Life in the Shadow

Reconstruction got under way in Belgium last week with Nazi supervision. Plans for replacing demolished town halls, stations, apartment houses and schools all bore the stamp of Hitler-style architecture; Nazi commissioners made it clear that the new Belgium must harmonize even architecturally with the German model.

Belgian economy was also being adapted to Nazi needs. Coal mines and metallurgical plants worked overtime to supply Germany's war machine, but because of a raw-material shortage, other industries in general employed only 20% of their staffs. Chief problems were 1,000,000 refugees to be brought home, and over 1,000,000 unemployed. Thousands without jobs joined labor squads to work in Germany.

Financially, Belgium was prostrate. Her gold was blocked in England and the U. S., and domestic bank accounts were frozen except for small monthly allowances to families. To divorce Belgium from the gold standard, German authorities opened a new note-issuing bank, prepared to circulate money based on land, property and labor.

Political reconstruction was also in progress under Max Liebe, prewar Nazi agent and spy, now Counselor of the German Embassy. King Leopold was immured in Laeken Palace, still a national hero because he foresaw the approaching debacle and acted in time to save countless Belgian lives. Discredited because it fled at the moment of crisis, the refugee Government of Hubert Pierlot (still in Vichy) prepared its resignation last week, hoped the Nazis would permit its members to return as ordinary refugees. In Brussels pro-German Henri de Man, onetime Minister of Finance and President of the Belgian Labor Party, was rated as the Belgian equivalent of Pierre Laval in France. Leon Degrelle, flashy Fuehrer of the Belgian Rexist (fascist) Party, was released from prison by the Nazis and worked hard to gain power.

Fascist editors took charge of leading newspapers, and a new Nazi organ, Brusseler Zeitung, assured Belgians daily that Germany had already won the war, that all Europe must be Nazified. Although the conquerors had not made their final will known, they patronized Rexist and Flemish extremists who advocated a new "Dietsch" State composed of Belgium, The Netherlands and northeastern France.

Morally, the Belgians were resigned and bitter. They obeyed but did not fraternize with German soldiers. The Nazi soldiers, under strict military orders, committed no outrages; handbills invited Belgians to report misconduct by Germans to the police. As crushing to Belgians as German domination and approaching famine was their complete isolation. Since the day of invasion they had been without postal, telephone or wireless communication. Like the Poles and Czechs, they had dropped out of the world.

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