![]() 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. The most widespread form of resistance in occupied Belgium was non-violent. ![]() The Resistance during the German occupation Passive resistance Around 70% of underground newspapers were in French, while 60% of political prisoners were Walloons. Most of the resistance was focused in the French-speaking areas of Belgium ( Wallonia and the city of Brussels), though Flemish involvement in the resistance was also significant. 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. 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. The German failure to invade Great Britain, coupled with aggravating German policies within occupied Belgium - the persecution of Belgian Jews, conscription of Belgian civilians into forced labour programmes - increasingly turned patriotic Belgian civilians from liberal or Catholic backgrounds against the German regime and towards the resistance. Nevertheless, resistance was slow to develop in the first few months of the occupation because it seemed that German victory was imminent. The Belgian government fled first to Bordeaux in France, and then to London in England.Īmong 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. Leopold III, king and commander in chief of the army, also surrendered to the Germans on 28 May along with his army and remained a prisoner for the rest of the war. Most were made prisoners of war and detained in camps in Germany, though some were released before the end of the war. During the fighting, between 600,000 and 650,000 Belgian men (nearly 20% of the country's male population) had served in the military. ![]() After 18 days of fighting, Belgium surrendered on 28 May and was placed under German occupation. German forces invaded Belgium, which had been following a policy of neutrality, on. During the war, it is estimated that approximately 5% of the national population were involved in some form of resistance activity, while some estimates put the number of resistance members killed at over 19,000 roughly 25% of its "active" members. The resistance included both men and women, from both Walloon and Flemish parts of the country. Aside from sabotage of military infrastructure in the country and assassinations of collaborators, these groups also published underground newspapers, gathered intelligence and maintained various escape networks that helped Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines escape Occupied Europe. Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between a large number of different organizations, divided by regional and political stances. ) was the collection of resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The Belgian Resistance (French language: Résistance belge, Dutch language: Belgisch verzet Members of the Belgian resistance with a Canadian soldier in Bruges, September 1944.
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