much increased recruitment from all professions. A central registry documented the personal opinion regarding the Nazi regime of almost every citizen. People who were openly opposed to the regime lost their jobs or were deported, mainly to eastern Germany and in the worst cases sent to the death camps where many of them were murdered. The occupation authorities attempted to cover Luxembourg with a net of political, social and cultural organisations, such as also existed in Germany, including the Hitler Youth, the League of German Girls, the Winterhilfswerk, the NS-Frauenschaft and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. Catholic Church The Catholic Church in Luxembourg was relatively silent during the war, and took no public stance regarding the fate of the Jews or the Nazi regime. On the one hand, the Bishop, Joseph Laurent Philippe, was bedridden due to illness, and was therefore in no state to provide active opposition. On the other hand, the Bishop did not want to further antagonise the occupiers and endanger the already precarious religious life of the Church, which was heavily restricted during wartime. Bishop Philippe did, however, refuse to meet with the Nazi leadership, and made preparations in case his post should fall vacant. The Church saw its very existence threatened as it was pushed out of public life by the anti-religious policies of the Nazis: public religious events such as the Octave celebration or the dancing procession were banned, Christian organisations were dissolved, religious education in schools was abolished, and a ban on the religious orders was put in place. At the same time, the diocese administration remained one of very few Luxembourgish institutions that stayed intact during the war, although this was in doubt for a while, and a deportation of the Bishop was considered by the occupation authorities. Resistance The Luxembourgish resistance was carried out by only a small fraction of the population. Its formation was spontaneous and slow at first. The first groups were formed from autumn 1940 to summer 1941. In the beginning they worked without coordination and from different motivations, for instance Liberals opposed to the anti-Jewish policies and in favour of democracy as well as conservative Roman Catholics with sometimes more or less anti-national socialist tendencies. Some of the latter category also were at the same time opposed to the Soviet Union and "Bolshevism", hoping that the generals of the Wehrmacht would defeat Joseph Stalin and the Red Army, while