page_title: Baudouin of Belgium
section_title: Childhood and accession
hierarchical_section_title: Baudouin of Belgium / Childhood and accession
caption_attribution_description: English: two brother (future Kings Baudouin and Albert II of Belgium)
context_page_description: Baudouin reigned as King of the Belgians, following his father's abdication, from 1951 until his death in 1993. He was the last Belgian king to be sovereign of the Congo.
  He was the elder son of King Leopold III and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. Because he and his wife, Queen Fabiola, had no children, at Baudouin's death the crown passed to his younger brother, King Albert II.
context_section_description: Baudouin was born in the Château du Stuyvenberg, near Laeken, Brussels, in Belgium, in 1930, the elder son and second child of Prince Leopold, then Duke of Brabant, and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. In 1934, Baudouin's grandfather King Albert I of Belgium was killed in a rock climbing accident; Leopold became king and the three-year-old Baudouin became Duke of Brabant as heir apparent to the throne. Baudouin's mother died in 1935 in an automobile accident, when Baudouin was nearly five. His education began at the age of seven, his tutors taught him half his lessons in French and half in Flemish. He frequently accompanied his father to parades and ceremonies and became well known to the public.
  Despite maintaining strict neutrality during the opening months of the Second World War, on 10 May 1940, Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany. Baudouin, his elder sister Princess Josephine-Charlotte and his younger brother Prince Albert, were immediately sent to France for safety and then to Spain. The Belgian Army, assisted by the French and British, conducted a defensive campaign lasting 18 days, but Leopold, who had taken personal command, surrendered unconditionally on 28 May. Although the Belgian government escaped to form a Belgian government in exile, Leopold elected to remain in Belgium, and was placed under house arrest at the Palace of Laeken, from where he attempted to reach an understanding with the Germans, especially in respect of Belgian prisoners of war who were being held in Germany. The children returned to Laeken from Spain on 6 August.
  Leopold had established a royal Scout group at the palace for his sons, whose members were drawn from the various Belgian Scout associations. In April 1943, the wearing of uniforms was banned by the occupation forces and although Leopold was told that the royal group was exempt, insisted that the ban should apply to them too. However, Baudouin was about to be invested as a Scout and persuaded his father to delay the ban for one day so that the ceremony could take place. 
  Immediately following the Normandy landings in June 1944, the king, his new wife Lilian, Princess of Réthy, whom he had married in September 1941, and the royal children, were deported to Hirschstein in Germany and then to Strobl in Austria from where they were liberated in May 1945 by the United States Army. However, the royal family were prevented from returning to Belgium by the "Royal Question" over whether Leopold had collaborated with the Nazis; the surrender in 1940, his refusal to join the government-in-exile, his fruitless visit to Adolf Hitler at the Berghof in November 1940 and his unconstitutional marriage to Lilian whose father was believed to be pro-Nazi. Until a political solution could be found, the king's brother, Prince Charles became regent and the royal family lived at the Château du Reposoir in Pregny-Chambésy, Switzerland. Baudouin continued his education at a secondary school in Geneva and visited the United States in 1948. In a referendum in March 1950, the public narrowly voted for the king to return and he was recalled on 4 June 1950. However, parliamentary dissent and public protests forced Leopold to delegate his powers to Baudouin on 11 August 1950, and finally to abdicate in favour of Baudouin, who took the oath of office as the fifth King of the Belgians on 17 July 1951.
caption: Prince Baudouin (left) and his brother Prince Albert, circa 1940.
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