ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the Belgian and Dutch mayoralties during the German occupation in World War II, and focuses on interactions between municipal political-administrative culture and the impact of occupation. It shows how the different Belgian-Dutch municipal political cultures influenced the experience of occupation and explores the different occupation experiences in turn influenced the mayoralty's own longer-term development. The chapter examines municipal administration, particularly the mayoralty. In Belgium, the rupture in administrative legality was greater, mayoralty's politicisation started earlier and was more intense, mayoral powers broadened while they diminished in the Netherlands and Belgian provincial and national authority was far weaker. The Vlaams Nationaal Verbond campaign keyed into these broader German and Belgian perceptions, and echoed arguments widely canvassed during the 1930s. Belgian mayors were thus left to their own devices, since their administrative hierarchy seemed neither legal nor legitimate. One proposal, inspired by contemplating the Dutch mayoralty, was to replace the elected mayor with a centrally appointed civil-servant mayor.