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] German SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger was later appointed as DeVlag's president, and the bond between the two organizations was thus made official.

[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.