Militärbefehlshaber Belgien-Nordfrankreich was formed on 28 May 1940 by redesignation of Militärbefehlshaber Belgien. The Milbefh. for a short time period simultaneously was the military head office for Luxemburg, too, until it was decided by the Führer to give the grand duchy [Großherzogtum] a purely civil administration under Gauleiter Gustav Simon (per 2 Aug 1940 formally).
With Führererlass from 13.7.1944 it was ordered to replace the military administration with a civil administration [CdZ , Zivilverwaltung]. The new Reichskommissar Gauleiter Josef Grohé took over the command and to have a counter-part for military matters in succession to the Mil.Befh. the HQ was redesignated Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Belgien-Nordfrankreich (Gen. Grase appointed by Hitler and subordinated directly to Chef OKW).

Commanders

General der Infanterie z.V. Alexander von Falkenhausen (28 May 1940 – 15 July 1944) (1)
General der Infanterie Martin Grase (15 July 1944 – 18 July 1944)

HQ

Brussels (Brüssel)

Territory

Belgium and northern France east of the Somme River [dépts. Pas-de-Calais and Nord]

Order of battle

Oberfeldkommandanturen (= OFK) :
OFK 520, Antwerpen
OFK 570, Gent
OFK 589, Lüttich
OFK 670, Lille
OFK 672, Brüssel

General der Infanterie z.V. Alexander von Falkenhausen during his time as Militärbefehlshaber Belgien-Nordfrankreich

(Courtesy of Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany)

Footnotes

1. Alexander von Falkenhausen was posted to the Army High Command Leader Reserve [Führerreserve] per 15 July 44. On 29 July 44 he was arrested by the Gestapo due to his suspected connection to the 20th July plotters. In fact he was in contact with the Resistence and the Opposition around Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler. He also had good contacts to the Foreign Office and the Amt Abwehr and especially to members of the Kreisauer Kreis. He had shown his dislike of Hitler’s “Machtergreifung” in 1934 already when he successfully requested to become a military advisor in China just to have the possibility to leave Germany. He was rescued by US troops on 4 May 1945 as a prisoner of KZ Dachau while being evacuated from the camp by the SS guards. He spent three years as a POW in British and US camps and was extradited to Belgium in 1948. On 7 March 1951 he was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in Belgium for the deportation of about 25.000 Belgian Jews and the execution of Belgian hostages, but released three weeks later. He died in Germany in 1966.

Sources used

Research by Bernd R

Reference material on this unit

- None known at this time -