The Flamenpolitik of the Prisoners of War

At the capitulation, around two hundred thousand Belgian soldiers were taken prisoner and brought to Germany. The Nazi occupier decided to make this an instrument of its Flamenpolitik — the policy of favouritism towards the Flemish designed to divide the country. By decree, Hitler ordered as early as late May 1940 that Flemish prisoners be separated from Walloon ones.

For the prisoners, the consequence was direct and unequal. Flemish soldiers were, for the most part, gradually released and sent home between the summer of 1940 and early 1941. Walloon soldiers, on the other hand, were largely kept in captivity in Germany, where they would remain for years, subjected to forced labour, with a significant number of deaths.

Let us follow our Walloon prisoner. Faced with this policy, he could passively accept his fate in the hope of a later release; try to pass himself off as Flemish in order to be freed, at the cost of a renunciation; or attempt to escape. The Flamenpolitik confronted prisoners with bitter choices, dictated by a strategy of division they endured without having wished for it.