Cyriel Verschaeve

Cyriel Verschaeve (30 April 1874 – 8 November 1949) was a Flemish nationalist priest and writer who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. He was recognised as the spiritual leader of Flemish nationalism by the ideology's adherents and a Nazi propagandist.

Early years Born in Ardooie in West Flanders, Belgium to a Catholic family, he began training to be a priest at the Minor Seminary, Roeselare in 1886, before moving on to Bruges in 1892 to complete his studies. He was ordained in 1897 and then continued his studies at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany.

Nationalist leader He returned to Belgium in 1911 to become a parish priest at Alveringem in West Flanders. Along with August Borms, Verschaeve was the leading representative of the tendency within the Front Movement that felt Flemish aims might be aided by working with Germany, in contrast to the other wing that felt fighting for Belgium would make the Flemish case easier to advance. On 12 August 1917 Verschaeve penned a second so-called "Open Letter" calling for better rights for beleaguered Flemish servicemen. Following a letter from a month earlier, Verschaeve's missive was noted for its more militant language which included an attack on the king for his failure to respond to the first letter. It marked the beginning of a widening gulf between the monarchy and the far right of Flemish nationalism. In 1916 he also became president of a committee that sought to build a memorial to Flemish servicemen. After the war this aim was realised with the building of the Yser Tower memorial, with Verschaeve ceremonially laying the first stone on 7 July 1928.

Second World War Dismissed as chaplain in 1939, Verschaeve, who had long been sympathetic to Germany, wrote Het Uur van Vlaanderen in 1940 in which he articulated feelings of sympathy among the Flemish people for Nazi Germany, especially because of his Romantic admiration for German imperial culture as embodied in Richard Wagner. After the German occupation of Belgium, Verschaeve was appointed to a body set up by the Nazis to deal with Flemish culture.

Death

He fled to Austria in 1945. He was condemned to death in absentia by a Belgian court, but survived in Austria until 1949, when he died of a heart attack at the vicarage of the Tyrolean town Solbad Hall, and was buried there. In 1973 members of the neo-Nazi Vlaamse Militanten Orde dug up his remains and reburied them in Flanders.

Streets in Kortrijk, Lanaken and Breendonk were named after him; in 2019-2020 the local councils decided to rename it.

Writing Verschaeve wrote extensively on philosophy, adopting a dramatic, poetic writing style. He was also known as a poet and playwright. As an author he wrote a number of plays dealing with historical and Biblical characters with Judas (1919) and Maria-Magdalena (1930) now widely held to be the best works from a prolific but sketchy output. His major works include:

Jacob van Artevelde (1911) Zeesymphonieën (1911) Ferdinand Verbiest (1912) De schoonheid van het evangelie (1913) Passieverhaal (1913) Philips van Artevelde (1913) Nocturnen (1916–1924) Judas (1917) Het mysterie (1920) Uren bewondering voor groote kunstwerken (1920–1922) Maria Magdalena (1928) De Kruisboom (1929) Elijah (1936) Nocturnen (1936) Rubens, Vlaanderens Spectrum (1938) Jezus (1939) Eeuwige gestalten (1944)