In 1943, Herman de Vleeschauwer, the educational ideologue of the Flemish National Union published his For a national cultural and educational program. The brochure was a blueprint for a reform of the Belgian cultural scene and the educational system according to Flemish nationalist ideals. In his program, the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft stood central. According to de Vleeschauwer, the state was the emanation of the people, and, therefore, had to play a central role in the organization of schools. During the war, some educational movements went even further in their efforts to reform education. The Diets Opvoedkundige Beweging, a movement initiated in 1937 by a group of young Flemish teachers, aimed to use the school as a way to establish a Greater Netherlands. Therefore, Belgian education needed to be reformed according to the German model, and needed to center on ideas of racial purity, discipline, character, Heimatkunde, and antisemitism. In the existing literature about the German occupation of Belgium (1940-1944), these two movements have become the most common examples of how Fascist groupings considered the reform of education as a necessary condition for the establishment of a New Order. However, the fact that there were some educational reformers that combined traditional and anti-modern with progressive educational ideas, remains understudied. This article presents an analysis of the educational journal Vlaamsche Paedagogiek (Flemish Pedagogy), a journal that was published between 1941 and 1944 by two established educationalists. The journal presents a remarkable combination of progressive educational ideas, such as an emphasis on the free development of the child, and an anti-modern and anti-democratic discourse, founded on ideas of the Volksgemeinschaft and the importance of Heimatkunde. This paper documents the attractiveness of progressive education for flamingant educationalists and teachers, who were convinced that the Volksgemeinschaft, organized around the national history and popular Flemish language, could be achieved by a child-centered pedagogy.

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