Galopin Doctrine
Galopin was governor of the Société Générale de Belgique, which controlled 40% of the Belgian economy. He helped found the "Galopin Committee", a group of the leaders of holding companies, banks and industry. It served as a sort of a shadow government that decided economic and social policy and was able to set rules for dealing with the Nazi German occupiers.
Part of its goal was to keep Belgian industry strong during the war so as to not leave the economy crippled once the war ended. Controversially, its members would supply the Nazi occupiers and produce goods for them. It refused to produce anything with a clearly military purpose, although the difference between direct production of weapons and different ways of contributing to the German war effort was not always clear. Galopin was assassinated in 1944 by Robert Jan Verbelen, a Nazi collaborator.
Read more about this topic: Alexandre Galopin
Famous quotes containing the word doctrine:
“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)