Narrator: Marchand Steenkamp.
About the story: Victor Matthys, the wartime leader of Belgium’s fascist Rexist Party, stands as one of the most notorious Nazi collaborators in Belgian history. His rise, crimes, and ultimate execution reveal how extremist ideology, propaganda, and occupation transformed ordinary citizens into instruments of terror during World War II. This documentary explores Matthys’s life—from his early years in Brussels to his embrace of Rexism, a movement that blended Catholic nationalism with fascist worship of Hitler’s “New Order.” As Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and occupied Belgium, Matthys became a central figure in coordinating collaboration. He helped align Belgian extremists with the goals of Einsatzgruppe units and the broader Nazi campaign against Jews, political enemies, and resistance fighters. Under Nazi occupation of Belgium, Matthys oversaw propaganda, repression, and the creation of violent Rexist militias that operated alongside the Gestapo in Belgium, targeting the Belgian resistance, civilians, and suspected opponents.
His most infamous crime was the Courcelles massacre of August 1944, when Rexist gunmen murdered 27 Belgian civilians in retaliation for the killing of a collaborationist mayor. Known as the worst act of political violence in occupied Belgium, the Massacre de Courcelles cemented Matthys’s legacy as a symbol of betrayal and brutality. Even within the world of Nazi collaborators, Matthys was seen as one of the most extreme, later dubbed “Degrelle’s Goebbels” for the virulence of his propaganda. After the liberation of Belgium, Matthys went into hiding but was soon captured. His trial for treason, murder, and collaboration with Nazi Germany became one of the most significant postwar proceedings in Belgium. Found guilty and stripped of any political justification, he was executed by firing squad on 10 November 1947. This episode examines his radicalization, his alliance with Léon Degrelle, the actions of Rexist militias, and the broader context of Belgian collaboration, offering a stark look at how occupation turned extremists into killers—and how justice eventually caught up with them.
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