Belgian Resistance

[8][10] Among the first members of the Belgian resistance were former soldiers, and in particular officers, who, on their return from prisoner of war camps, wished to continue the fight against the Germans out of patriotism.

[13] With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, members of the Communist Party, which had previously been ambivalent towards both Allied and Axis sides, also joined the resistance en masse, forming their own separate groups calling for a "national uprising" against Nazi rule.

[2] During the First World War, Belgium had been occupied by Germany for four years and had developed an effective network of resistance, which provided key inspiration for the formation of similar groups in 1940.

Listening to Radio Belgique broadcasts from London, which was officially prohibited by the German occupiers, was a common form of passive resistance, but civil disobedience in particular was employed.

In June 1941, the City Council of Brussels refused to distribute Star of David badges on behalf of the German government to Belgian Jews.

[18] King Leopold III, imprisoned in Laeken Palace, became a focal point for passive resistance, despite having been condemned by the government-in-exile for his decision to surrender.

[7] "Though they shared a common opposition to German rule, these [resistance] groups were in other respects divided by organizational rivalries, by competition for Allied support, and by their tactics and political affiliations.

[2] The danger of infiltration posed by German informants[21] meant that some cells were extremely small and localized, and although nationwide groups did exist, they were split along political and ideological lines.

Following the Normandy landings in June 1944 on orders from the Allies, the Belgian resistance began to step up its sabotage against German supply lines across the country.

[25] In one notable action, 600 German soldiers were killed when a railway bridge between La Gleize and Stoumont in the Ardennes was blown up by 40 members of the resistance, including the writer Herman Bodson.

In July 1944, the Légion Belge assassinated the brother of Léon Degrelle, head of the collaborationist Rexist Party and leading Belgian fascist.

At its peak, the clandestine newspaper La Libre Belgique was relaying news within five to six days; faster than the BBC's French-language radio broadcasts, whose coverage lagged several months behind events.

In April 1943, members of the resistance group, the Comité de Défense des Juifs successfully attacked the "Twentieth convoy" carrying 1,500 Belgian Jews by rail to Auschwitz in Poland.

[17] Certain high-profile members of the Belgian establishment, including Queen Elizabeth and Cardinal van Roey, Archbishop of Malines, spoke out against the German treatment of Jews.

[43] In total, 1,612 Belgians have been awarded the distinction of "Righteous Among the Nations" by the State of Israel for risking their lives to save Jews from persecution during the occupation.

The resistance's aim, assisted by the British MI9 organization, was to escort them out of occupied Europe and over the Pyrenees to neutral Spain where they might return to England.

The best-known of these networks, the Comet Line, organized by Andrée de Jongh, involved some 2,000 resistance members and was able to escort 700 Allied airmen to Spain.

[14] The Line not only fed, housed, and provided civilian clothing for the pilots, but also forged Belgian and French identity cards and rail fares.

[48] Towards the end of the war, the militias of collaborationist political parties also began to participate actively in reprisals for attacks or assassinations by the resistance.

[49] The Belgian government in exile made its first call for the creation of organized resistance in the country from its first place of exile in Bordeaux, before its flight to London after the French surrender: We trust fully in the power of Britain to deliver us from German bondage ... We claim the right to share in the burden and honour of this fight in the measure of our modest but not altogether negligible resources We are not defeatists ... We will have nothing to do with those faint-hearted countrymen of ours, who, despairing of the victory of the allied cause, would be willing to come to terms with the invader.

[50] Nevertheless, the resistance was frequently reliant on finance and drops of equipment and supplies which both the government-in-exile and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) were able to provide.

[51] During the course of the war, the government-in-exile delivered between 124-245 million francs, dropped by parachute or transferred via bank accounts in neutral Portugal, to the Armée Secrète group alone, with smaller sums also distributed to other organisations.

[55] The Free Belgian 5th SAS was dropped by parachute into the Ardennes where it linked up with members of the local resistance during the liberation and the Battle of the Bulge.

[57] In October 1944 the government ordered members of the resistance to surrender their weapons to the police and, in November, threatened to search the houses and fine those who had retained them.

[57] Nevertheless, large numbers of former members of the resistance enlisted into the regular army, where they formed around 80% of the strength of the Belgian Fusilier Battalions which served on the Western Front until VE Day.

In a letter to Lieutenant-General Pire, commander of the Armée Secrète, General Eisenhower praised the role that the Belgian resistance had played in disrupting German supply lines after D-Day.

[59] The largest association, the Fondation Armée Secrète, continues to fund historical research on the role of the resistance and defending the interests of its members.