On 1 September , Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The months between September and the invasion are known as the Phoney War. The Luftwaffe bombards Deurne Airport. The bombs also struck the Sint-Amadeus mental institution. Several civilians perished. The Belgian authorities also ordered the internment of alleged collaborators at the time of the German invasion.
Many of them were foreigners Germans and Eastern Europeans , communists and even anti-fascists. But they also arrested several prominent national-socialists, members of the Rexist Party and radical Flemish nationalists. The latter returned to Antwerp soon after. Many of the Jewish deportees remained in the internment camps in the south of France, however.
The socialist mayor Camille Huysmans also left the city, along with three other aldermen. He travelled through France to London, following in the footsteps of the government and other MPs. Leo Delwaide, the catholic alderman for the port, became the new mayor. The German forces occupied the city. The city fell without a struggle.
The people of Antwerp did their best to adapt to daily life under military occupation. It was anything but easy. The press was censored. Nazi flags popped up here and there in the city, as did German soldiers. In the meantime, the Germans occupied Belgium and installed a military government. On 18 May, a local trader called Louis Pighini succeeded in stealing the Nazi flag from the Cathedral. Others took part in small-scale sabotage operations, destroying the phone lines of the Germans for example.
They also organised actions on symbolic occasions, such as the national holiday or Armistice Day 11 November. German posters in the city warned the population that any resistance would be repressed. The German government, administration and police forces, such as the Sicherheitsdienst SD Della Faillelaan and later also in Koningin Elisabethlei , installed themselves in the city.
