page_title: Belgian Resistance
section_title: Growth of resistance
hierarchical_section_title: Belgian Resistance / Background / Growth of resistance
caption_attribution_description: English: Machines used by the Belgian resistance for producing underground newspapers and pamphlets. At the National Museum of the Resistance, Anderlecht.
context_page_description: The Belgian Resistance collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between many separate organizations, divided by region and political stances. The resistance included both men and women from both Walloon and Flemish parts of the country. Aside from sabotage of military infrastructure in the country and assassinations of collaborators, these groups also published large numbers of underground newspapers, gathered intelligence and maintained various escape networks that helped Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines escape from German-occupied Europe.
  During the war, it is estimated that approximately five percent of the national population were involved in some form of resistance activity, while some estimates put the number of resistance members killed at over 19,000; roughly 25 percent of its "active" members.
context_section_description: Among the first members of the Belgian resistance were former soldiers, and in particular officers, who, on their return from prisoner of  war camps, wished to continue the fight against the Germans out of patriotism. Nevertheless, resistance was slow to develop in the first few months of the occupation because it seemed that German victory was imminent. The German failure to invade Great Britain, coupled with aggravating German policies within occupied Belgium, especially the persecution of Belgian Jews and conscription of Belgian civilians into forced labour programmes increasingly turned patriotic Belgian civilians from liberal or Catholic backgrounds against the German regime and towards the resistance. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, members of the Communist Party, which had previously been ambivalent towards both Allied and Axis sides, also joined the resistance en masse, forming their own separate groups calling for a "national uprising" against Nazi rule. During the First World War, Belgium had been occupied by Germany for four years and had developed an effective network of resistance, which provided key inspiration for the formation of similar groups in 1940.
  Most of the resistance was focused in the French-speaking areas of Belgium (Wallonia and the city of Brussels), although Flemish involvement in the resistance was also significant. Around 70 percent of underground newspapers were in French, while 60 percent of political prisoners were Walloon.
caption: Examples of mimeograph machines used by the Belgian resistance to produce illegal newspapers and publications
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