Henri de Man

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Henri De Man (in Dutch: Hendrik de Man) (Antwerp, 17 November 1885, Greng, Switzerland, 20 June 1953) was one of the leading Belgian socialist theoreticians of his period, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a Flemish burgher who received training in Germany.

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[edit] World War I and the interwar period

A politically active socialist, he nevertheless supported the Allied cause in World War I. After the war, he taught sociology for a time at the University of Washington, then moved to Weimar Germany where he wrote and studied on the development of modern socialism and society.

Returning to Belgium, he became Vice President of the Parti Ouvrier Belge (POB, Belgian Workers' party). Upon the death of Emile Vandervelde in 1938, he assumed its presidency.

His views on socialism were controversial. His revision of Marxism greatly affected Mussolini. His promotion of the idea of "planisme", or planning, was widely influential in the early 1930s, in particular among the Non-Conformist Movement in France.

[edit] Plan De Man

De Man was responsible for a plan which was devised to halt the rise of fascism in Belgium. This plan became widely known as 'Het Plan De Man' and was an example of planism. The plan is comparable to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.[1]

[edit] Collaboration

De Man was an adviser to King Leopold, and his mother Queen-Mother Elisabeth. After the capitulation of the Belgian Army in 1940, he issued a manifesto to POB's members, welcoming the German occupation: "For the working classes and for socialism, this collapse of a decrepit world, far from being a disaster, is a deliverance."

He was involved in setting up a pro-Nazi umbrella trade union, the Unie van Hand-en Geestesarbeiders/Union des Travailleurs Manuels et Intellectuels (UHAG/UTMI).

Nevertheless, he eventually was mistrusted both by Flemish Nazi collaborators (for his 'Belgicism') and by the Nazi authorities, who forbade him to give anymore public speeches around Easter 1941. Seeing he had lost his grip on events, he went into self-imposed exile in an Alpine cottage in La Clusaz, in the Haute Savoie region of France. After Liberation, he crossed the border to Switzerland.[2]

He was convicted in absentia of treason after the war. He died (probably committed suicide,) in 1953, together with his wife, in a collision with a train.[2]

His nephew, the literary theorist Paul de Man, became famous in the United States as a leading proponent of "deconstructionism", but after his death in 1983 was found to have written articles in the wartime Nazi-controlled press that discussed antisemitic themes.

[edit] Writings of De Man

  • Après Coup, Brussels: Éd. de la Toison d'Or, 1941.
  • Au-delà du Marxisme. Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 1974.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Schurmans, W., Memo 6, Uitgeverij De Boeck, Antwerpen, 2005, 204 pages, p. 42-47.
  2. ^ a b Jean-Marie Tremblay. Henri de Man, 1885-1953, Professeur à l’Université libre de Bruxelles, Député et ministre dans le parlement belge (French), University of Quebec, 9 October 2006 (Google translation)
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