'Onze strijd is niet ten einde!' Het Gentse Onafhankelijkheidsfront tijdens en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog ; “Our struggle is not end!” The Ghent Independence Front during and after World War II

The article focuses on the intellectual sphere which constituted the core of the Ghent Independence Front, a resistance movement against the German occupier during the Second World War. The Independence Front is too often defined as a communist resistance movement, despite its numerous different sections existing in Belgium. Although this epithet might be attributed to some regional sections, as commitment to the communist cause was often the backbone of the many IF cores, it is nevertheless an oversimplified point of view, in fact, the original founders of the IF in Brussels did strive to achieve a pluralistic composition including all democratic forces. In Ghent, it soon became clear that this objective would be realized. The scope of this study is threefold. First, the post-war developments of resistance movements are studied through the case of Ghent. The article is also a plea for a more nuanced approach in the research on resistance movements. The existing ideological categorisations are often historiographical constructions which do not always correspond with the historical reality. Finally, where the study of the resistance during the Second World War is concerned, we decided to leave the dominant time frame of 19401945, to make it clear that the roots of certain views and perceptions also existed outside the context of the occupation, and are therefore not inspired solely by the it.