Flemish policy

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The measures taken by the German Empire and the German Empire in Belgium to attract the Flemings to the German side (German Empire, Austria-Hungary etc.) during the occupation of World War I and World War II are referred to as the Flemish Policy . The conflict between Flemings and Walloons ( Flemish-Walloon conflict ) was used, in particular the discrimination between the Dutch language and French.

First World War

First, the existing Belgian language laws were implemented. In 1916 the first attempt was made to establish the University of Ghent , founded in 1817, as a Dutch-speaking university. In 1917, the country's dominant French state structures were intervened and the administration was separated into a Flemish and a Walloon part. The occupation authorities received support from the so-called Flemish activists, but also from the Flemish Movement . The German Flemish policy is of importance for the rest of Belgian history insofar as the public administration was separated into the Flemish and Walloon population groups on a larger scale for the first time and the state independence of Flanders was demanded.

National Socialism

The West German Research Association , a sub-organization of the Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (VFG), provided arguments against the demarcation of the boundaries according to the Versailles Treaty and for the ethnic integration of Belgian areas as a combative science within the framework of Western research . After the western campaign in 1940, the German Reich sought to promote the collaboration of Flemish forces such as the Flemish National Association through a Flemish policy . This also recruited volunteers for the Flemish Legion , a branch of the Waffen SS .

literature

  • Frank Wende: The Belgian question in German politics during the First World War , Hamburg 1969.
  • Michael Fahlbusch: German Politics and West German Research Association , in: Griff nach dem Westen , Part 2, Waxmann Verlag 2003, ISBN 9783830961444 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean-Michel Veranneman: Belgium in the Second World War , Pen and Sword, 2014, ISBN 9781783376070 , pp. 133 ff.
  2. ^ Karen Shelby: Flemish Nationalism and the Great War: The Politics of Memory, Visual Culture and Commemoration , Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, ISBN 9781137391735 , pp. 144 ff.