Lode Craeybeckx

Lode Craeybeckx (24 November 1897 – 25 July 1976) served as mayor of Antwerp, Belgium from 1947 until his death in 1976, becoming the longest-serving mayor of the city in its history.

Biography François Ferdinand Louis Craeybeckx, better known as Lode, was born in Antwerp in 1897. His father was a policeman from Limburg, while his mother came from Liège. He studied at the Athenaeum of Antwerp before going to the new University of Ghent in 1917. For collaborating with the German occupiers during the First World War, he was sent to prison for five years, but he was released after two years.

Lode Craeybeckx married Irma Lauwers in 1921. They had two children, Hilda and Herman. From 1925 until 1931, he worked as a journalist for the newspaper . According to his biographers, he benefited from support during this serious controversy from the Antwerp Catholic press and of the conservative satirical weekly, 't Pallieterke, which had an anti-resistance position and opposed the purging of collaborators after World War II.