In August 1940 Captain-Commander BEM Charles Claser (Charly Claser) born on July 27, 1901 in Alost, had set up the Belgian Legion (LB) which quickly had a very effective action. But the network was then victimized by enemy services who tried to infiltrate it. Thus betrayed by Zitter’s fearsome traitor Prosper, says "Captain Jackson," the man with the amputated phalanx, Charly Claser after being imprisoned in Etterbeek prison, then Saint-Gilles and Forest will be taken to Germany in February 1944 to the Esterwegen camp with many companions of the Belgian Legion. On March 15 it will be transferred to the fortress of Gross-Strehlitz, then to the extermination camp of Gross-Rosen in Silesia, reduced to a skeletal state it will be extinguished there on December 12, 1944.
One witness, Dr André, told us in his memoirs: "When I saw him taken to the crematorium, I had the impression that our country was losing the best of its children".
Around the same time, without consulting each other, Robert Lentz, a reserve BEM colonel, had founded the reconstituted Belgian Army (ABR). Robert Lentz was born in Ghent on October 20, 1885, he was arrested at his home on May 8, 1941 and imprisoned in the prison of St-Gilles, transferred to Germany on January 23, 1945, will finish at the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen until April 25, 1945, when he took part in the "death march". Finally released on May 4, 1945, he returned to Brussels on the 13th. His health was ruined and he died on November 10, 1949 in Brussels.
These two armed resistance movements decided to join forces in order to be more effective, and took the unique name of Belgian Legion (LB)
It was Colonel Jules Bastin, who had taken over from Claser, who in 1942 made him the Belgian Army. Colonel Jules Bastin, born in Roux on September 29, 1891, was arrested for the third time on September 25, 1943 and died at the Gross-Rosen camp on December 1, 1944.
On June 1, 1944, the Belgian Army became known as the Secret Army (AS), by which it remains known today, the Secret Army was then under the command of General Jules Pire.
Operations
The SA was very active in the field and carried out many strategic and tactical actions such as:-
- Sabotage as early as the end of 1943 in anticipation of the Allied landings, which intensified as early as June 6, 1944.
- Armed harassment operations from early September 1944.
- Anti-destruction measures which, while maintaining the relevant infrastructure intact, provided effective aid for the liberation of Belgium.
Human losses
About 4,000 members of the Belgian Secret Army died until the Liberation:
1,068 in action (including 9 women)
657 were executed (including 8 women)
2,195 died while incarcerated (including 52 women)
12 died as a result of an accident on duty (including 1 woman)
Sources: Wikipedia
