Tour of Flanders - Claims of Collaboration

Claims of Collaboration

Van Wijnendaele's magazine, Sportwereld, merged, in 1939, with Het Nieuwsblad, a daily newspaper first published in 1918. Sportwereld was turned into the sports section of Het Nieuwsblad and its sister paper, De Standaard. War broke out that year and, in May 1940, German troops occupied Belgium. The government escaped to London and the king, Léopold III, was held under house arrest. Het Nieuwsblad changed its name to Het Algemeen Nieuws-Sportwereld and it continued to organise the Ronde.

The Ronde is the only classic to have been held on German-occupied territory during the Second World War, in agreement with the German command. The Germans, says the writer Gabe Konrad, "not only allowed and enjoyed the race but helped police the route as well." That led to accusations of collaboration. De Standaard and Het Algemeen Nieuws-Sportwereld were sequestered by the state when peace returned and several general journalists, although largely not sports reporters, were punished for collaboration. Van Wijnendaele was forbidden to work as a journalist for the rest of his life, a ban lifted when he produced a letter of support from General Bernard Montgomery, confirming that van Wijnendaele had hidden downed British pilots in his house.

A rival newspaper, Het Volk started a rival race in 1945, the Omloop van Vlaanderen, in contrast to what it saw as the Ronde's closeness to the Germans. The Ronde's organisers protested that the name was too close to their own - in Dutch there is little difference between ronde and omloop - and the Belgian cycling federation told Het Volk to change their name. That race became the Omloop Het Volk.