The first 2025 issue of the Journal of Belgian History is out !

This issue contains four articles presenting a series of recent research studies on the history of Belgium in the 20th century.

Juliette Masquelier (UAntwerpen and ULB) and Margaux Roberti-Lintermans (UCLouvain) examine the role of Christian and socialist women's movements in the reform of childcare services in French-speaking Belgium around the 1970s. The political struggle of these movements played a role in the gradual “depilarization” of Belgium.

Stef de Baedts (UGent) presents a reworked version of his master's thesis on the changing ideological worldviews of Flemish East Front fighters during World War II.

Matthew G. Stanard (professor at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, USA, and president of the French Colonial Historical Society) presents his research on 'Bwana Kitoko' (Noble Lord), the influential but now somewhat forgotten film by André Cauvin about the young King Baudouin's tour of the Belgian Congo in 1955. He shows that Cauvin borrowed scenes, techniques and perhaps even themes from Leni Riefenstahl's notorious Triumph des Willens (The Triumph of the Will, 1935), an emblematic propaganda film for the German Nazi regime.

Finally, Vincent Mazy (UCLouvain) publishes a revised version of his master's thesis on the organization of the Saint-Léonard prison in Liège during World War I, and the forms of internal resistance organized by political prisoners held in preventive detention sections set up by the German military authorities.

The issue also includes a debate section with an article by Antoon Vrints (UGent) on the Resistance in Flanders and an article by Bart Willems (State Archives, Antwerp) on the Belgian Resistance from a transnational perspective.

Priced at 15 euros (excl. postage) it can be ordered from Hilde Keppens, CegeSoma, Square de l'Aviation 29, 1070 Brussels, +32 2/556 92 11 - hilde.keppens@arch.be