page_title: German occupation of Belgium during World War I
section_title: Political repression
hierarchical_section_title: German occupation of Belgium during World War I / German policies / Political repression
caption_attribution_description: English: The Wire of Death (Dutch: Dodendraad) was a lethal electric fence created by the German military to control the Dutch-Belgian frontier during the occupation of Belgium during the First World War. Photo take in Sluis, the Netherlands Camera location51°&#160;18′&#160;37.59″&#160;N, 3°&#160;23′&#160;18.95″&#160;E&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: The German occupation of Belgium of World War I was a military occupation of Belgium by the forces of the German Empire between 1914 and 1918. Beginning in August 1914 with the invasion of neutral Belgium, the country was almost completely overrun by German troops before the winter of the same year as the Allied forces withdrew westwards. The Belgian government went into exile, while King Albert I and the Belgian Army continued to fight on a section of the Western Front. Under the German military, Belgium was divided into three separate administrative zones. The majority of the country fell within the General Government, a formal occupation administration ruled by a German general, while the others, closer to the front line, came under more repressive direct military rule.
  The German occupation coincided with a widespread economic collapse in Belgium with shortages and widespread unemployment, but also with a religious revival. Relief organisations, which relied on foreign support to bring food and clothing to Belgian civilians, cut off from imports by the Allied naval blockade and the fighting, also became extremely important to the social and cultural life of the country.
context_section_description: Public opposition to the German occupiers was heavily repressed. Displays of patriotism, such as singing the national anthem, La Brabançonne, or celebrating Belgian National Day were banned and those breaking the rules risked strict prison sentences. Newspapers, books and mail were all tightly censored and regulated. Numerous high-profile Belgian figures, including Adolphe Max, the mayor of Brussels, and the historian Henri Pirenne, were imprisoned in Germany as hostages. The aftermath of the Battle of Verdun in 1916 marked a turning point in the occupation and was followed by more repressive measures by the administration, including the deportation of workers to Germany.
  From the time of the invasion, significant numbers of Belgian men had attempted to flee the occupied territories to join the Belgian army on the Yser front, via the Netherlands which were neutral. To stop this, the Germans began work on a barbed wire and electric fence across the length of the border. The fence, dubbed the Wire of Death (Dodendraad), was also guarded by German sentries. Between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians are believed to have been killed attempting to cross the border during the conflict.
  Captured resistance members were also executed by the German authorities. Famously, Edith Cavell, a British nurse who had lived in Belgium before the war, was arrested after helping Allied soldiers to escape the country and was executed by a German firing squad in 1915. Another résistante, Gabrielle Petit, who had participated in various forms of resistance activity, was executed in 1916 at the Tir national in Schaerbeek and became a posthumous national heroine.
caption: The German-constructed Wire of Death along the Belgian-Dutch border
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "De Draden des Doods, een prikkeldraadversperring (prikkeldraad onder stroom) op de Belgische grens tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog (WOI) bij Sluis in Zeeland, Nederland 1915.", "Image Software": "Memorix - pictura-dp.nl", "Image DateTime": "2013:11:29 16:03:06", "Image Artist": "Fotograaf onbekend", "Image Copyright": "Nationaal Archief/Spaarnestad Photo/Het Leven/Fotograaf onbekend"}