894. He was one of the most important painters of Luxembourg. He introduced modern painting in his country, greatly inspired by the Impressionists painters of Europe but created his own style called Expressionism. He was first introduced to the works of Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl when he studied painting at the Munich Academy before he became influenced by the style of French artist, Paul Cézanne. Kutter’s painting style always portrayed the subjects in the foreground. He regularly used strong brushstrokes with his portraits all notably showing large noses that particularly attract attention. Most notable of Kutter’s work were the Snow Scene, Wooden Horse, Red House and The Champion. Kutter contracted a disease that doctors failed to diagnose, which brought him great pain at times. He died on January 2, 1941.

Marc Girardelli
Marc Girardelli was born in Austria on July 18, 1963. Now retired, he was a former alpine ski racer and had been the World Cup overall champion five times. Girardelli excelled in all of the five alpine disciplines at the height of his career. Girardelli started skiing at five years of age and began to race when he was seven years old. He was an Austrian skier until 1976 then switched to Luxembourg due to coaching disagreements.

He made significant progress in his first podium in 1981 and from then on became a regular contender for the giant slalom and slalom podiums. He attained his first victory in Sweden in 1983 although it was followed by agony when he tore all the ligaments in his left knee, his first major skiing injury. But in the following year, 1984, Girardelli won five slalom races, placing third in the World Cup overall standings. He went on to win 11 races and the World Cup overall title in 1985, 1986 and 1989. He had his second major skiing injury in 1990 where he almost became a paraplegic. He subsequently made a full recovery and won the World Cup overall title once again in 1991, and won the coveted title for the fifth time in 1993 – an achievement that is still unequalled in the men’s side.
He was not eligible to join the Luxembourg skiing team in the 1980 and 1984 Winter Olympics because he was still an Austrian citizen at the time. He finally received his Luxembourg citizenship before the Winter Olympics in 1988 but he did not win any medal. In the 1992 Winter Olympics, Girardelli won silver in the giant slalom and in the Super G.

Henri Owen Tudor
Engineer, inventor and industrialist, Henri Owen Tudor, born on September 30, 1859 was the developer of the first practical lead-acid battery in the world, the Tudor battery. He developed it in 1886. He quickly established a manufacturing plant in Luxembourg but found it too costly because local demand was very little at that time and his country did not have a lead industry. Tudor expanded and established manufacturing in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and in Belgium. His company employed 25,000 people by the time Henry Tudor died in 1928, ironically from lead poisoning.

Joseph (Josy) Barthel
Josy Barthel, one of Luxembourg’s outstanding athletes was born on April 24, 1927. He was a middle distance runner during WWII. He won the Military World Championships held in Berlin in the 800 meter division in 1947. He improved his record by winning both the 800 meters and the 1,500 meters the following year in the Military World Championships held in Brussels. He held the distinction of winning the gold in the Men’s 1500 meters during the Summer Olympics in 1952. And he was the only athlete from Luxembourg to have won an Olympic gold medal.

Four years earlier, in the Summer Olympics in London, Josy finished 9th in the finals of the 1,500 meters. In 1949 he won the Student World Championships in the 800 meters, and then followed that up with wins in the 800 meters and the 1,500 meters in 1951. Josy Barthel retired from running after participating in the 1956 Summer Olympics. He acted as the president of the Luxembourg Athletics Federation in 1962 before he held the position of president of the Luxembourgish Olympic and Sporting Committee from 1973 to 1977. Josy died from a severe illness on July 7, 1992. The Lycée Technique Josy Barthel and the Stade Josy Barthel were named in his honor.

Gilles Müller
Gilles Müller who was born on May 9, 1983 holds the distinction of being one of the most successful professional tennis players from Luxembourg. He was a finalist in the Wimbledon Championships in 2001. Müller was the 2001 boy’s singles champion in the US Open, beating Yeu-Tzuoo Wang 7-6 (5), 6-2 in the finals and ended the year as the Number 1 Junior Tennis Player in the world.
Although he has yet to win a title in the men’s senior tour, Gilles has the talent to advance in his career as he has beaten some of the great tennis players such as Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal, Andre Agassi, Tommy Haas, Nicolas Almagro, Laurent Recouderc, Nikolay Davydenko and Feliciano Lopez.

Charly Gaul
Charly Gaul was one of the cycling greats from Luxembourg. He was born in Pfaffenthal on December 8, 1932. Charly was a fragile-looking man with a long, sad face. He had short legs which were not in proportion to his lanky figure. Despite looking fragile, Charly was a slaughterman at an abattoir and also worked in a butcher’s shop. He was an amateur cyclist who had won over 60 races before he turned professional in 1953. Charly was at his best when riding in cold, wet weather as he cannot stand the heat and he was a better climber, earning him the nickname, The Angel of the Mountains when he participated in the Tour de France in 1958. He won the 1958 Tour de France with four stage victories, while he set the stage for that important victory by winning the Giro d’Italia in 1956 and again in 1959. Charly was also the Luxembourg cyclo-cross champion in 1953. Despite his fame, Charly lived as a recluse after retirement, losing much of his memory. He died of lung cancer on December 6, 2005.

Hugo Gernsbacher
Hugo Gernsbacher was born in Bonnevoie, a suburb in the capital city of Luxembourg on August 16, 1884. His name was shortened to Hugo Gernsback when he went to the United States. Gernsback was a writer, magazine publisher and an inventor. He published the first science fiction magazine and considered as the father of science fiction together with Jules Vern and H. G. Wells for the significance of his contribution to the science fiction genre. The Hugos, the annual awards for achievements in science fiction are named after him.

Hugo Gernsback founded the radio station WRNY in New York, the Modern Electronics magazine, the first magazine in the world dedicated to radio and electronics, the Wireless Association of America and The Electrical Experimenter, another amateur radio magazine. It was later named Science and Invention. Gernsback also published a magazine called Amazing Stories containing science fiction stories but lost the popular magazine due to a bankruptcy lawsuit. He came back with Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories, two new magazines which he published until 1936 before these were sold to Thrilling Publications. In 1952 and 1953, Gernsback published the Science-Fiction Plus magazine. Hugo Gernsback died on August 19, 1967 in New York.

Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann
Gabriel Lippmann was born on August 16, 1845 was an inventor and physicist and a recipient of the Nobel laureate in physics. His family moved to Paris when he was three years old. Although inattentive in school, he was quite interested in mathematics and preferred to study physics than take the exam that will prepare him for a teaching profession. He was sent by the French government on a special mission to the Heidelberg University where he graduated summa cum laude, specializing in electricity. Eventually he became a physics professor at the Sorbonne. Some of the notable contributions of Lippmann included the first capillary electrometer, later called the Lippmann electrometer, used in the first ECG machine. He also invented the method to reproduce colors based on interference phenomenon in photography and eventually received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908 for his invention. He was also able to devise integral photography in 1908, a method of recording images of scenes appearing in vertical and horizontal locations creating life-size and three dimensional scenes. Lippmann was also the inventor of the ceolostat, a tool used in astronomy that compensates for the earth’s rotation, thus allowing a region of the sky to be photograph without manifesting any movement.

Georges Christen
Georges Christen is a strongman born in Luxembourg in 1962. He has amazed the world with his feats of strength, including towing ships, planes trains with his teeth, bending nails, and tearing up phone books. Overall, Christen holds 23 Guinness World Records, including the first man to inflate hot water bottles by sheer lung power.

William Justin Kroll
William Justin Kroll was a National Investors Hall of Fame inductee in 2000. He was born on November 24, 1889 in Luxembourg. Kroll invented a process in 1932 to produce metallic titanium by combining titanium tetrachloride with calcium. The process was later named the Kroll Process. In its pure form titanium was difficult to extract from its natural state and it was impossible to heat the metal since it becomes useless. As titanium is the 4th most abundant structural metal, Kroll’s invention was highly significant. It paved the way to create a metal alloy that is non-corrosive, with superior strength and lightness, which became highly prized as the metal of choice for the production of jet engines, piping systems, marine equipment, watches and golf clubs. It is also used in the manufacture of artificial knees and hips. Dr. Kroll died on March 30, 1973.

Jeff Strasser
Jeff Strasser, born on October 5, 1974, is one of the most successful footballers from Luxembourg. Although retired from club football, at the international level, he still plays as a defender. His football career took off when he played for the first divisions in France and Germany. He first played for FC Metz in Ligue 1 for France between 1993 and 1999. He later moved to the German Bundesliga, playing for 1.FC Kaiserslautern where he spent three seasons from 1999 to 2001. In 2002 Strasser moved to another German football club, Borussia Monchengladbach and stayed there for four seasons, scoring 10 goals in 194 appearances for the two German clubs.

RC Strasbourg in French Ligue 2 side was Strasser’s club in August 2006. After one season he signed up with FC Metz for two seasons. When his contract ended he went back to Luxembourg to play for CS Fola Esch. His contract was for 2 years but it only lasted for 17 days because he moved to play for Grasshopper, a Swiss football club based in Zurich, where Strasser stayed for one year. That was the end of his club career as he announced his retirement on May 17, 2010 from club football.

Strasser is a member of the national football team of Luxembourg and made his debut in a World Cup qualifying match with Greece in 1993 and had played 29 World Cup qualifying matches in his international career. He already had earned 88 caps for Luxembourg and scored 6 goals, making him an all-time record holder for most caps in his country. Since his retirement, Strasser had been appointed to be the youth manager of CS Fola Esch. After seven months Strasser was promoted to coach the senior team of Fola Esch.

Emil Gustav Hirsch
Emil Hirsch was born on May 22, 1852 in Luxembourg, the son of a philosopher and Rabbi Samuel Hirsch. His family moved to the United States where Emil received his education from the University of Pennsylvania and has his post-graduate work done in Berlin. Emil became a rabbi at Baltimore’s Har Sinai Congregation from 1877 to 1878 and then spent two years as a rabbi in Louisville, Kentucky.

From 1880 up to 1923, a total of 42 years, Emil Hirsch was the rabbi of the Chicago Sinai Congregation where he made a massive impact on a mixed congregation, unwavering in his conviction to have social reforms. In 1892 he was appointed as a professor of philosophy and rabbinical literature at the University of Chicago. From 1885 to 1897 Emil Hirsch served on the board of the Chicago Public Library. He also did various editing work, including the Jewish Encyclopedia’s Department of the Bible. He was instrumental in convincing Sears, Roebuck and Co. co-owner Julius Rosenwald to help build public schools for African-Americans.

Jean Benoît Guillaume Robert Antoine Louis Marie Adolphe Marc d’Aviano
He is better known as Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, born on January 5, 1921. His parents were Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma. Pope Benedict XV was one of his godparents. Grand Duke Jean ruled Luxembourg from 1964 to 2000.

His family fled to Paris when Luxembourg was invaded by Germany in 1940. Grand Duke Jean later studied at Université Laval in Quebec, where he took up law and political science. In 1942 he volunteered in the Irish Guards. He received military training and became a captain in 1944 and joined the troop that fought in the liberation of Luxembourg as well as Brussels. He was an Irish Guard Colonel of the Regiment while ruling Luxembourg until he abdication on October 7, 2000.

Henri Albert Gabriel Félix Marie Guillaume
Henri is the current Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He was born on April 16, 1955 and is the eldest of son of Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. He came to the throne when Grand Duke Jean abdicated in his favor in 2000.

On November 12, 1964 Henri became the Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He studied in Luxembourg, and then obtained his bachelor’s degree in France in 1974. At the University of Geneva, Grand Duke Henri took up political sciences graduated in 1980. He received his military officer trainingin the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England. Grand Duke Henri married fellow political sciences student Maria Teresa Mestre y Batista in February 1981. They have five children and two grandchildren.

Jean-Claude Juncker
Jean-Claude Juncker is the current and the longest serving head of government of Luxembourg, having been the Prime Minister since January 20, 1995. He was born on December 9, 1954. Juncker is also the current president of the Euro Group, which has political control over the Euro and the EU’s monetary union. As the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, he had served as the President of the European Council in 1997 and 2005, serving for 6 months for each term.

Jean-Claude Juncker also served as Governor of the World Bank in 1989 while holding the position of Minister of Labor. In his second term, he gained more prominence in the European Union by chairing the Council of Economic and Financial Affairs and became one of the architects for the creation of the official European Union and the use of a single currency, the euro. While his superior, Jacques Santer was nominated as the president of the European Commission, Grand Duke Jean appointed Juncker as the Prime Minister in 1995. He also swapped his position of governor of the World Bank to be governor of the IMF, while holding his ministerial positions.

In his position as Prime Minister, he embarked on improving the profile of Luxembourg internationally and went on state visits. He successfully settled the dispute between President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany over the policy of the EU Economic and Monetary Union. He received the Vision for Europe Award in 1998 because of his instigation of social integration in Europe, European policy against unemployment and ideals for the Euro 11. He was successful in having the Luxembourg vote for the ratification of the proposed constitution of the European Union and was awarded the Charlemagne Prize or the Karlspreis in 2006.

:: References ::
http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/trivia.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/89.html