Joining the VNV or Rex

With the occupation, the movements that advocate collaboration with Germany emerge strengthened. In Flanders, the VNV (Vlaams Nationaal Verbond), Flemish nationalist, hopes to obtain Flemish autonomy or independence from the occupier. In Wallonia and Brussels, Léon Degrelle's Rex movement, hesitant at first, slides towards an increasingly open collaboration. Both promise order, careers and a place in the "new European order".

For you, won over or opportunistic, the temptation arises. To join one of these movements, out of conviction, ambition or to benefit from the occupier's favours. To stay clear of any commitment, in cautious neutrality. Or to oppose them openly, at the risk of reprisals.

The stakes are moral as much as political: to choose collaboration is to bet on a German victory and to place oneself on the side of the occupier; to abstain is to wait, sometimes out of calculation, sometimes out of patriotism. In the summer of 1940, the future appears sealed in Germany's favour, which makes the collaborationist temptation all the stronger.