Count on our friends in Ettelbruck to come through. About a month ago, we posted a query requesting information on a stained glass window in the church in Ettelbruck. (See below.) It referred to “Ettelbruck 1944,” so it seemed probable that it was connected with the Ardenns campaign. But how?

Susan Tyson of Ettelbruck’s Patton Museum was the first to come through with information.She wrote telling us the artist was named Probst.

But our member Joseph Dondelinger, a native of Luxembourg who enthralled the audience at our 2023 reunion with his presentation on Luxembourg Then and Now, truly came through with information. His letter is reproduced below.

“The triple window on the right side of the Ettelbruck church is part of the church restoration and significant architectural remodeling done between 1946 and 1948.  The church was heavily damaged in the Bulge.  The window(s) depict(s) the suffering of the town/parish patron saint, St. Sebastian, and the phases of his martyrdom, linking it to the martyrdom of the town.  The bottom shows some of the major and most familiar buildings in Ettelbruck.  The Latin inscription reads A FAME MORTE (IN?) BELLO LIBERA NOS DOMINE ETTELBRUCK 1944.

“Regarding the Latin, the translation could be “From a fate of death in war, free our town” (or “free us Lord”).  I need to verify the latter.

“The window was designed by brothers Emil and Josef Probst and produced in the shop of the Linster Brothers in Mondorf.  (Mondorf is in the extreme south-east of Luxembourg and the location of the place code named “Ashcan” where the top Nazis were incarcerated before their transfer to Nuremberg.)

“Please give all credit to my younger brother Albert who still resides in Luxembourg for tipping me off about the resource to find the answer.”

BOBA thanks both Joseph and Albert Dondelinger for coming through with information.

Stained glass window in Ettelbruck

Legend at the bottom of the window.