King Leopold Vindicated

A British radio interview with the younger Lord Roger Keyes in defense of King Leopold III. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Daniel Wybo for bringing this to my attention.

When the Invader Came

A war correspondent's report on the courage and steadfastness of the Belgian people during the second German assault on their country in a generation. Although the King and his government were soon to suffer a fatal rift, it is undoubtedly true that all parties showed bravery in the common struggle against the invader.

We should like to describe the most reckless and the most abject of the exploits of the parachutists, but we doubt whether the censor will allow it. The brave King Leopold III had joined his Army on the morning of the Friday. Nazi espionage, it seems, had discovered the position from which he was to direct operations. 

It was a fort on the outskirts of Liege. A long succession of parachutists descended from the clouds and attempted to seize the Sovereign. The bravery of the Belgian soldiers made their efforts vain, but the fort in question was attacked unceasingly until finally, after the King had gone to another part of the front line, it was captured. The attitude of the young King, together with the legendary heroism of the Belgian soldiers and the calm energy of the Government, maintained the morale of the population. The wireless had at first announced that the King would speak to his people, but his message was in fact published in the newspapers, for the King was unwilling to lose a single minute that he could devote to his duties as Commander-in-Chief of his armies. This little story, quickly spread among the people, made a great impression. The calm dignity of the session of the two Chambers happily supported the example given by the King. And the Ministers were not less deserving of admiration. The dramatic interview between M. Spaak and the German Ambassador will long be remembered. The "moi d'abord" with which M. Spaak compelled his visitor to listen to a reply anticipating the humiliating proposals which he brought, was more spectacular in its proud defiance, but it was not finer than the courage of M. Pierlot. I met the Prime Minister on the morning of Saturday, the 11th, as he was walking quite alone, his despatch case in his hand, on his way on foot from his modest home to the Government buildings in the Rue de la Loi. Was this to show to all that Belgium had nothing to fear from a Fifth Column ? And his speeches, in which each evening he brought consolation to his countrymen, were courageous, resolute but never unwarrantably optimistic. 

And the people themselves, so good, so honest, so loyal, so valiant and so undeservedly embroiled in a fearful slaughter. To them all honour is due. Never was such a rude awakening suffered with such serenity. Nothing but the necessities of the Army was allowed to interfere in any degree with the normal tempo of life. Men continued quietly in their occupations. The flower-sellers, the newspaper sellers in Brussels never left their pitches during air-raid alarms. The newspapers carried their long lists of small advertisements, a thousand petty transactions which proceeded as if nothing had happened. The shops where food was sold, wonderfully stocked, were undisturbed by pillagers or by hoarders. Slowly, almost cheerfully, people set to work to make their arrangements for a black-out, and to protect their windows from the flying fragments of bombs. No panic, no despair. But an anger which will never more forgive this second attack on an innocent country. These Belgians do not harbour any illusions. They know that they must pass through the ordeal of a second occupation by the enemy. But they are none the less convinced of the final victory of the Allies and of a glorious future for their country. 

A conviction so firm, so religious, inspires them in the face of danger and of death ; the beautiful serenity of soul which Faith gives to the Believer. That, and that alone, explains the appearance of Brussels. When I left there at the week-end following the invasion, the streets were filled again with strollers, the cafes and the restaurants, at the hours within which they were allowed to supply food, were full. And but a little way away, at the gates of the city, holiday-makers stared at the military transports, sunning themselves and taking the air just as if the German aeroplanes had not taken the air at dawn on May 10th. (Read entire article)

Outrageous Fortune

Here is a review from the Catholic Herald of the first of the series of books by the younger Roger Keyes defending the memory of King Leopold III. Although I have had an interest in Belgian history and an admiration for King Albert I since childhood, I had the usual negative opinion of his son as a weak ruler of doubtful loyalties until reading Outrageous Fortune: The Tragedy of Leopold III of the Belgians (1984) a few years ago. The elder Roger Keyes, a British admiral and former liaison officer in Belgium, was one of the most notable public figures to defend Leopold from the accusations of treason brought against him by French Premier Paul Reynaud and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Following the Belgian capitulation to the invading Germans on May 28, 1940, King Leopold was accused of surrendering to the Nazis prematurely, of failing to give the Allies due warning of his imminent capitulation, and of thereby causing the Allied disaster necessitating the evacuation from Dunkirk. Keyes, who had remained with the King throughout the bitter Belgian campaign, was in a position to know the truth of Leopold's surrender, and strove to disprove the allegations of treachery. Out of filial piety and apparently sincere sympathy and admiration for a much-maligned monarch, Keyes' son and namesake continued the battle to rehabilitate Leopold after his father's death. In Outrageous Fortune, he contends that the King, far from betraying his allies, was cruelly betrayed by his allies and even by his own ministers. Some find his account to be too hagiographic, but I have seen a great deal of evidence from many sources, much of which I have shared on this blog, confirming his basic portrayal of Leopold as a decent, honorable man whose name was unfairly dragged through the mud.

Roger Keyes has set about putting the record straight. He is highly qualified to do so. His father was a very distinguished British naval officer who, during the 1914-18 war, led the operation that blocked the main German submarine base on the Belgian coast at Zeebrugge. During the second world war, he contributed not a little to bringing down Neville Chamberlain's government and acted as Churchill's personal representative with King Leopold before becoming the founder of the Commandos.

The author therefore had at his disposal his father's memories of the events concerned and a mass of hitherto unpublished material. Not content with this, he has clearly undertaken a major and very painstaking job of research into anything that might touch either on Leopold's personality or the details of Belgian politics — many of them sordid, which affected his position. 

Let it be said straightaway that Roger Keyes neither is, nor pretends to be, unbiased. In so far as he is concerned, Leopold was a strong, wise and good man who became the victim of a host of malevolent dwarfs, first among them Paul Reynaud, the French Prime Minister who ushered France into abject defect in 1940.

This takes nothing away from the merits of the present volume, since a thorough vindication of Leopold's part in the Franco-British response to Hitler's intentions in the West was long overdue. And it lends interest in advance to the second volume of this biography, yet to be published, which will deal with the further troubles of the king as a prisoner of the Germans, his second marriage and the events that led to his abdication in 1951, when his wisdom and handling of events appeared much more questionable.

I also found the second volume, Échec au Roi: Léopold III 1940-1951 (1986) [King in Check: Leopold III 1940-1951] to be very helpful, especially in elaborating upon the role of the extreme, internationalist left in orchestrating the general strike to force Leopold's abdication and generally doing everything possible to destroy the Belgian monarchy. In this book, Keyes is more critical of the King, questioning the wisdom of his second marriage, his insistence on solemn reparation from his ministers, and his failure to insist on returning to Belgium immediately after his liberation from Nazi captivity in Austria in 1945. All in all, Keyes creates the impression of a high-minded monarch who nevertheless committed a series of fatal political errors, by being either too forceful or too gentle. This may be a valid portrayal, although I found it foolish to suggest that Leopold would have been politically better advised to keep Lilian Baels as his mistress. It is often said that the Belgians would have been more indulgent towards an affair, rather than a second marriage, since the idea of anyone replacing their idolized Queen Astrid seemed unthinkable. I *highly* doubt, however, that Leopold's enemies would have missed the golden opportunity to castigate him for indulging in a love affair while his people were suffering, especially in view of the fact that the accusations of treason had already been accompanied by accusations of sexual depravity. In fact, as Keyes himself discusses elsewhere in the book, one of the most infamous of the many attacks on Princess Lilian was the claim that she was pregnant before the altar. (In fact, the religious marriage of Leopold and Lilian took place ten months before the birth of their first child.)

Keyes hoped but never managed to write a third volume detailing Leopold's life after his abdication, a time of comparative joy and serenity, rich in scientific and humanitarian accomplishments. For those interested in this period, I can recommend Jean Cleeremans' Léopold III, homme libre: chronique des années 1951-1983 (2001).

An Appeal for Peace

Here is an appeal for peace launched by King Leopold III of the Belgians on August 23, 1939, along with the responses of other world leaders.  King Leopold was speaking on behalf of the Oslo Group of Powers, namely the Scandinavian and Benelux countries, assembled in conference in Brussels.  

Have not the small Powers reason to fear that they will be victims in a subsequent conflict into which they will be dragged against their will in spite of their policy of indisputable independence and of their firm desire for neutrality? Are they not liable to become the subject of arrangements reached without their having been consulted? 

Even if hostilities do not begin, the world is menaced by economic collapse. Mistrust and suspicion reign everywhere. Beneath our very eyes the camps are forming, armies are gathering and a fearful struggle is being prepared in Europe. Is our continent to commit suicide in a terrifying war at the end of which no nation could call itself victor or vanquished, but in which the spiritual and material values created by centuries of civilisation would founder? 

War psychosis is invading every home, and although conscious of the unimaginable catastrophe which a conflagration would mean for all mankind, public opinion abandons itself more and more to the idea that we are inevitably to be dragged into it. It is important to react against so fatal a spirit of resignation. 

There is no people-we assert it with confidence-which would wish to send its children to death in order to take away from other nations that right to existence which it claims for itself. 

It is true that all States do not have the same interests, but are there any interests which cannot be infinitely better reconciled before than after a war? 

The consciousness of the world must be awakened. The worst can still be avoided, but time is short. The sequence of events may soon render all direct contact still more difficult. 

Let there be no mistake. We know that the right to live must rest on a solid basis, and the peace that we desire is the peace in which the rights of all nations shall be respected. A lasting peace cannot be founded on force, but only on a moral order. (Read full article)

The Trials of Leopold III

An insightful article by Robert J. Stove, discussing the trials of Leopold III in the context of the future of the Australian monarchy.  How Leopold's ministers, such as Paul-Henri Spaak and Hubert Pierlot, frequently switched allegiances, is particularly well described.

From 1945 to 1950 Léopold, having been kept in Austria by his German captors since they lost control of Belgium, lived in Switzerland, while Brussels' politicians debated - with what conclusiveness could be predicted from their pre-war antics - the issue of whether he should be allowed to return. Those who argued that he be kept out included, unsurprisingly, Pierlot and Spaak, who (displaying a sheer balletic agility which deserved a nobler purpose) now maintained that the pro-Léopold pronouncements in 1941-1944 should be disregarded, and that their anti-Léopold pronouncements of 1940 should alone be believed. In their latest volte-face they burdened themselves with the same credibility problems faced by the constant liar invoked in first-year logic lectures, who admits to being a constant liar; but they at least ensured a state of limbo for Léopold himself, which threatened (or promised) to become permanent. After five years successive coalitions having risen and fallen on the specific issue of what to do about Léopold, and the Fleming-versus- Walloon rift having widened anew - the Flemings being predominantly pro-Léopold, the Walloons predominantly anti - a referendum could be put off no longer. 

At the polls on 12 March 1950, 57.7% of voters favoured Léopold's return with full kingly powers. Four months later Parliament itself voted on exactly the same subject, and sanctioned Léopold's return by a similar margin. Accordingly, Léopold made his way back to his kingdom. When he set foot on Belgian territory, his popular support vanished like a dream. Strikes broke out in essential industries, as Spaak threatened the King that they would; police firing on rioters in Liége, killed three men; and foreign reporters spoke in complete seriousness of civil war. Most alarmingly of all, an angry mob charged Laekens gates, demand that Léopold abdicate or face the punishment of any other collaborator. Leading this mob was (who else) Spaak.

After a week, the authorities concerned reached the type of mutually unsatisfying judicial solution that Esquire once unforgettably described as 'everyone gets to take home half the baby'. Léopold agreed, not only to resign the crown in a year's time - when his son and heir Baudouin would have turned twenty-one - but to forfeit all the rights of kingship on 11 August. Until Baudouin attained his majority, monarchial functions would repose in Léopold's younger brother Charles. Meanwhile Spaak would continue to control the Cabinet (as he had done de facto since 1937), in the role of either Prime Minister or Foreign Minister, and sometimes in both roles at once. In early 1969 Spaak gave a television interview of what the Evening Standard's Paris correspondent Sam White called 'almost embarassing frankness'. Spaak freely conceded that Reynaud, when accusing Léopold of deliberately concealing from Britain and France his intention to surrender, had not merely mistaken but actively mendacious; and that Léopold behaviour in l940 had Spaak's full approval. As White noted in the Evening Standard of 3 January 1969, 'Even though it comes a quarter of a century too late it is good of M. Paul-Henri Spaak ... to have finally come clean regarding the events of 1940'. Spaak died in 1972, nine years after Pierlot; Léopold lived till 1983; Baudouin survived his father by a decade.

The Return of Old Friends

I am delighted that the wonderful website of the Cercle Léopold III is once more online.  For a long time, it seemed to have disappeared from cyberspace.  Founded on Belgian National Day, July 21, 2002, this Franco-Belgian association is dedicated to illuminating the controversial reign of Leopold III, and to preserving and defending his memory from false accusations.  "A fidelity to the honor of a man," is the motto of the organization.  Established in Prigonrieux, in Dordogne, and headquartered at the Château du Haut Pezaud, in Monbazillac, France, the Cercle Léopold III enjoys the patronage of Princess Marie-Esmeralda, the King's youngest daughter.  The late French writer Marcel Jullian, a friend of Leopold and his second wife, Princess Lilian, served as honorary president before his death.  Jacques Borgers, of the World Organization of the Periodical Press,  was given the presidency.  The association is open to membership by individuals of all nationalities.  The website is replete with many fascinating historical articles, book summaries, news updates, and beautiful photographs. Unfortunately, the texts tend to be only in French.

The Life of Queen Maria José

As May draws to a close, I encourage everyone to read this excellent account from the Mad Monarchist. I especially like his suggestion that the horrors of the hideous First World War may have enhanced the young Belgian princess' love of beauty.

Ioanna of Bulgaria

Another tragic sister-in-law of Queen Maria José. She was more fortunate than Astrid and Mafalda, though.

A Man of Honor

Here are some reflections on Leopold's surrender to the Nazis from Joseph E. Davies, United States ambassador to Belgium from 1938-1940.

What were all of considerations which led to his decision to capitulate in the face of superior force, I do not know. But there is one thing to which I am sure I could with certainty testify, and that is that the decision which he arrived at, in my opinion, could never have had at its base any ignoble or selfish purpose. Whatever decision he arrived at could never be one other than that which he considered was necessary for the protection of Belgium and the Belgian people, and one consistent with his personal honor. To impute to this man an ignoble purpose in his tragic decision is, in my opinion, to do a violent wrong to a noble man and a very great Christian gentleman.

In this connection, it should not be forgotten that had the King of the Belgians taken an airplane to Paris or to London, leaving his Army to the command of his Chief of Staff in the field, he would have been relieved of the personal criticism from those who have been most bitter in their denunciation. There is no doubt but what King Leopold walked in the Garden of Gethsemane through that night of decision. He made his choice, not by the easiest way. His decision once made, he traveled the rugged path of what he considered to be duty and honor. He elected to travel that path to be with his soldiers and to remain with his people in their trouble.

The verdict of history may be that possibly he erred in judgment. My voice, from such facts as I know, would be raised against that conclusion. Personally, from what I know of his ability, I would place very great reliance upon his accurate assessment of the conditions which he faced, and also upon the quality of good judgment which he would apply thereto. This would be based upon what I personally know to have been the thoroughness with which he approached problems when I was in Belgium and the good judgment and extraordinary ability which he applied thereto.

Be that as it may, however, I am sure that the verdict of history in this situation will be that the personal honor and nobility of Leopold of Belgium was sustained in his time of trial and was clean and high. In my opinion it could not possibly be anything else. (The Belgian Campaign and the Surrender of the Belgian Army: May 10-28, 1940, Belgian American Educational Foundation, Inc., New York, 1941, pp. 78-79).

A Royal Patriot

A sensitive tribute to King Leopold III, dated November 17, 1940, from a former United States ambassador to Belgium, The Honorable William Phillips.

While my service as Ambassador in Brussels was during the reign of King Albert, I had the privilege of coming into frequent contact with the then Prince Leopold, and it was during those years that I grew to appreciate his sterling qualities.

The happy associations which I had with the Royal Family are very precious memories, for there one found a combination of simplicity and dignity and of unsparing effort to help every cause which had for its purpose the welfare of the people.

The Belgian Crown stood for all that is highest and noblest among nations and mankind, and King Albert had become one of the outstanding figures of the world.

It was through the period of the tragedies of the World War and in such a developing atmosphere that Leopold, the son, passed the formative years of his boyhood.

He must have been conscious of the powerful bond between sovereign and people which had grown through those years of tragedy and it is not surprising to find in him many of the same noble qualities of his parents - the high sense of responsibility, the utter devotion to duy, the spirit of willing self-sacrifice and love for his people- the same sterling qualities which make him also a symbol, to his people and to all the world, of Belgian independence.

Governed always by the highest principles, King Leopold may be counted upon to do everything in his power and judgment for the welfare and future happiness of his beloved people, for he is a true Belgian patriot, and the son of a great King. (The Belgian Campaign and the Surrender of the Belgian Army: May 10-28, 1940, Belgian American Educational Foundation, Inc., New York, 1941, p. 82)

The Royal Family in Captivity: Part IV

Widowed Queen Elisabeth with her grandchildren Joséphine-Charlotte, Baudouin and Albert

(Continued from Parts I, II, and III)

"I am sad that you cannot see the rose garden. All is so lovely! There are very beautiful lilies in the garden of my studio, and, while passing by, I saw the beautiful lilies blooming, around the bungalow, which has such a desperate air, with their eyes closed, all red. The little owls walk about on the golf course, and gaze at you from close up, astonished to see a human being. There are also a couple of marvelous hoopoes which do not fly off until the last moment when you approach them.When you return, it will be a jungle!" ~Queen Elisabeth describes the park at Laeken in a wartime letter to her son and his family, held hostage far from home by the Nazis

It amazes me that Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians is sometimes portrayed as a cold, hard figure. The care packages and poignant letters, sprinkled with affectionate phrases and drawings of flowers, that she tried to send to her son, King Leopold III, her daughter-in-law, Princess Lilian, and her grandchildren during their days of fear and deprivation in German captivity are eminent proof of her warm, loving nature. Sadly, however, she was only very rarely able to communicate with her imprisoned loved ones, or materially to alleviate their sufferings, although her prayers surely brought them spiritual strength. Instead, it was Princess Lilian, so often maligned as a selfish woman of pleasure, who daily cared for the family, with great abnegation.

After their imprisonment had dragged on for nine months, Elisabeth's son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren finally left the frightening fortress of Hirschstein at the beginning of March, 1945. Yet it was only to begin a new, sinister chapter in their captivity. En route to Strobl, Austria, the royal family reached Munich just in time for a terrible bombardment. While the population fled to shelters, the prisoners were forbidden from following suit. Colonel Lürker, the King's S.S. gaoler, even locked the royal family in a car under a bridge, before absconding with the rest of the German guards. Terrified by the inferno, the children burst into tears. After the danger had passed, leaving Munich in ruins, a furious Leopold would confront Lürker upon his return.

By a strange twist of fate, the convoy also spent time at the nearby Braunhaus, a property of Hitler, where some prominent Nazis had been invited to a banquet. The bombardment of Munich, however, had prevented their arrival. The repast fell instead to the King's gaolers. Meanwhile, the royal prisoners seized the opportunity to bathe comfortably for the first time in months. They also enjoyed a few leftovers from the banquet. After so much hunger, butter seemed an untold luxury and delight. As a memento of this bizarre evening, Princess Lilian mischievously managed to purloin a napkin marked A.H. Decades later, she humorously confided to the journalists Marcel Jullian and Claude Désiré that this was the only theft of her life...

The morning after this brief respite from misery, the journey to Strobl resumed its weary pace, traveling towards Salzburg, amidst bitterly cold weather. The royal family spent hours shivering in a tunnel during another bombardment. It was nearly midnight by the time the convoy finally reached the small village of Strobl, in the heart of the Salzkammergut. A wooden chalet, isolated from the rest of the local population, and surrounded with barbed wire fences, awaited the hostages. As at Hirschstein, they would live at close quarters, under cruel and humiliating conditions. Their diet remained poor, although it was fortunately supplemented by the dandelions growing plentifully in the garden. The prisoners' treatment, moreover, became harsher as the months passed, as their routine walks in the garden, initially allowed three times a week, were eventually forbidden.

As described by Roger Keyes in Échec au Roi, the Vicomte du Parc, governor of Prince Baudouin,  when asked years later about the period at Strobl, could find no words to describe the horror of these final months in captivity. As the Allied armies approached Strobl, the prisoners feared that they would be massacred by their gaolers, as a desperate, fanatical act of vengeance. The tragic fate of the Romanovs haunted the Saxe-Coburgs... Indeed, at the beginning of May, shortly before their liberation by American troops under the command of General Alexander Patch, an S.S. officer gave Princess Lilian a box of blue pills, claiming that they were vitamin supplements, and advising her to distribute them to the whole family. Duly suspicious, she did not do so. The pills were later tested by the Americans and found to contain cyanide. How often had Providence saved King Leopold and his loved ones!

References:

Cleeremans, Jean. Léopold III, sa famille, et son peuple sous l'occupation. 1987.
Cleeremans, Jean. Un royaume pour un amour: Léopold III, de l'éxil à l'abdication. 1989.
Désire, Claude and Marcel Jullian. Un couple dans la tempête. 2005.
Dujardin, Vincent, van den Wijngaert, Mark, et. al. Léopold III. 2001.
Keyes, Roger. Echec au Roi: Léopold III, 1940-1951. 1986.

The Royal Family in Captivity: Part III

Prince Baudouin, the heir to the throne, at Hirschstein

(Continued from Part I and Part II)

As we recently celebrated Epiphany, perhaps it is appropriate to recall how the royal hostages spent their first Christmas in captivity at the dreary fortress of Hirschstein. Shortly before Christmas, Hitler had sent a message to his prisoners, grandiosely inquiring if they had any wishes he might grant. Wary of being placed in their enemy's debt, King Leopold and his family had only one request: they would be glad to have a priest to celebrate midnight Mass. A man in clerical garb promptly arrived, claiming to be a priest from the medieval monastery of Klosterneuberg, founded, ironically enough, by St. Leopold of Babenburg, Margrave of Austria. Posing as sympathetic and solicitous, the man offered to hear the prisoners' confessions. The quick-witted Princess Lilian, who was familiar with Klosterneuberg, had the good sense to cross-question him first, to determine whether he were an impostor. Finding that he was unable even to give a correct reply concerning the location of his supposed monastery, she quietly told her husband that the man was certainly not from Klosterneuberg, and that she doubted whether he were a priest at all. As described in Un couple dans la tempête, however, King Leopold indulged his ironic sense of humor by agreeing to let the man hear his confession and by submitting to a series of highly indiscreet questions under the guise of fatherly pastoral care. As the impostor prepared to deliver absolution, however, his royal penitent stopped him and sent him away, unmasked. Together with his family and small band of faithful followers, all King Leopold could do to commemorate Our Savior's birth was to sing Minuit Chrétien and Stille Nacht, to piano accompaniment. Princess Lilian gave the royal children watercolors she had painted using a box of colors smuggled into her luggage on the journey from Brussels. She had fashioned the picture-frames out of branches gathered in the small garden of Hirschstein.

As always, the King was determined that his household should display dignity and courage in adversity and resist the temptation to despair. Christmas was not the first time that they had bravely improvised a humble, poignant celebration.  On July 21, 1944, just over a month after their deportation, they had fervently celebrated their national holiday, albeit with meagre means. They had managed to construct a Belgian flag, using strips of red, yellow and black fabric, stitched together with vegetable fibers. The flag was draped over the poorly tuned piano, and M. Weemaes was able to play a few measures of the Belgian national anthem, the Brabançonne, bringing tears to the eyes of his fellow sufferers. Throughout the long months at Hirschstein, the King and his officers wore their uniforms at table and the children's lessons and games continued. Princess Lilian even composed and directed a play, Pygmalion, giving roles to the different members of the family. Whenever possible, the children exercised outside, in the small garden. They suffered severely from malnutrition.  Albert eventually developed hunger edema; little Alexandre, rickets. In January, 1945, while the princes were helping to build a sled, Albert also seriously injured his thigh. Mishandled by an S.S. officer, the wound became dangerously infected and began to putrefy. At Lilian's insistence, the family's gaoler, the S.S.  Colonel Lürker, perhaps afraid of being blamed for the death of a royal hostage, summoned a distinguished physician from Dresden, Professor Lang, to treat the prince. The man was obliged to disinfect and bandage the gangrenous wound in silence, as he had been forbidden to speak with the prisoners.  Thankfully, Albert's leg was saved. A Nazi physician, Dr. Ghebart, also arrived to examine the boy, sadistically seizing the opportunity to shock Leopold and Lilian with descriptions of the experiments he had secretly performed upon political prisoners in concentration camps. The King's blood froze with horror. Leopold and Lilian also had the frightening feeling that their tormentor did not expect them to live to repeat the revelations. Further traumas would follow in February, with the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden. The inferno was clearly visible from the windows of Hirchstein, so dazzling that night and day were equally bright. On Ash Wednesday, the capital of Saxony lay in ashes. The icy Elbe carried countless charred and mangled corpses past the royal family's horrified eyes. Lilian especially remembered seeing the bodies of two women, floating hand in hand, surely mother and daughter. 

Meanwhile, at the beginning of February, in an ominous new development, the King had been threatened with separation from his entourage. Due to the advance of the Soviet army, he had been told, the royal family would be transported to a new place of detention in southern Germany. His suite would be moved to yet another location. Leopold immediately protested this scheme, refusing to be divided from any of his companions. To Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Gestapo, he sent the following telegram: "It has been communicated to me that an order of displacement could soon be given to me and that the persons who have voluntarily accompanied us in captivity would be directed to a different destination. I express the formal desire that these persons, for whose fate I am responsible, may continue to share my captivity and that they may not be suddenly isolated in this manner. In addition, there are, among these persons, three officers, for whom I demand a treatment compatible with their rank". Departure would be delayed until March, and the royal party would be allowed to travel together to their next prison, the villa of Strobl, Austria, opening a new chapter of their weary captivity.

(to be continued)

The Royal Family in Captivity: Part II

The deportation of the Royal Family

(Continued from Part I)

While King Leopold III, brave but forlorn, suffered through his first miserable night at Hirschstein, his wife, Princess Lilian, struggled valiantly at Laeken to protect his family. On the morning of June 7, 1944, immediately following the King's departure, she had been told by Captain Büntinck, an aide of Colonel Kiewitz, that she, too, would be deported to Germany, along with her three step-children and her little son. This second sadistic order came at a particularly cruel moment. Alexandre was still only a toddler, Baudouin was recovering from scarlet fever and Albert suffering from mumps. Joséphine-Charlotte, for her part, was only sixteen. Outraged, Lilian vehemently protested and tried her utmost to frustrate the plan, mobilizing all her connections and managing to gain a reprieve of forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law, Queen Elisabeth, transmitted a message to Büntinck to convey to Berlin by telephone. Her words were chosen carefully to exploit the official pretext for deporting the Royal Family, a supposed concern for their safety: "Before leaving, the King, my son, unable to do so himself as a result of his sudden departure, asked me to transmit to the government of the Reich the following message: 'It would politically intolerable and have the worst possible effect on the Belgian people to cause the King to depart with all his family and to place them in safety, while the people are suffering and the other prisoners of war are separated from their families.' He did this in complete accord with the Princess, my daughter-in-law. A decision is urgently required."

Not surprisingly, the Queen's effort failed. During the night of June 8-9, with the aid of a chauffeur and two gardeners, the Princess set to work concealing the cars belonging to the Royal Court. She was determined to obstruct the journey as long as possible. By dawn, all but one of the vehicles had been hidden in one of the galleries of the castle. Finding the garages empty, the Gestapo were frustrated and furious, but eventually managed to gather enough cars to form a convoy. Meanwhile, Cardinal van Roey, the President and the General Procurator of the Court of Cassation had been summoned to Laeken to witness the violence done to the Royal Family and the official protest of the Princess. The King's consort gave Captain Büntinck the following message: "On June 7, 1944, learning that the order had been given for the transfer of his family to Germany, the King immediately demanded that they be allowed to continue to reside in Belgium. I share the King's views entirely, and I have advised you of it. On June 8, I associated myself with the demand made by the Queen of the German authorities to obtain the withdrawal of this decision. This morning, at three o'clock, you informed me that the order for departure was being upheld, and that the King's family had to leave the castle of Laeken at two o'clock in the afternoon. I protest the measure of which the princes and myself are the object; we will depart, therefore, only because we are constrained to do so." Prince Baudouin, the young heir to the throne, left a touching note for a friend: "I am writing you a short letter before leaving for captivity in Germany. It is terrible. But events require it. I thank you for your kind letter. See you soon, I hope."

That afternoon, the Royal Family would indeed begin their tedious and traumatic journey, but not before long discussions regarding the composition of the Princess' suite had further delayed departure. Two of the children's nannies, Mme. Schepers and Mlle. Henrard, offered to share their mistress' captivity, and were allowed to accompany her. The governor of the heir to the throne, the Vicomte du Parc, and one of the attachés of the King's cabinet, M. Weemaes, were also authorized to join the forlorn little party. (Initially, a physician, Dr. Rahier, was permitted to come, but was later ominously ordered to return to Belgium before reaching the Royal Family's place of detention). Towards evening, Princess Lilian and her fellow hostages finally had to bid a heartrending adieu to a tearful assembly of the rest of the royal staff.  Following in the the footsteps of their husband, father and Sovereign, but cruelly kept in ignorance of his fate or their own destination, the anxious prisoners finally reached Hirschstein on June 11, towards nightfall. To their relief, they found the King alive. Lilian, however, was particularly exhausted after many frightening adventures. In her hotel room in Weimar, with Joséphine-Charlotte's help, for instance, she had been obliged to secretly burn her husband's "Political Testament", to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. En route, she had also been forced to protest vehemently for hours to prevent the S.S. from separating Princes Baudouin and Albert from the rest of the family. Worse, however, was yet to come.

(to be continued)

The Royal Family in Captivity

King Leopold III after his liberation from German captivity in Strobl, Austria

One of the fullest and best documented accounts of the Belgian Royal Family's cruel captivity in Germany and Austria is provided by Jean Cleeremans in Léopold III, sa famille, et son peuple sous l'occupation and its sequel, Un royaume pour un amour: Léopold III, de l'exil à l'abdication. The ordeal began with the deportation of King Leopold III on June 7, 1944. With the Allied landings in Normandy, the liberation of the Low Countries drew near and the S.S. appear to have considered that it would be valuable to hold the Belgian monarch and his family hostage in an area more securely under German control. (As it happened, Leopold's absence from Belgium at the moment of liberation also proved all too convenient for his Belgian and Allied opponents, who had a free hand to conspire to prevent him from resuming his reign after the war).  On the evening of June 6, while at table with his second wife, Princess Lilian, and his daughter, Princess Joséphine-Charlotte, the King received the alarming news from his sympathetic gaoler, Colonel Werner Kiewitz, that Himmler had suddenly ordered his transfer to Germany. As Kiewitz later described to the King's secretary, Count Robert Capelle, Leopold was outraged. Particularly angered by the prospect of being deported on the orders of the S.S., who had no authority over prisoners of war, he prepared a violent protest to submit to the military governor of Belgium, General Alexander von Falkenhausen, who was also sympathetic to his plight. The general later recalled his meeting with the distressed Sovereign at Laeken:

The King received me with great nervousness and his anger knew no bounds. He gave me a severe letter of protest to read. The terms were so energetic that I feared that false interpretations, arising from a translation, would lead to unfortunate consequences for His Majesty, who found himself in the position of a prisoner of war. I proposed that the King modify some expressions which appeared to me to be too violent, as I had already been reproached several times for transmitting violent protests from the King. His Majesty dismissed me and had me wait for three quarters of an hour, which I spent with Kiewitz in an antechamber. Then the King, in Kiewitz' presence, returned to me the letter of protest which I caused to be conveyed, through Kiewitz, to Hitler. The emotion and the anger of the King were great (Léopold III, sa famille, et son peuple sous l'occupation, pp. 269-270).

Nevertheless, after the war, Leopold's leftist political opponents, including Prime Minister Achille van Acker, would accuse him of secretly conniving at his own deportation, in order to increase his popularity by posing as a heroic victim. The grotesque charge persists to this day in the literature most bitterly hostile to the Belgian dynasty, such as Flemish nationalist Paul Beliën's prodigious work of propaganda, A Throne in Brussels: Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianisation of Europe.  The attempt to blame the King for his own gruesome misfortune is reminiscent of similar spiteful attempts to accuse him of causing the death of his first wife, Queen Astrid, by driving with criminal negligence. It also recalls the malicious rumors blaming his father, King Albert I, for his own death by suggesting, for instance, that he had been murdered by an irate husband whose wife he had seduced. Imprisoned at Liège after the liberation of Belgium, Alexander von Falkenhausen was interrogated by a Belgian official who insisted that King Leopold had rejoiced at his deportation, even celebrating the news, in the general's company, with a bottle of champagne! The accusation was typical of the concerted effort at the time to portray Leopold as a spineless, faithless man of pleasure. Von Falkenhausen gave the lie to the claims with indignant disgust. Kiewitz, for his part, also indicated that nothing could be further from the truth; Himmler and his henchmen had planned "Operation Elbe", the deportation of Leopold III, without informing the King or even his gaoler until the last moment. On May 7, 1949, however, Le Peuple published an anonymous letter, supposedly sent to the Belgian government in London during the war. The letter claimed that the King had left Belgium of his own free will,  and that a lady-in-waiting of his mother, Queen Elisabeth, had even admitted that the royal household had been preparing for the departure well in advance! Thus, by implication, even the fabled heroine of the trenches and the field hospitals of World War I, the widow of the Roi-Chevalier, was involved in a treacherous scheme to betray her country by collaborating with the enemy and misleading her people into believing that her son was a martyr of patriotism. Horrified, the Queen's ladies were obliged to issue a joint statement, categorically denying the charges and protesting the underhand methods used to discredit their King.

On the morning of June 7, 1944, Leopold bid a poignant farewell to his wife and daughter. (His sons, Princes Baudouin and Albert, were at the Royal Family's charming country retreat of Ciergnon at the time). As described in the recent documentary, Léopold III, mon père, the King, departing to an unknown fate, gave Princess Lilian his handsome, sombre photograph, tenderly inscribed, as if he never expected to see her again: "To my adored little Lil, from her Leo forever." As related in Un couple dans la tempête: le destin malheureux de Léopold III de Belgique et de la princesse Lilian, he also gave her a leather purse filled with gold coins. Meanwhile, he had composed a courageous message to the Belgian people: "My dear fellow-countrymen. The German authorities have decided upon my transfer outside Belgium. I have protested with the greatest energy. I would have wished to share, to the end, your trials and anxieties. My thoughts will not leave you. Be courageous, confident, united. God will continue to protect Belgium and will soon return to us peace, concord and liberty. I have faith in the destinies of the country. Leopold, June 7, 1944." Despite the fact that the Belgian government in London had maligned him during the war, he loyally agreed with his aide-de-camp, Raoul van Overstraeten, that his officers should obey the government's orders in his absence. The sad journey, in a heavily armed German convoy, then began.

Kiewitz, who was in charge of the first stretch of the journey, allowed the King to stop at Ciergnon to bid farewell to his sons. Upon his arrival, however, Leopold learned that the princes had already returned to Laeken and that the German authorities had ordered the deportation of his wife and children. Inhabitants of Ciergnon witnessed his great sorrow and distress. Desperately, he composed another protest: "On June 7, at 4 pm, in the course of my visit to Ciergnon, Colonel Kiewitz brought to my attention the fact that new measures, this time relative to the displacement of my family, have been ordered. Yet, it is as a prisoner of war that I am being transferred to Germany, and I desire no attenuation of the measure that has been imposed upon me. I demand that the members of my family be allowed to continue to reside in Belgium". It was all in vain, however. Before leaving, the King had cigarettes distributed to the gendarmes of Ciergnon. Deeply moved, at the moment of parting, they presented arms. Leopold would receive similar sympathy from fellow Belgian captives during his journey. In Échec au Roi: Léopold III, 1940-1951, Roger Keyes mentions a Belgian electrician, employed in a hotel in Luxembourg requisitioned by the Germans, who recognized his Sovereign. In an elevator, the man seized the opportunity to whisper in Leopold's ear that he himself had been deported and forced to work for the enemy. He also expressed touching concern for the King's plight, kindly taking his hand and assuring him that he would pray for his safe return to Belgium. In Leipzig, Belgian prisoners of war laboring on the road also recognized their King.

On the evening of June 9, 1944, the convoy finally reached the sinister, dilapidated fortress of Hirschstein, looming over the Elbe, atop a steep crag.  Colonel Kiewitz was appalled by the state of the fortress, filled with bare rooms, dripping windows, moldy walls and collapsing ceilings. The insalubrious conditions, combined with poor nutrition, would seriously damage the health and endanger the lives of the King and his family. Ferociously guarded by the S.S. and the Gestapo, equipped with barbed-wire fences, police dogs and floodlights, the fortress had obviously already served as a prison, possibly for Russian captives. Here, the Belgian Sovereign would be held hostage for the next nine months. The S.S. Colonel Otto Lürker became his new gaoler. For his sympathetic treatment of his royal prisoner, Himmler severely punished Colonel Kiewitz by arresting him, degrading him to the rank of captain, and assigning him to a punitive regiment on the Russian front where he would lose his right arm. Meanwhile, Princess Lilian, Princess Joséphine-Charlotte, and Princes Baudouin, Albert and Alexandre were soon to join the King in his terrifying prison.

(to be continued)

The Testimony of Felix Kersten, masseur of Heinrich Himmler

For some time, I have hesitated to use this account, because Dr. Kersten apparently had a tendency to distort the facts in order to portray himself in a more heroic light. However, I have never heard of his testimony regarding Leopold III being challenged, although it has often been neglected. It has been taken seriously by respected scholars, such as Jean Vanwelkenhuyzen, an eminent Belgian authority on the Second World War. It is discussed by Michel Verwilghen in Le mythe d'Argenteuil (2006) and by Christian Laporte in an article dated March 1, 1996, and published in Le Soir, a testimony all the more surprising and compelling since it comes from a paper traditionally hostile to Leopold III. Kersten's description of Heinrich Himmler's venom against the King squares with the revelations of General Alexander von Falkenhausen, military governor of Belgium during the Nazi occupation, and with the memoirs of Paul Schmidt, Hitler's interpreter. Both men indicated that there was no love lost between the Nazi hierarchy and their royal captive, despite continuing claims that Leopold sympathized with their regime. The recent television documentary, Léopold III, mon père, mentions that highly placed Nazi leaders, towards the end of the war, were considering the deportation and even the execution of the King of the Belgians. As is well known, Leopold and his family would indeed be deported to Germany at the time of the Allied landings in Normandy, although they managed to survive their ordeal. In the light of all this, Kersten's testimony seems plausible.

Dr. Felix Kersten's story is a fascinating one. A talented Finnish masseur of Estonian origin, he was approached by the SS to soothe the stomach cramps of Heinrich Himmler. Although Kersten appears to have exaggerated his role at times, he was also genuinely heroic in using his privileged position to save the lives of many. Himmler seems to have spoken quite freely in Kersten's presence, fulminating against the King of the Belgians on several occasions. Kersten, in turn, secretly kept a diary of his patient's confidences. In 1995, four documents relating to Leopold III were discovered among Kersten's papers by Professor Léon Masset of the University of Amsterdam and published in an issue of La Révue générale dedicated to the Second World War, with a commentary by Jean Vanwelkenhuyzen. King Leopold's devoted widow, Princess Lilian, was intrigued and pleased by the discovery of the documents concerning her late husband, as well as stunned by the fact that it had taken fifty years for the materials to come to light. According to Kersten's testimony, far from viewing Leopold III as a friend, Himmler saw him as an obstinate, bitter foe, a puppet of the Jews and the Roman Catholic Church. He was outraged that the King, the son of a Coburg father and a Wittelsbach mother, should have resisted the German invasion. He was furious that Leopold had rebuffed Hitler's attempts to entice him into collaborating with the Third Reich. Himmler also hated Leopold's sister, Princess Marie-José, for her opposition to Hitler. Like her brother, he insisted, she had betrayed her German blood. With a great deal of patience and tact, however, taking advantage of the fact that Himmler needed his services, Felix Kersten managed to persuade him to treat Leopold in a humane and dignified manner. By March, 1945, however, Himmler had changed his mind, and decided to have him killed. Kersten had to intervene once again to save his life.

Portraits of the Nation

An academic study by Alexis Schwarzenbach of imagery on Belgian postal stamps from 1914 to 1945.

May 24-25, 1940: The Tragedy of Wijnendale

Today, we remember King Leopold III of the Belgians and his heroic but tragic refusal to accompany his government into exile in the last, desperate moments of the Belgian army's resistance to Hitler's onslaught. As is well known, the night before, in the Flemish castle of Wijnendale, where the King had established his headquarters, the four exhausted, harried Cabinet ministers, M. Pierlot, the Prime Minister, M. Spaak, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, General Dennis, the Minister of Defense, and M. Van der Poorten, the Minister of the Interior, who had been trying to convince the King to flee the country for days, made their final, futile appeal. Leopold insisted that his duty, as Commander-in-Chief, required him to remain with his army to the end. The ministers countered that his duty, as Head of State, transcended his duty as Commander-in-Chief. As Head of State, Leopold must avoid falling into the hands of the enemy at all costs. As King, however, Leopold firmly believed that he must remain with his people. In humanitarian terms, he was convinced that he could better assist the Belgians, during the rigors of a cruel occupation, by remaining in Belgium. Nothing could persuade him to flee. 

Please leave a comment to tell me whether you think the King made the right decision. I used to view it as absolutely correct, and hotly contested all suggestions that Leopold III should have departed into exile. Now I am not so sure. The King's motives were undeniably noble. He bravely risked life, limb and liberty to assist the Belgian army and people in their most terrible trial. Well aware that his decision to remain in Belgium during the Nazi occupation would place him in an endlessly difficult, complex and potentially compromising position, exposing him to the world's misunderstanding, scorn and derision, he bravely risked his reputation, too. Yet, since the King and the government must always act politically in concert, according to the Belgian constitution, the fracture between Leopold and his ministers created an anomalous, explosive situation, as emphasized in the recent RTBF documentary, Léopold III, mon père. The King's inviolability was threatened because his actions could no longer be covered by the government. Of course, Leopold realized that he could not act politically without his ministers; this is why he emphasized that his capitulation to the Germans on May 28, 1940, was a strictly military action. It is also why he had to refuse to reign under the Nazi occupation, insisting upon his status as a prisoner of war.

Nevertheless, the fateful parting of ways at Wijnendale set the stage for many disastrous controversies to come; the odious accusations of treason, leveled at the King by Pierlot and Spaak following the Belgian capitulation, further tensions and suspicions between monarch and ministers, over the next four years, despite an apparent reconciliation after Leopold was publicly vindicated by figures such as Cardinal van Roey and Admiral Keyes, the shattering rift sparked by the King's stern and unyielding memorandum to Pierlot, dated January 25, 1944, requiring a solemn apology for the ministers' accusations in 1940, and, finally, Leopold's dispute with the Allies over the validity of certain treaties, including agreements regarding shipments of Congolese uranium to the Americans to assist in the development of the atom bomb. The King contended that these treaties lacked validity, since they had been concluded without his signature, on the Belgian government's sole authority. In other words, the separation between Leopold and his ministers on May 25, 1940, initiated the chain of events known as the Royal Question, which shattered the King's reign and ultimately threatened to destroy the monarchy and cast Belgium into civil war. By remaining in Belgium, as his people's advocate during the Nazi occupation, Leopold III undoubtedly comforted and benefited the Belgians and saved lives through his humanitarian interventions. Yet, he also placed himself in an extremely delicate position, and, as it happened, imperilled the political structure of Belgium after the war. In Léopold III, mon père, his youngest daughter, and close, loving confidante, Princess Esmeralda, startled me by suggesting that her father might have been better advised to go into exile in London in 1940. She suggested that Leopold himself had been haunted by doubts, in later years, as to the wisdom of his decision at Wijnendale, and that he felt that the destiny of his entire reign had been played out in only a few hours, in that tragic castle. Yet, she added, it is hard to judge a decision taken at a moment of such tremendous physical and mental tension.

The Voice of George VI

As I recently posted a link to a recording of a wartime address by King Leopold III of the Belgians, and  The King's Speech has been a popular film lately, readers might be interested to hear this recording of the actual speech of King George VI of the United Kingdom, delivered September 3, 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Voice of Leopold III

Le Vétéran, porte-parole de la Ligue Royale Léopold III, is an interesting and informative blog published from time to time in Flemish and French. On the right column of the page, by clicking on the little image of the king speaking on the radio, you can hear part of an address, delivered by Leopold III to the Belgian people on the occasion of the German invasion of May 10, 1940. In Flemish, he tells his subjects: "War has erupted near us. An era of economic and human trials announces itself for Belgium. Many homes will now know the emotion of separation: parents, wives, children, know that you are in my thoughts." The king had a soft, gentle yet powerful voice; he was also the first Belgian monarch to speak Flemish more or less fluently.

The Mystery of Leopold III

Here are some important articles from La Libre Belgique on the fourth King of the Belgians, surrounded, to this day, by a fog of misunderstanding and mystery:

~"L'extraordinaire piété filiale du prince Léopold"

~"Albert 1er à Léopold: 'ton père et ami'"

~"Léopold III, l'inépuisable sujet"

~"En lisant Léopold III..."

~"Vers une monarchie autoritaire?"
~"'Retraité', Léopold III a trouvé le bonheur"
~"Charles le sauveur du brol était mal vu des siens"
~"L'argent de la rancoeur"
~"Baudouin et Albert, enfants déportés"