100th Anniversary of the Death of Grand Duke Adolphe

A portrait of the reigning Grand Duke Henri overlapping a portrait of former Grand Duke Adolphe, both to the right of the coin. Above the portraits: the semicircular inscription "GRANDS-DUCS DE LUXEMBOURG". Below: "HENRI * 1955" and "ADOLPHE + 1905". Twelve stars encircle the design between the letters of "LËTZEBUERG" along the outer edge. The year 2005 sits at the lower edge between the mint mark and the letter "S".

Alongside the centenary of Grand Duke Adolphe's death, this coin also commemorates Grand Duke Henri's 50th birthday and the 5th anniversary of his accession. In 2008 a retrospective set was issued comprising the Luxembourg €2 commemorative coins of 2004–2008 (LU-04 G1, LU-05 G2, LU-06 G2, LU-07 G1, LU-07 G2, LU-08 G1).

Adolphe of Nassau-Weilburg ruled the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg from 1890 until his death in 1905 - a transitional period in which the small country, after decades in personal union with the Netherlands, once again gained a ruler of its own. Born in 1817 as Duke of Nassau, Adolphe had lived for nearly a quarter of a century without a territory after Prussia annexed his German duchy in 1866, before ascending the Luxembourg throne at the age of 73. His reign coincided with a phase of economic upswing: the iron industry in the south of Luxembourg expanded strongly, and the country consolidated its institutional structures as a sovereign state. Adolphe is regarded as the founding figure of Luxembourg's own Nassau-Weilburg dynastic line, from which today's Grand Ducal House directly descends.

Grand Duke Henri, who has reigned since 2000, is Adolphe's great-great-grandson - this direct dynastic line spanning four generations lends the commemoration a particular historical continuity. In 2005, the year of Adolphe's hundredth anniversary of death, Luxembourg honoured both figures of this line at once with a 2-euro commemorative coin, making a statement of dynastic identity. In Luxembourg's collective memory, Adolphe stands above all for the beginning of state independence: he gave the country a ruling house of its own, which it had not previously possessed, laying a cornerstone for Luxembourg's self-image as a sovereign small state at the heart of Europe.