Courcelles massacre

The Courcelles massacre (French: Tuerie de Courcelles), sometimes known as the Rognac massacre (Tuerie du Rognac), involved the killing of 27 civilians in a number of separate instances by a collaborationist militia associated with the Rexist Party in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. The killings occurred on 17–18 August 1944, shortly before the Allied liberation of Belgium, near Courcelles, a suburb of the industrial city of Charleroi in Hainaut Province, in revenge for the killing of a Rexist official by the Belgian Resistance. At the time of the German invasion in May 1940, Belgium had several political parties that were broadly sympathetic to the authoritarian and anti-democratic ideals represented by Nazi Germany. In Wallonia and Brussels, the largest of these groups was the Rexist Party, led by Léon Degrelle. This had originated as a faction of the mainstream Catholic Block, but split in 1935 to form an independent populist party. Ideologically, Rex supported Belgian nationalism, but its support for corporatism and anti-communism made it sympathetic towards aspects of Nazi ideology. It achieved some early success, peaking at the elections of 1936 in which it received 11.5 percent of the national vote, but experienced a decline in the following years before the German invasion and remained marginal. After the Belgian surrender on 28 May 1940, a German Military Administration was created to govern the occupied territory. Preferring a strategy of indirect rule, the administration preferred to work with established Belgian political and social elites, largely ignoring fringe political groups such as the Rexists. In order to acquire more influence and German support, Rex attempted to bring itself closer to the occupation authorities.