King Leopold III of The Belgians (1901-1983)

[Marengo]

I was referring to author Paul Belien's assertion that Lilian had become pregnant, which necessitated a speedy secret wedding.

When the Belgians became aware of both the secret commoner mistress and the wedding, they were not happy.

But Leopold III had no choice but to marry her once she became pregnant I guess.

Thanks for your research TM.

I am not sure why a marriage was needed due to the pregnancy. In 1940 he already had an extramarital daughter (named Ingeborg Verdun) with ice skater Liselotte Landbeck.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Has Ingeborg Verdun any sort of relationship with the Belgian RF?

 

[JR76]

I am not sure why a marriage was needed due to the pregnancy. In 1940 he already had an extramarital daughter (named Ingeborg Verdun) with ice skater Liselotte Landbeck.

Liselotte was already married to fellow Olympic skater Robert Verdun. There was also the fact of the class difference between her and Liliane who, although a commoner, belonged to the upper echelons of Belgian society. This, I believe, would have prevented a marriage even if Liselotte was single.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

I am not sure why a marriage was needed due to the pregnancy. In 1940 he already had an extramarital daughter (named Ingeborg Verdun) with ice skater Liselotte Landbeck.

Belien also claimed Leopold III impregnated one of Astrid's ladies in waiting at the same time Astrid was pregnant with Albert. The child was a boy, named Michel. Baudouin knew of his existence . It was an open secret at the Belgian Court.

Who knows why he decided to marry Lilian and not the others. Maybe he was in love.

ETA: Prinsara I definitely agree with you about Paul Belien. He is very anti Monarchist. But that doesn't necessarily prove he is wrong about Liliane being pregnant when she married the king.

Alexandre was not in fact born over nine months after the wedding as you originally posted.

He was a full term healthy infant born 7 months after the secret wedding.

 

[Prinsara]

Belien also claimed Leopold III impregnated one of Astrid's ladies in waiting at the same time Astrid was pregnant with Albert. The child was a boy, named Michel. Baudouin knew of his existence . It was an open secret at the Belgian Court.

Who knows why he decided to marry Lilian and not the others. Maybe he was in love.

ETA: Prinsara I definitely agree with you about Paul Belien. He is very anti Monarchist. But that doesn't necessarily prove he is wrong about Liliane being pregnant when she married the king.

Alexandre was not in fact born over nine months after the wedding as you originally posted.

He was a full term healthy infant born 7 months after the secret wedding.

....I'm not sure how many times I have to keep saying, yes, Alexandre was born more than nine months after they ORIGINALLY (religiously, illegally) married. But I will.

Isn't Belien the one who also fully supported the claims Baudouin had an affair with Lilian? He's basically the Lady Colin Campbell of Belgium.

 

[Skippy]

King Leopold III and Lilian Baels secret religious, illegal wedding: 11 September 1941.
Civil wedding: 6 December 1941.

Prince Alexandre of Belgium birth: 18 July 1942. A little more than 10 months after the secret illegal religious wedding and a little more than 7 months after the civil wedding.


To return to the previous question: *was* Count Michel Didisheim an illegitimate son of King Leopold III?

While the absolute impossibility cannot be proven, the claim sounds acid to me - like that of Thierry Debels who claimed that King Philippe's offspring was not conceived naturally.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

....I'm not sure how many times I have to keep saying, yes, Alexandre was born more than nine months after they ORIGINALLY (religiously, illegally) married. But I will.

Isn't Belien the one who also fully supported the claims Baudouin had an affair with Lilian? He's basically the Lady Colin Campbell of Belgium.

Sorry that you are irked about having to repeat yourself. But in your post above you simply mentioned Alexandre being born "more than 9 months after the wedding".

I did not see a reference to a September wedding and a December one or I would not have challenged your opinion that Alexandre wasn't conceived out of wedlock.

Please accept my apologies.

Belien hints at hanky panky between Baudouin and his step-mother but at no point do I remember him insisting on a full on affair in "A Throne for Brussels". But I read the book about 6 years ago and will check again.

I agree that Belien is a rather nasty piece of work but his book is very well sourced unlike anything Lady CC has ever written.. And even though I don't believe the rumors about Baudouin and Liliane, Belien is very far from the only one who does believe them.

 

[maria-olivia]

The interesting to me is that since 1935 we never saw King Leopold III at the Swedish Court.( Was he Gullty because he was the Driver ?) His Children went often to their beloved grand parents and met their danish and norvegian cousins.
The King only official attendance was the baptism of Crown Princess Beatrix who was his God Daughter.
Princess Ingeborg attend Princess Josephine Charlotte Wedding in Luxembourg.
King Baudouin said once that is is Queen Fabiola who reconciliate the two Houses.

 

[Mbruno]

Yes, I was referring to the original ceremony. There was no particular need to have any kind of marriage at all at that point unless Lilian believed she might be pregnant. (Or they were being particularly romantic and a bit foolish, who knows.)

At any rate, Leopold did not marry her initially because she was expecting a child. Alexandre came later — Lilian may well have thought she was and prompted the first wedding, though.

Paul Belien is also known to be rather viciously antimonarchist, last I heard.

Just speculation, but could Lilian have misled Leopold into believing she was pregnant? Or did she genuinely believe she was? Or none of the above?

 

[Marengo]

I agree that Belien is a rather nasty piece of work but his book is very well sourced unlike anything Lady CC has ever written.. And even though I don't believe the rumors about Baudouin and Liliane, Belien is very far from the only one who does believe them.

Belien was a member of parlament for the extreme-right Flemish seperatist party. He also works with/for Dutch neo-fascist parlementarian Geert Wilders. He has an agenda, which is one against Belgium and therefore against the RF.

 

[Denville]

king baudoin who was always I think a deeply religious man, having a fling with his stepmother???

 

[Moonmaiden23]

Belien was a member of parlament for the extreme-right Flemish seperatist party. He also works with/for Dutch neo-fascist parlementarian Geert Wilders. He has an agenda, which is one against Belgium and therefore against the RF.

Thanks, I thought as much. In his history of the Saxe-Coburg Gotha dynasty his bitterness and separatist sympathies come through loud and clear.

Baudouin and Fabiola come off relatively unscathed but that isn't saying much. He described the late Royal couple as "the holy rollers of Laeken" and empathized the dullness, and what he felt was the overly religious atmosphere of their Court.

Denville, the rumors about Baudouin and his step-mother have been around for many years. Leopold III was not exactly an attentive husband. He was away a lot during the marriage.

Baudouin and the Princess de Rethy enjoyed a very close affectionate bond that was broken abruptly when Baudouin married Fabiola.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

What evidence does Mr. Belien use to indicate that Leopold III was the biological father of extramarital children? A biographer with an agenda might still cite a reliable source, or a biographer without a agenda might still repeat unsubstantiated gossip.

Thank you for sharing so many details of what has been written in biographies, Moonmaiden23.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

YW, but as I posted above I read the book in about 2014-2015. It is packed away in the garage with my estimated 200 or so( not exaggerating) history books.

This is the first I have read about Leopold's daughter with am ice skater although I have read from multiple sources not limited to the anti-monarchical Paul Belien that Leopold III enjoyed numerous affairs throughout both his marriages.

 

[Marengo]

The half sister was revealed by Leo Van Audenhaege, in his book 'From Küssnacht to Argenteuil". Apparently it was Queen Elisabeth who intervened to end the relationship. Ingeborg spoke to the magazine Humo. She says her mother only revealed te identity of her biological father when Ingeborg was already in her 50s.

There were persistent rumours that Count Michel Didisheim -chef de cabinet for King Albert II- was an extramarital child of Leopold III as well. Didisheim has publicly denied these rumours

The rumours between Baudouin and Lilian are brought up in various reliable books and documentaries. The conclusion is always the same: highly unlikely if not downright absurd.

 

[Prinsara]

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/king-leopold-belgium-defeat-may-1940/

This skips a lot, and yet today I learned:

"Churchill was being inordinately kind to the exiled Belgian government, led by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot and Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak. They had repeatedly asked Leopold to sign an armistice with Hitler. Conveniently, this might have allowed them to return to Brussels (as Nazi puppets). Spaak later admitted that, by refusing support, Leopold had prevented him and his colleagues from becoming collaborators. But at the time, Spaak and Pierlot considered the war lost. They did not even accompany their government when it moved from France to London in October 1940."

I feel inclined to express three things, simultaneously.
- Ewwwww.
- Psychological projection (guess who got blamed for being a defeatist Nazi collaborator?) is very much a thing.
- Perhaps it's a good thing Leopold was not inclined to like or cooperate with his government?

 

[Tatiana Maria]

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/king-leopold-belgium-defeat-may-1940/

This skips a lot, and yet today I learned:

"Churchill was being inordinately kind to the exiled Belgian government, led by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot and Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak. They had repeatedly asked Leopold to sign an armistice with Hitler. Conveniently, this might have allowed them to return to Brussels (as Nazi puppets). Spaak later admitted that, by refusing support, Leopold had prevented him and his colleagues from becoming collaborators. But at the time, Spaak and Pierlot considered the war lost. They did not even accompany their government when it moved from France to London in October 1940."

I feel inclined to express three things, simultaneously.
- Ewwwww.
- Psychological projection (guess who got blamed for being a defeatist Nazi collaborator?) is very much a thing.
- Perhaps it's a good thing Leopold was not inclined to like or cooperate with his government?

From the article (thank you for sharing), it seems there are multiple sources whose testimonies corroborate the presence of hypocrisy and dishonesty in the wartime accusations against Leopold.

 

[Prinsara]

From the article (thank you for sharing), it seems there are multiple sources whose testimonies corroborate the presence of hypocrisy and dishonesty in the wartime accusations against Leopold.

I would think the fact that the Nazis deported Leopold and his family "to the east" like so many others and tried to murder them all would have been a very clear sign that he was not a help to them, but that was not enough when pitted against a bad reputation, unfortunately.

Leopold is a striking example of how people will apparently say anything about you (and continue to go on for decades) if the right (or wrong) circumstances converge.

 

[Marengo]

Deportation to the East surely has a rather different connotation than being banned to a castle in Bavaria. Though uncomfortable and frightening, obviously it was a very different experience than being deported to the various concentration camps "like so many others" as you say. The latter is usually meant when referring to German deportations to the East. In that context I am not sure if this terminoligy is appropriate. Though it may be linguistically correct it is somewhat surprising to see the term being used here.

 

[Prinsara]

Deportation to the East surely has a rather different connotation than being banned to a castle in Bavaria. Though uncomfortable and frightening, obviously it was a very different experience than being deported to the various concentration camps "like so many others" as you say. The latter is usually meant when referring to German deportations to the East. In that context I am not sure if this terminoligy is appropriate. Though it may be linguistically correct it is somewhat surprising to see the term being used here.

No, I don't think so. "The Nazis were trying to murder them" still stands, regardless of accommodations or linguistics.

Lilian had to argue strenuously to get Albert proper medical care in order to keep gangrene from developing in a wound in his leg. They were starving at the end; Josephine-Charlotte had memories of eating dandelions and vomiting from eating a tin of American peanut butter.

Not only were they not held in anything resembling comfort or normality, both Leopold and Lilian were fully expecting to be killed along with the children the entire time — and indeed one day some "vitamin pills" were given to Lilian to give to the family. She did not do that, and when they were finally tested, apparently there was cyanide in them.

Everything about it sounds pretty ominous and terrifying — and familiar — to me, and I speak as someone who had a lot of family imprisoned and killed at the time for being Jewish and existing. Not knowing if you'll be murdered that day or the following, or how, is pretty much a signature of the experience. I don't envy Leopold or his family one iota of their deportation — during which they had the Romanovs to contemplate at every moment.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

Gen. Eisenhower was so concerned about an Ekaterinburg style wipe out of the Belgian Royal Family by the Nazis that he personally directed the American Army to make it a priority to locate and liberate them.

The very thick eyeglasses worn by Baudouin for the rest of his life were a direct result of damage to his eyesight by poor lighting in captivity.

Josephine Charlotte developed a serious nicotine addiction.

 

[Prinsara]

And in the end, they lived in a different country after the war because they couldn't return where they used to live, like so many others.

Deported, somehow survived, and displaced. Quite a common wartime experience.

 

[JR76]

Deportation to the East surely has a rather different connotation than being banned to a castle in Bavaria. Though uncomfortable and frightening, obviously it was a very different experience than being deported to the various concentration camps "like so many others" as you say. The latter is usually meant when referring to German deportations to the East. In that context I am not sure if this terminoligy is appropriate. Though it may be linguistically correct it is somewhat surprising to see the term being used here.

While not interned in concentration camps their deportation was more than "uncomfortable and frightening". Josephine Charlotte has spoken about them getting so little to eat that they picked grass to eat. This, of course, weren't something that they were the only ones to do. At least they had a roof over their heads while many spent months on the road. Especially those running west from the Soviet "liberators".

 

[maria-olivia]

Books and Books are written about Leopold III .
Out of topic but it is important his Brother Prince Charles , Comte de Flandres saved the Monarchy of Belgium between 1945 and 1950.

 

[Prinsara]

From 1948 — "Vicomte Gatien du Parc, an aide of Leopold, once told me of the king's ordeal during the winter 1944-45:

“We were taken from villa to villa in lonely parts of Germany and Austria. We were surrounded by barbed wire. We heard only the tramp of Gestapo guards and the yowl of watchdogs. Every so often an SS general visited Leopold to remind him that his life, and those of his family, might be forfeit. The King hardly ate. Poison was one of the modes of death frequently threatened . ."

"On May 5, 1945, an American armored column rolled into the town of St. Wolfgang in Austria and found Leopold, his family and his entourage. The King was thin and seriously ill."

He just got rescued. He certainly doesn't look happy. https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en/...with-the-princess-of/photograph/asset/4881044

 

[Tatiana Maria]

Very interesting. What were the politics (I assume) which led to the Nazis repeatedly threatening the lives of the king and his family yet never outright assassinating them?

 

[Prinsara]

I'm not sure there were politics. If the Nazis wanted them for some kind of leverage, they weren't treating them like it, and seemingly would've have been just as happy if they'd starved, succumbed to gangrene, or taken the cyanide pills. Their lives were not that valuable, I guess, and their deaths could have been obfuscated as something other than murder (which is presumably why they weren't shot, unless that's something only Bolsheviks do). Devaluing the lives of anyone they saw as an inconvenience was the Third Reich's modus operandi.

Queen Elisabeth was so afraid they'd die she kept raising the idea of prisoner exchanges with Wilhelmina and George VI (who said to Wilhelmina 'we can't do that but there must be another way'...except there wasn't.)

 

[Moonmaiden23]

The confinement of the Royal Family obviously did not compare to the brutality of what was suffered at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, but they were traumatized by it nevertheless.

Princes Albert and Alexandre were fortunate to be too young to remember much of it.

 

[Marengo]

Much of Europe was going hungry in the last months of the war. In the Netherlands alone 30.000 people died of hunger. In the East of Europe people have suffered more. Many people will have experienced health problems later in life, as members of the Belgian RF apparently did. But all this is still very far away from sufferings in the camps, to which I am sure we can all agree.

Prof. Van Den Wijngaart of the University of Louvain - who wrote several books on the RF- claims that though the RF and the courtiers around them -among them the count du Parc Locmaria- may have feared a murder, there is not the slightest evidence that any plans were ever made. He claims that these stories were utilized by Leopoldists to paint Leopold as a victim and create sympathy for the monarch. In the 2013 documentary on King Boudewijn he says that the hardships in Strobl were 'greatly exagerated' while he mentions that the murder plots were 'pure fiction'.

 

[Prinsara]

No, Marengo, I'm afraid we can't all agree. Many of these stories date from the time and are not really the kinds of details you make up — and didn't produce much sympathy anyway. And the fact you are suggesting prison victims made up these horrible things just for PR, rather than as something they actually experienced, is rather alarming.

https://crossoflaeken.blogspot.com/2012/03/royal-family-in-captivity-part-iv.html

I understand that your dislike of Leopold leads you to believe that barbed wire, dogs, and Gestapo guards were "very far away from the camps", and ignore that non-untermenschen prisoners have more rights than starving civilians, like access to food and healthcare. They were not well cared for in the slightest.

Living in fear everyday when the Gestapo and SS had absolutely no intent of ever killing them and were just maintaining the atmosphere for a great joke is also a major violation of the Geneva Convention.