Leopold III

Leopold III became King of the Belgians in 1934, following the death of his father Albert I in a mountaineering accident. Leopold was one of the key exponents of Belgian political and military neutrality before the war. Under the Belgian Constitution, Leopold played an important political role, served as commander-in-chief of the military, and personally commanded the Belgian army in May 1940.^[15]

On 28 May 1940, the King surrendered to the Germans alongside his soldiers.^[16] That violated the constitution, as it contradicted the orders of his ministers, who wanted him to follow the example of the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and flee to France or England to rally resistance. His refusal to leave Belgium undermined his political legitimacy in the eyes of many Belgians, and was viewed as a sign of his support for the new order.^[17] He was denounced by the Belgian Prime Minister, Hubert Pierlot, and declared "incompetent to reign" by the government in exile.^[18]

Leopold was keen to find an accommodation with Germany in 1940, hoping that Belgium would remain as a unified and semi-autonomous state within a German-dominated Europe.^[17] As part of this plan, in November 1940, Leopold visited Adolf Hitler, the Führer of Germany, in Berchtesgaden to ask for Belgian prisoners of war to be freed.^[19] No agreement was reached, and Leopold returned to Belgium.^[17] This fueled the belief that Leopold, who had expressed anti-Semitic views before the war, was collaborating with the Nazis rather than defending his country's interests.^[20]

For the rest of the war, Leopold was held under house-arrest in the Palace of Laeken.^[21] In 1941, while still incarcerated, he married Mary Lilian Baels, undermining his popularity with the Belgian public, which disliked Baels and considered the marriage to discredit his claim to martyr status.^[17] Despite his position, he remained prominent in the occupied territory, and coins and stamps continued to carry his portrait or monogramme.^[22] While imprisoned, he sent a letter to Hitler in 1942 credited with saving an estimated 500,000 Belgian women and children from forced deportation to munitions factories in Germany.^[23] In January 1944, Leopold was moved to Germany where he remained for the rest of the war.^[24]

Despite his position, Leopold remained a figurehead for right-wing resistance movements and Allied propaganda portrayed him as a martyr, sharing his country's fate.^[25] Attempts by the government in exile to pursue Leopold to defect to the Allied side were unsuccessful; Leopold consistently refused to publicly support the Allies or to denounce German actions such as the deportation of Belgian workers.^[17] After the war, allegations that Leopold's surrender had been an act of collaboration provoked a political crisis over whether he could return to the throne; known as the Royal Question. While a majority voted in March 1950 for Leopold's return to Belgium as king, his return in July 1950 was greeted with widespread protests in Wallonia and a general strike which turned deadly when police opened fire on protesters, killing four on 31 July. The next day Leopold announced his intention to abdicate in favour of his son, Baudouin, who took a constitutional oath before the United Chambers of the Belgian Parliament as Prince Royal on 11 August 1950. Leopold formally abdicated on 16 July 1951 and Baudouin ascended the throne and again took a constitutional oath the following day.

Rationing

Before the war, the Belgian government had planned an emergency system of rationing, which was implemented on the day of the German invasion.^[31] The German occupying authority used Belgium's reliance on food imports as a bargaining tool.^[32] The amount of food permitted to Belgian citizens was roughly two-thirds of that allowed to comparable German citizens and was amongst the lowest in occupied Europe.^[33] On average, scarcity of food led to a loss of five to seven kilograms of weight per Belgian in 1940 alone.^[34]

A Belgian citizen was entitled to 225 grams (7.9 oz) of bread each day,^[33] and 250 grams (8.8 oz) of butter, 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) sugar, 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) meat and 15 kilograms (33 lb) of potatoes each month.^[33] Later in the war, even this was not always available and many civilians survived by fishing or by growing vegetables in allotments.^[34]

Because of the tight rationing, a black market in food and other consumer goods emerged. Food on the black market was extremely expensive. Prices could be 650 percent higher than in legal shops^[26] and rose constantly during the war.^[34] Because of the profits to be made, the black market spawned large and well-organised networks. Numerous members of the German administration were involved in the black market, stealing military or official supplies and reselling them.^[35]

Allied bombing

Factories, ports and other strategic sites used by the German war effort were frequent targets of Allied bombers from both the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and American United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Many of these were located in towns and cities, and inaccuracy of the bombing resulted in substantial civilian casualties.^[36]

In the early years of the occupation, Allied bombing took the form of small-scale attacks on specific targets, such as the ports of Knokke and Zeebrugge, and on Luftwaffe airfields.^[37] The Germans encouraged the building of 6,000 air-raid shelters between 1941 and 1942, at a cost of 220 million francs.^[38] From 1943, the Allies began targeting sites in urban areas. In a raid on the Erla Motor Works in the town of Mortsel (near Antwerp) on 5 April 1943, just two bombs dropped by the B-17 Flying Fortresses of the U.S. 8th Air Force fell on the intended target.^[39] The remaining 24 tonnes of bombs fell on civilian areas, killing 936 and injuring 1,340 more.^[37]

During the preparation for D-Day in the spring of 1944, the Allies launched the Transport Plan, carrying out intensive bombing of railway junctions and transport networks across northern France and Belgium.^[40] Many of these targets were in towns near densely populated civilian areas, such as La Louvière and Kortrijk in Belgium, which were bombed in March 1944.^[40] The phase of bombing in the lead up to D-Day alone resulted in 1,500 civilian casualties. Bombing of targets in Belgium steadily increased as the Allies advanced westward across France.^[41] Allied bombing during the liberation in September 1944 killed 9,750 Belgians and injured 40,000.^[40]

The Allied policy was condemned by many leading figures in Belgium, including Cardinal van Roey, who appealed to Allied commanders to "spare the private possessions of the citizens, as otherwise the civilised world will one day call to account those responsible for the terrible treatment dealt out to an innocent and loyal country".^[42]

Galopin Doctrine

Before fleeing in May 1940, the Belgian government established a body of important economic figures, under the leadership of Alexandre Galopin, known as the "Galopin Committee".^[48] Galopin was the director of the Société Générale de Belgique (SGB), a company which dominated the Belgian economy and controlled almost 40 percent of the country's industrial production.^[49] The committee was able to negotiate with the German authorities and was also in contact with the government in exile.^[48]

Galopin pioneered a controversial policy, known as the "Galopin Doctrine". The Doctrine decreed that Belgian companies continue producing goods necessary for the Belgian population (food, consumer goods etc.) under the German occupiers, but refused to produce war materiel or anything which could be used in the German war effort.^[50] The policy hoped to prevent a repeat of World War I, when the Allies had encouraged Belgian workers to passively resist the Germans by refusing to work.^[51] The Germans instead deported Belgian workers and industrial machinery to German factories, benefitting their economy more.^[51] The policy also hoped to avoid an industrial decline which would have negative effects on the country's recovery after the war; however, many viewed the policy as collaboration.^[52] Between 1941 and 1942, the German authorities began to force Belgian businessmen to make an explicit choice between obeying the Doctrine (and refusing to produce war materials, at risk of death) and circumventing the doctrine as collaborators.^[53]

Deportation and forced labour

Before 1941, Belgian workers could volunteer to work in Germany; nearly 180,000 Belgians signed up, hoping for better pay and living conditions.^[54][55] About 3,000 Belgians joined the Organisation Todt (OT), and 4,000 more joined the paramilitary German supply corps, the Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK).^[56] The numbers, however, proved insufficient. Despite the protestation of the Secretaries-General, compulsory deportation of Belgian workers to Germany began in October 1942.^[57] At the beginning of the scheme, Belgian firms were obliged to select 10 percent of their work force, but from 1943 workers were conscripted by age class.^[57] 145,000 Belgians were conscripted and sent to Germany, most to work in manual jobs in industry or agriculture for the German war effort.^[58][59] Working conditions for forced workers in Germany were notoriously poor.^[59] Workers were paid little and worked long hours, and those in German towns were particularly vulnerable to Allied aerial bombing.^[59]

Following the introduction of compulsory deportation 200,000 Belgian workers (dubbed réfractaires or onderduikers) went into hiding for fear of being conscripted.^[59] The réfractaires were often aided by resistance organisations, such as Organisation Socrates run by the Front de l'Indépendance, who provided food and false papers. Many réfractaires went on to enlist in resistance groups, swelling their numbers enormously from late 1942.^[59]

Persecution of Jews and the Holocaust

At the start of the war, the population of Belgium was overwhelmingly Catholic.^[66] Jews made up the largest non-Christian population in the country, numbering between 70 and 75,000 out of a population of 8 million.^[67][68] Most lived in large towns and cities in Belgium, such as Antwerp and Brussels.^[69] The vast majority were recent immigrants to Belgium fleeing persecution in Germany and Eastern Europe and, as a result, only a small minority actually possessed Belgian citizenship.^[69]

Shortly after the invasion of Belgium, the Military Government passed a series of anti-Jewish laws (similar to the Vichy laws on the status of Jews) in October 1940.^[70] The Committee of Secretaries-General refused from the start to co-operate on passing any anti-Jewish measures and the Military Government seemed unwilling to pass further legislation. The German government began to seize Jewish-owned business and forced Jews out of positions in the civil service. In April 1941, without orders from the German authorities, members of the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen and other Flemish fascists pillaged two synagogues in Antwerp and burned the house of the chief Rabbi of the town in the so-called "Antwerp Pogrom".^[71] The Germans also created a Judenrat in the country, the Association des Juifs en Belgique (AJB; "Association of Jews in Belgium") in which all Jews were required to inscribe.^[72]

As part of the "Final Solution" from 1942, the persecution of Belgian Jews escalated. From May 1942, Jews were forced to wear yellow Star-of-David badges to mark them out in public.^[68] Using the registers compiled by the AJB, the Germans began deporting Jews to concentration camps built by Germans in occupied Poland. Jews chosen from the lists were required to turn up at the newly established Mechelen transit camp; they were then deported by train to concentration camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.^[68] Between August 1942 and July 1944, around 25,000 Jews and 350 Roma were deported from Belgium; more than 24,000 were killed before their camps were liberated by the Allies.^[73] Among them was the celebrated artist Felix Nussbaum.^[74]

From 1942 and the introduction of the Star-of-David badges, opposition to the treatment of the Jews among the general population in Belgium grew. By the end of the occupation, more than 40 percent of all Jews in Belgium were in hiding; many of them hid by gentiles and in particular Catholic priests and nuns.^[75] Some were helped by the organised resistance, such as the Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ), which provided food and safe housing. Many of the Jews in hiding went on to join the armed resistance.^[76] The treatment of Jews was denounced by the senior Catholic priest in Belgium, Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey, who described their treatment as "inhuman".^[77] The Partisans Armés had a notably large Jewish section in Brussels.^[78] In April 1943, members of the CDJ attacked the twentieth rail convoy to Auschwitz and succeeded in rescuing many of the passengers.^[79][80][81]

Political dissent

Because of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, signed in 1939, the Communist Party was briefly tolerated in the early stages of the occupation.^[82] Coinciding with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 however, the Germans rounded up a large number of Communists (identified in police dossiers compiled before the war) in an operation codenamed "Summer Solstice" (Sommersonnenwende).^[82] In September 1942, the Germans arrested over 400 workers which they feared were plotting a large-scale strike action.^[83]

Many important politicians who had opposed the Nazis before the war were arrested and deported to concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied Poland, as part of the Nacht und Nebel (literally "Night and Fog") decree. Among them was the 71-year-old Paul-Émile Janson who had served as Prime Minister between 1937 and 1938.^[84] He was arrested at his home in Belgium in 1943 and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp where he died in 1944.^[84] Many captured members of the resistance were also sent to concentration camps. Albert Guérisse (one of the leading members of the "Pat" escape line) was imprisoned at Dachau and briefly served as president of the camp's "International Prisoners' Committee" after its liberation by the United States Army.^[85]

In 1940, the German army requisitioned a former Belgian army fort at Breendonk and transformed it into an Anhaltelager or prison camp.^[86] Initially, the prison camp was used for detaining Jews, but from 1941 most of those detained at Breendonk were political prisoners or captured members of the resistance.^[86] Though it was reasonably small, the camp was infamous for its poor conditions and high death rate. It was also where summary executions of hostages as reprisals for resistance actions occurred.^[86] Unusually, Breendonk was mainly guarded by Flemish collaborators of the Vlaamse SD-wacht, rather than German soldiers.^[87] Prisoners were often tortured, or even mauled by the camp commander's dog, and forced to move tonnes of earth around the fort by hand. Many were summarily executed and still more died as a result of the conditions at the camp. Of the 3,500 people incarcerated in Breendonk between November 1942 and April 1943, around 300 people were killed in the camp itself with at least 84 dying as a result of deprivation or torture.^[86] Few inmates remained long in Breendonk itself and were sent on to larger concentration camps in Germany.^[86]

In Flanders

Before the war, several Fascist movements had existed in Flanders. The two major pre-war Flemish Movement parties, the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV) and Verdinaso, called for the creation of an independent authoritarian Flanders or "Dietse Staat" encompassing both Flanders and the Netherlands.^[91][92] Shortly after the occupation, VNV decided to collaborate with the Germans and soon became the biggest group in Flanders, gaining many members after Verdinaso disbanded in 1941 and after fusing with the Flemish wing of the nationwide Fascist Rex Party.^[93] There was also an organisation, the Duits-Vlaamse Arbeidsgemeenschap ("German-Flemish Work Community", known by its acronym DeVlag), which advocated Nazi-style anti-clericalism and the inclusion of Flanders into Germany itself.^[94]

During the occupation in World War I, the Germans had favoured the Flemish area of the country in the so-called Flamenpolitik, supporting Flemish cultural and political movements. This policy was continued during World War II, as the military government encouraged Flemish Movement parties, especially the VNV, and promoted Flemish nationalists, like Victor Leemans, to important administrative positions in the occupied territory.^[13] In turn, the VNV was important in recruiting men for a new "Flemish Legion", an infantry unit within the Wehrmacht, formed in July 1941 after the invasion of Russia.^[95] In 1943, the legion was "annexed" into the Waffen SS as the 27th SS Langemarck Division, despite the protestations of the party.^[95] The unit fought on the Eastern Front, where it suffered 10 percent casualties.^[95] The Germans also encouraged the formation of independent Flemish paramilitary organisations, such as the Vlaamse Wacht ("Flemish Guard"), founded in May 1941, which they hoped would eventually be able to act as a garrison in the region, freeing German troops for the front.^[96]

From 1942, VNV's dominance was increasingly challenged by the more radical DeVlag, which had the support of the SS and Nazi Party.^[97] DeVlag was closely affiliated to the paramilitary Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen ("General-SS Flanders"), which was stationed in Belgium itself and involved in the so-called Antwerp Pogrom of 1941.^[98]

In Wallonia

Though both Fascist and anti-Semitic, Rex's ideology had been more closely aligned with Benito Mussolini's Partito Nazionale Fascista than with the Nazi Party before the war.^[99] Rex's newspaper Le Pays Réel, which frequently attacked perceived Nazi anti-clericalism, had even been banned from circulation in Germany in the 1930s.^[100] With the German invasion, however, Rex rapidly accepted the occupation and became a major force in collaboration in Wallonia.^[101]

As a result of the Flamenpolitik, Rex was not given the same favoured status accorded to Flemish Fascists.^[102] Nevertheless, it was permitted to republish its newspaper and re-establish and expand its paramilitary wing, the Formations de Combat, which had been banned before the war.^[102] In April 1943, Rex declared itself part of the SS.^[103] The Formations de Combat were responsible for numerous attacks against Jews^[102] and, from 1944, also participated in arbitrary reprisals against civilians for attacks by the resistance. In 1944, Rexist paramilitaries massacred 20 civilians in the village of Courcelles in retaliation for an assassination of a Rexist politician by members of the resistance.^[104]

Léon Degrelle, the founder and leader of Rex, offered to form a "Walloon Legion" in the Wehrmacht, but his request was denied by the Germans who questioned its feasibility.^[105] It was finally accepted in July 1941, after the invasion of Russia, and Degrelle enlisted.^[102][105] As part of the Flamenpolitik, the Germans refused Degrelle's demands for a "Belgian Legion", preferring to support the creation of separate linguistic units.^[105] After a brief period of fighting, it became clear that the Walloon Legion suffered from a lack of training and from political infighting.^[105] It was reformed and sent to the Eastern Front, and became part of the Waffen SS (as the 28th SS Wallonien Division) in 1943. During the fighting at the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket, the unit was nearly annihilated and its popular commander, Lucien Lippert, was killed.^[105] In order to make up numbers, and because of a lack of Belgian volunteers, the unit was allocated French and Spanish volunteers.^[105]