It was founded in 1936 by academics Jef Van de Wiele and Rolf Wilkening as a cultural association to strengthen the exchange of students and professors between the universities of Leuven and Cologne.

[3] In May 1941, after the German invasion, DeVlag started receiving financial backing from the SS, and was reorganized into a Nazi organization.

[4] DeVlag saw Dutch or Flemish nationalism as provincialism, and supported the outright annexation of Flanders into the Greater German Reich.

[4] Both groups competed to recruit members for the Waffen-SS[5] although the VNV rapidly secured dominance within the Flemish Legion established in 1941.

In late 1944, the Nazi leadership answered the demands of DeVlag by annexing Flanders and Wallonia into the German Reich, but this was more theoretical than actual, as Belgium had already been liberated by the advancing Allied forces.