UNDER THE IRON HEEL GERMAN SOLDIERS CHANGING STREET SIGNS IN A CONQUERED CITY Photo from Dever - Black Star UNDER THE IRON HElL BY LARS MOEN WITH 18 ILLUSTRATIONS J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK Foreword ON OCTOBER 22, 1940, i LEFT BELGIUM, AFTER i HAD practically abandoned hope that the German military au thorities would permit my departure before the end of the war. When I was suddenly offered the alternative, on October 8, leave now or remain until the end of the war, I left. I had chosen to stay in the face of the German inva sion, but I had no wish to go on living under the occupation The invasion was quickly over but the pation bid fair to stretch out interminably, with life be coming more difficult each day as food grew less. It was only when the Germans realized the impossibility of finishing the war before winter that they consented to the departure of any foreigners. I am still astonished that permission was given, even then. We had sera too much, and it was presumably to prevent our talking about what we had seen that every obstacle was placed in the waf ol our return to our native countries an attitude which per sisted after official permission to leave had been granted. Fortunately, I believe, my passport gave no indication that I was a former newspaper man, and my treatment by the Germans was influenced by no desire to make a good impression. When the lightning invasion was followed by the gray, dreary days of the occupation, there were no re porters to tell the story of War and the Little People. This book is that story. o 5 FOREWORD l ou . will Jhrd iu h n startling expose of Belgian state secrets, r l ura gr dt deal of what the Belgian people think of King opold, of their former government and of the capitulatitfnY no sensational interview with Hitler or Goer ing, but a great deal of what the common soldier who does their fighting thinks of them and of the war no exclusive economic statistics about conditions in the occupied coun ties, but a great deal about what that situation means in terms of the daily life of the Little People. For this is their war. They did not want it, and had little to do with starting it, but they may have a great deal to do with finishing it the outcome is largely dependent on their morale and staying power. Twice within a quarter of a century their little world has been turned upside down, and they are ready for any effort, any concession, any experiment that may offer even a slight hope of putting an end to a situation grown intolerable. The Little Man, be he soldier or civilian, no longer be lieves in the old illusions, and this droll war, as the French once called it, is only understandable if that is borne in mind. I have no wish to assume the role of a prophet, but it is already abundantly clear that this war will bring widespread social and economic change, what ever its outcome the old geographic boundaries are no longer the primary issue. Since such changes must, in their very nature, affect great masses of people, I have tried as far as humanly possible to keep my own opinions out of this and sim ply to report in a straightforward way what I have seen. When the war came to Europe, on September 3, 1939, I was doing a job of scientific research in Belgium. I was anxious to complete that job, and despite warnings from FOREWORD 7 the American consulate I stayed on, hoping to finish at the beginning of June, 1940, and to return to America I hoped that Belgiums neutrality would be respected, or that if she were attacked there would be ample time to leave. When the war came to Belgium, I was living in Antwerp in a small hotel called In the Shadow of the Cathedral...