With the VNV for Our People
Propaganda poster by the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (Flemish National League, VNV) from Flanders, Belgium. The VNV was a devoutly catholic, Flemish nationalist organization founded in Belgium in 1933 by Flemish frontline veterans of the First World War. Having been embittered by the Great War and long oppressed by the French-speaking Walloon minority which dominated the Belgian government, their primary goal was to form an independent Flemish state. The party rejected the illegitimate Belgian nation-state, and advocated for the unification of Flanders, the Netherlands and other Flemish regions in northern France into a single polity known as Dietsland, otherwise known as the ‘Greater Netherlands’. The symbol of the VNV can be seen next to the Flemish coat of arms: a triangle within a circle, with the circle representing the union of the regions and the triangle representing the delta formed by the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers.
The German occupation of Belgium was regarded as an opportunity by the VNV, which submitted to collaboration. The VNV was involved in the civil administration of German-occupied Flanders while also establishing the Flemish Legion, a foreign volunteer formation within the Wehrmacht (and later, Waffen-SS). Hitler himself is said to have stated of his Flemish soldiers that they “have indeed shown themselves on the Eastern Front to be more pro-German and more ruthless than the Dutch legionaries”. The élan displayed by these Flemings reflects the imagery of their medieval knightly ancestor as featured in this poster, a parallel it seeks to emphasize in no unclear terms. The VNV is responsible for having produced other similar posters which also invoke medievalist imagery in an bid to tap into the martial tradition of Flanders.
Text reads: With the V.N.V for our people
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Propaganda poster by the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (Flemish National League, VNV) from Flanders, Belgium. The VNV was a devoutly catholic, Flemish nationalist organization founded in Belgium in 1933 by Flemish frontline veterans of the First World War. Having been embittered by the Great War and long oppressed by the French-speaking Walloon minority which dominated the Belgian government, their primary goal was to form an independent Flemish state. The party rejected the illegitimate Belgian nation-state, and advocated for the unification of Flanders, the Netherlands and other Flemish regions in northern France into a single polity known as Dietsland, otherwise known as the ‘Greater Netherlands’. The symbol of the VNV can be seen next to the Flemish coat of arms: a triangle within a circle, with the circle representing the union of the regions and the triangle representing the delta formed by the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers.
The German occupation of Belgium was regarded as an opportunity by the VNV, which submitted to collaboration. The VNV was involved in the civil administration of German-occupied Flanders while also establishing the Flemish Legion, a foreign volunteer formation within the Wehrmacht (and later, Waffen-SS). Hitler himself is said to have stated of his Flemish soldiers that they “have indeed shown themselves on the Eastern Front to be more pro-German and more ruthless than the Dutch legionaries”. The élan displayed by these Flemings reflects the imagery of their medieval knightly ancestor as featured in this poster, a parallel it seeks to emphasize in no unclear terms. The VNV is responsible for having produced other similar posters which also invoke medievalist imagery in an bid to tap into the martial tradition of Flanders.
Text reads: With the V.N.V for our people
