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this week Sabine’s battlefield guide Saturday: How the Germans suppressed in occupied Belgium

The newspaper ‘Ons Vlaanderen’ war issue Sunday 14 November 1916

the stages inspector general lieutenant Von Unger comes to take the following decision :

1. anyone who refuses to carry out a task imposed by the military authorities will be imprisoned for a year.

2. whoever by threat, advice or any other means, incites someone to refuse work, will be punished with 5 years imprisonment

3. whoever gives money or support to those who refuse work shall be punished with a fine of 10,000 marks and one year in prison

4. the local authorities of the offenders of the present decree shall also be made responsible for the offences and punished.

from the same newspaper :

robbed and punished

An inhabitant of Tongeren saw that almost every day, German ‘pinnemutsen’ ( spikehelmets) were plundering his fruit trees. He complained to the kommandatuur result: the complainant was punished with a fine of 150 marks and a month in prison because “German pinnemutsen” do not steal or plunder.

New claims

They( the Germans) have started to claim a number of goods in the Belgian municipalities that have a very special value , In addition to the hay, straw and oats, all copper objects are now claimed, and the municipal authorities have been ordered to inform their residents that it is forbidden to hide these objects. The claimed goods are collected by lorry and transported to Germany

German Beer and Belgian beer

Von Huegel, commander of the ‘etappengebiet’ in Gent, has issued the following placard: (which was a laughing matter in Gent,) if coffee shops or restaurants that offer German beer also serve Belgian beer, they are prohibited to hang advertising signs in or outside the establishment with the words ‘deutsches bier’. doing so would cause a 500 mark fine.

Ludwig Otto Wilhelm Wolfgang von Unger

17. December 1855 in Detmold, † 18. December 1927 in Charlottenburg . Was a Prussian cavalry general and military writer .It was only on 17 September 1915 that he received a new assignment with his appointment as ‘etappen inspektor ‘of the 4th Army in Gent. He was known as a friendly and moderate man who had little in common with Prussian militarism.

‘Etappengebiet’ is the general name for the rear area of an army and plays an essential role: it is responsible for the army’s lines of communication with the homeland, supplies and further support such as the removal and care of wounded, prisoners of war. This logistic support does not only concern transport, storage and distribution of supplies delivered from Germany, but also locating, acquiring and producing the necessary supplies on the spot either by purchase or by requisitions and seizures. Just about the rest of Belgium, except Antwerp which was run by a military governor, was the ‘Okkupationsgebiet’. The latter was sometimes described as ‘paradise’, while the ‘Etappengebiet’ was ‘purgatory’ and the ‘Operationsgebiet’ ‘hell’.