The Belgian Resistance (French: Résistance belge, Dutch: Belgisch verzet) collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. [14], Most of the resistance was focused in the French-speaking areas of Belgium (Wallonia and the city of Brussels), although Flemish involvement in the resistance was also significant. The Service D group, for example, had many members in the national postal service and used them to intercept letters of denunciation, warning the denounced person to flee. [29] These included both reprisal assassinations of leading figures suspected of resistance involvement or sympathy[11] (including Alexandre Galopin, head of the Société Générale, who was assassinated in February 1944) or retaliatory massacres against civilians. One had been helping the Maquis resistance fighters for two years, and the other had been in the intelligence game for six months. [12] In total 43 separate intelligence networks existed in Belgium, involving some 14,000 people. Media related to Belgian resistance at Wikimedia Commons, "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. After the Normandy Landings in June 1944, the Belgian resistance increased in size dramatically. Resistance, also called Underground, in European history, any of various secret and clandestine groups that sprang up throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II to oppose Nazi rule. 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. [15] Around 70 percent of underground newspapers were in French, while 60 percent of political prisoners were Walloon. The resistance included both men and women from both Walloon and … Indeed, to consider the Resistance, as the term suggests, as a unitary phenomenon is in many respects misleading. Of the 23 Fiat biplanes, about 14 were destroyed. [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. Armed resistance, in the forms of sabotage or assassinations, took place, but was only part of the "active" resistance's scope of activity. Many were made prisoners of war and detained in camps in Germany, although some were released before the end of the war. The transmitters which sent so much vital intelligence data to Britain were also used to co-ordinate military ventures against the Germans – the destruction of bridges, rail lines etc. professionally packed. Active and Passive Resistance ... passing through Romania, Paris and Belgium… The rest of the Wehrmacht force committed to "the overrunning of the West" executed the Manstein Plan through Belgium and the Ardennes Forest. That'll make the, Medals awarded after the war to members of the armed (, Relations with the Allies and Belgian government in exile, Both resistance members (left) wear the black and white overalls and armband adopted by the, Henri Bernard's estimate puts resistance casualties at 19,048 of around 70,000 active members. [57] On 25 November, a large demonstration of former resistance members took place in Brussels. During the course of the war, 800 members of the "Comet" line alone were arrested by the Gestapo of whom 140 were executed. [57] As the crowds moved towards the Parliament, British soldiers fired on the crowd, which they suspected to be trying to make left-wing coup d'état. [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 particular, the government feared the organizations would degenerate into armed political militias which could threaten the country's political stability. [55], All together, almost 4,000 members of the Armée Secrète alone were killed during the liberation. On 16 January 1944, a reconnaissance pilot survives a plane crash in Delahaut in the Nazi occupied Belgium. ... the French Resistance and Virginia was personally responsible for saving the lives of 65 Allied airmen shot down over Belgium & France. [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. The neutrality of Belgium came to an end on May 10, 1940 with the German invasion, and subsequent conquest of the Low Countries. By the time of Belgium's entry into the First World War on 4 August 1914, the military aviation branch, now called the Aviation Militaire Belge (Belgische militaire luchtvaart), consisted of four squadrons, each consisting of four 80-horsepower Farman aircraft, although Escadrilles III and IV were still forming. The largest of the groups was called the ‘Legion Belge’. Elsewhere in Belgium it spent a great deal of its time gathering intelligence and passing it onto the British. Face value. [7] On 18 June the Belgian Government fled and arrived first in Bordeaux, France after the French government had fled to the region three days earlier. Monument shows Polish resistance fight [22] They ranged from the very left-wing, like the Communist Partisans Armés or Socialist Front de l'Indépendance, to the far-right, like the monarchist Mouvement National Royaliste and the Légion Belge which had been created by members of the pre-war Fascist Légion Nationale movement. [46] Around 3,500 inmates passed through the camp at Breendonk where they were kept in extremely degrading conditions. history of the second world war 17 resistance fighters france belgium yugoslavia. Resistance fighters who were captured could expect to be interrogated, tortured and either summarily executed or sent to a concentration camp. However, the Belgian  government in exile based in London distrusted the long term motives of ‘Legion Belge’ as they believed that this movement did not want the exiled royal family back once the war had ended. [14] The Allies were also deeply reliant on the resistance to provide intelligence from the occupied country. [18] News of the strike spread rapidly and soon at least 70,000 workers came out on strike across the province of Liège. I took them to Tendon by jeep, but there was a roadblock 500 yards beyond the town, on the road toward Le Thuly. Medal de la Resistance Armee 1940 - 1945 (Belgian Medal of the Armed Resistance 1940-1945) awarded to Menachem Konkowksi, a Jewish resistance fighter in Belgium, during the German occupation. [27] Through its sabotage activities alone, one resistance group, Groupe G, required the Germans to expend between 20 and 25 million man-hours of labour on repairing damage done, including ten million in the night of 15–16 January 1944 alone. In November 1943, on the anniversary of the German surrender in the First World War, the Front de l'Indépendance group published a spoof edition of the collaborationist newspaper Le Soir, satirizing the Axis propaganda and biased information permitted by the censors, which was then distributed to newsstands across Brussels and deliberately mixed with official copies of the newspaper. Managed by Caboodle UX design studio in London, Citation: C N Trueman "The Belgian Resistance". In June 1941, the City Council of Brussels refused to distribute Star of David badges on behalf of the German government to Belgian Jews. Belgian resistance fighters also attacked offices containing names and addresses of Jews in Belgium, setting fire to papers used by the Gestapo to round up individuals. At Schaffen all but one of the 11 Hawker Hurricane fighters were wiped out, while the squadron of 15 Gladiators lost about six aircraft. This movement was given the task of co-ordinating civil resistance. In July 1944, the Légion Belge assassinated the brother of Léon Degrelle, head of the collaborationist Rexist Party and leading Belgian fascist. The Germans enacted anti-Jewish legislation to persecute the Jewish population. [58], The attempt of the resistance to enter mainstream politics with a formal party, the Belgian Democratic Union, failed to attract the level of support that similar parties had managed in France and elsewhere. The Belgian Air Force was effectively suppressed on 10 May, suffering heavy losses on the ground. Belgium [BEL] Collection. 50,000 copies of the spoof publication, dubbed the "Faux Soir" (or "Fake Soir"), were distributed. Three days later, the entire Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. Offer them your seat on the tram! 2,000 resistance members involved in underground press alone were arrested during the war. The Anschluss was realized and also the Sudetenland was annexed. [19], Membership of the active resistance, which had been quite low in the early years of the resistance, swelled exponentially during 1944 as it was joined by so-called "resisters of the eleventh hour" (résistants de la onzième heure) who could see that Allied victory was close, particularly in the months after D-Day. [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. [37] In total, 30,000 members of the resistance were captured during the war, of whom 16,000 were executed or died in captivity. Protest against the barbaric measures that are being applied to them. 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. [20], Belgium's strategic location meant that it constituted an important supply hub for the whole German army in Northern Europe and particularly northern France. [53] In April 1944, the Armée Secrète began to adopt an official rank hierarchy and uniform (of white overalls and armband) to be worn on missions in order to give their organization the status of an "official army". In May 1944, the government-in-exile attempted to rebuild its relationship with the resistance by establishing a "Coordination Committee" of representatives of the major groups, including the Légion Belge, Mouvement National Belge, Groupe G and the Front de l'Indépendance. Ironically, there were probably too many of them in a country as small as Belgium and it increased the chance of them being compromised by the Gestapo. Belgium was conquered by Nazi Germany in May 1940. By the end of 1941, ten resistance cells existed in Belgium and by the end of 1942, they operated 25 clandestine transmitters. The ‘Legion Belge’ became the ‘Armée Secrète’ and its first task was to raise 50,000 people who would come under the command of the Allies when required. [19] In this way, they succeeded in intercepting over 20,000 letters. The Belgian Resistance (French: Résistance belge, Dutch: Belgisch verzet) collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between a large number of separate organizations, divided by region and political stances.