Verdinaso
Encyclopedia
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
and fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
-inspired political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
during the 1930s. It was founded by Joris Van Severen
Joris Van Severen
Joris Van Severen was a Belgian nationalist politician, ideologist and leader of the national-solidarist Verdinaso.-Early years:...
, Jef François
Jef François
Josephus Alphonsus Marie François was a Belgian Flemish far right politician and Nazi collaborator.A native of Ghent, he first came to politics as a member of the Frontpartij, along with the likes of Ward Hermans and Joris Van Severen...
, Wies Moens
Wies Moens
Wies Moens was a literary historian, poet and pamphleteer from Flanders. He was also a founding member of the Verdinaso, but left the movement after its change of course in 1934....
, and Emiel Thiers on October 6, 1931 (at the Hôtel Richelieu in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
), and, in 1937, developed a paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
wing that wore green shirts (DINASO Militanten Orde).
Character and history
The party was against the parliamentary democracyParliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
and eventually advocated a corporative
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
society ruled by the Belgian King. As such it never participated on elections, and never became a strong political pressure group.
The Verdinaso originally advocated Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
and Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. It proposed the union of Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
with the Netherlands and Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
to form a Dietsland or Diets Rijk ("Dutch Empire" - see Greater Netherlands), justifying this on the basis of a common history of the three lands under the Burgundians
Burgundians
The Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...
, and the emblematic rule of Charles I
Charles I, Duke of Burgundy
Charles the Bold , baptised Charles Martin, was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477...
. In 1932, two of its leaders, François and Van Severen, were elected to the Chamber of Deputies
Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives
The Belgian Chamber of Representatives is one of the two chambers in the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Senate...
; the same year, the party was joined by Victor Leemans
Victor Leemans
Victor Leemans was a Belgian sociologist, politician and a prominent ideologist of the radical Flemish movement in the 1930s. He was a member of the militant organisation Verdinaso, and is seen by some as the main Flemish exponent of the historical phenomenon known as the Conservative...
, who wrote the work Het nationaal-socialisme, an apology of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
After 1934, Verdinaso shifted its focus towards a Belgian identity
Belgian nationalism
Belgian nationalism defines an ideology that favours a strong centralised government, with less or no autonomy for the Flemish Community who constitute Flanders, the French Community of Belgium and the German-speaking Community of Belgium who constitute Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region...
circa 1939, becoming a bilingual (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
-Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
) party, believing that the Belgian state should be founded on Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
corporatism - an economic model interpreted by Verdinaso from the Catholic social teaching
Catholic social teaching
Catholic social teaching is a body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state...
, and akin to Integralism
Integralism
Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an ideology according to which a nation is an organic unity. Integralism defends social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups...
and the Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
(an influence on Van Severen). The party virulently opposed Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
on the left and liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
on the right; it was also somewhat antisemitic, occasionally venting the opinion that Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, as well as Freemasons constituted a hidden power working against the interests of Dietsland.
In the elections of May 24, 1936, Verdinaso ran on a common list with other Flemish nationalists under the common denominator Vlaams Nationaal Block, gaining 13% of the vote and 16 deputy seats; in 1939, it peaked at 15% of the vote and 17 seats. The DINASO Militanten Orde had around 3,000 members, grouped under the leadership of François, and edited the newspapers Recht en Trouw and De Vlag (placed under the leadership of Moens).
When World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
broke out Van Severen was killed in Abbéville
Abbeville
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, suspected of being an agent of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, and as part of a mass execution of Rexists
Rexism
Rexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the 20th century in Belgium.It was the ideology of the Rexist Party , officially called Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon...
and Belgian communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
(both groups were suspected of pro-German activism, justified by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
in the case of the latter). As a consequence, the Verdinaso lost a clear direction (despite Van Severen's replacement with François), and was eventually forced to join the Flemish National Union
Flemish National Union
The Flemish National Union was a Nationalist Flemish political party in Belgium, founded by Staf de Clercq on October 8, 1933. De Clercq became known as den Leider .-Creation:...
on May 5, 1941. Some of Verdinaso's members, who were advocating a strong Belgian authoritarian regime
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
around King Leopold III
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the Heir Apparent,...
, however joined the resistance against the German occupation.
Notable members
- Jef FrançoisJef FrançoisJosephus Alphonsus Marie François was a Belgian Flemish far right politician and Nazi collaborator.A native of Ghent, he first came to politics as a member of the Frontpartij, along with the likes of Ward Hermans and Joris Van Severen...
- Louis Gueuning
- Ward HermansWard HermansCornelius Eduardus Hermans was a Belgian Flemish nationalist politician and writer....
- Victor LeemansVictor LeemansVictor Leemans was a Belgian sociologist, politician and a prominent ideologist of the radical Flemish movement in the 1930s. He was a member of the militant organisation Verdinaso, and is seen by some as the main Flemish exponent of the historical phenomenon known as the Conservative...
- Wies MoensWies MoensWies Moens was a literary historian, poet and pamphleteer from Flanders. He was also a founding member of the Verdinaso, but left the movement after its change of course in 1934....
- Emiel Thiers
- Joris Van SeverenJoris Van SeverenJoris Van Severen was a Belgian nationalist politician, ideologist and leader of the national-solidarist Verdinaso.-Early years:...
External links
- L'Extrême droite en Flandre hier
- Rues sans complexes - Belgian fascists that some streets were still named after in 1999 (short biographies).