Scandal in Belgium: Dozens of Belgians who collaborated with the Nazis continue to receive pensions in Germany – 24/02/2019

Thousands of Belgians collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of Belgium during the Second World War and many joined the Nazi troops who fought on other fronts. Those who did it under the orders of the Wehrmacht (the army) or Waffen-SS paramilitaries (who had more than 10,000 Germans in their ranks) saw how, in 1941, Adolf Hitler He gave them a living pension.

More than 70 years after the end of the military conflagration, dozens of Belgians (at least 22) continue to receive from Germany the pension granted by Hitler, a scandal that wants to end a group of Belgian deputies. They demand from the German government that he communicate to the Belgian authorities the identity of these pensioners and stop paying them the pension. The German embbady in Brussels would have the list but, by order of his government, refuses to hand it over to the Belgian government.

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The decree of the Hitler regime which granted them the life annuity indicates that they were rewarded for "Your loyalty, loyalty and obedience." These "merits" in favor of the Waffen-SS or the German army of the Nazi era are crimes in Belgium, where they become collaborators and traitors to their own country. Belgium judged about 80,000 people after the war for their collaboration with the Nazis. Years later, most were amnestied.

The German historian Martin Göllnitz, a professor at the Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz, explained to Clarin "it is legally problematic to abolish this pension, because the law that governs it does not take into account the sanctions applicable to criminal acts".

Göllnitz believes that "it is not completely clear if the Belgians in this situation served in the Waffen-SS". In addition, he explains that, according to German case law, "to serve voluntarily in the Waffen-SS is equivalent to a military service, for which the members of the Waffen-SS have, at least formally, the right to a pension". According to this professor, this rule "was intended to be treated equally by the law on pensions as the soldiers of the Wehrmacht".

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To complicate matters further, Göllnitz explains that "the voluntary service in the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and other badociations was linked to the acquisition of German nationality by a Hitler decree of May 19, 1943, so that the Belgians , for example, could be legally German citizens whose right to a pension is difficult to refuse ".

The Belgian government of Charles Michel, in a parliamentary minority and with legislative elections in sight (May 26), seeks to avoid the dispute with Berlin, not to thin the relations with an allied and neighboring country. In addition, he tries to avoid that he continues to raise the puff of the debate on colaboracionismo, boring for the flamenco nationalism that supported Michel until the end of the year and who could come back to be part of his government if they could repeat the outgoing coalition.

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The Belgian press announced Thursday that in 1998, Germany already agreed to stop paying pensions to the widows of several Belgians responsible for war crimesbut several dozen people continued to receive these pensions, the amount of which increases or decreases according to a calculation based on the number of years that these employees spent in prison in Belgium. Last year, Germany's ambbadador to Brussels promised to study the role that these retirees played in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS.

Several German deputies also decided to no longer pay this pension. Ulla Jelpke, of the radical left of Die Linke, said that the payment of German pensions to Nazi collaborators was "unacceptable".

Belgium has never treated the wounds that led tens of thousands of Belgians to collaborate with the Nazis, to the point that in 2014, the then Flemish nationalist interior minister Jan Hamon of the N-VA, justified his collaborators. Ham said the flamingos who joined the Nazis "probably had their reasons" and that it was time to "forgive the mistakes" as they were only looking for an independent Flanders.

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The Flemish Parliament voted in 2002 a resolution which, after having condemned the collaborators, did the same with what Flemish nationalism considers as "the excesses of the repression" after the war, namely the processes by which thousands of Belgians have been sentenced. colaboracionismo. The N-VA has already condemned collaborationism in the past.

Nevertheless, some of the leaders of the N-VA continue to be close to former collaborators. Theo Francken, rising figure of this training and former Secretary of State for Migration and Asylum, was introduced on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Bob Maes, former Nazi collaborator and founder of 39, a militia armed right.

Ham appeared at a meeting of Flemish veterans who participated with the German army in the battles of Eastern Europe during World War II. These attitudes show that the N-VA condemns the collaboration without moving away from a flock of nostalgic Flemish voters.