The Press under German Censorship during the Second World War
The German occupation of Belgium put an end to the basic,
constitutionally guaranteed, freedom of the press. Immediately
after the German invasion, Belgium was subjected to a system of
press censorship by the occupier, initially as a precautionary
measure. In the autumn of 1940, an a posteriori censorship was
introduced. Because this system proved not to be fully secure, a
preventative censorship was reintroduced in August 1942.
Furthermore, a newspaper could not be published without the
authorisation of the occupier. The occupier controlled
everything The military government also employed other means of
controlling the press, such as the centralisation of news
gathering, the establishment of a monopoly on the distribution
channels, the obligation for journalists to join an official
professional association and the control of the distribution of
paper. The pre-war press agency Belga was put under German
control and became Belgapress. All the newspa