Committee of Secretary-Generals

The Committee of Secretaries-General (French: Comité des Sécretaires-généraux, Dutch: Comité van de secretarissen-generaal) was a Belgian technocratic administrative panel created during World War II. The Committee comprised the head civil servants of most government ministries (who each held the title Secretary-General) and formed a part of the German occupation administration of Belgium between 1940 and 1944, being an integral role in the Belgian policy of "lesser evil" collaboration. From August 1940, the Germans began introducing new members, and by 1941 its composition was almost completely different. Among those promoted were pro-Germans like Victor Leemans and Gérard Romsée, who had been involved in Belgian Fascist movements before the war. They helped to facilitate the more radical administrative reforms demanded by the Germans, although the Committee refused to involve itself in the deportation of Belgian Jews. As the visible face of the German administration, the Committee became more and more unpopular as the war progressed. Following the Allied liberation of Belgium in 1944, several members of the Committee were prosecuted for collaboration but several members, including Leemans, went on to political careers in post-war Belgium.

The Committee was installed by the Belgian government of Hubert Pierlot on 16 May 1940 as an administrative committee to oversee the basic functioning of the Belgian state in the absence of the official government. While the ministers departed for Bordeaux in France, the Secretaries-General (chief civil servants responsible for each department) of each ministry were ordered to remain in the country, along with all other civil servants, to allow the state to continue functioning.

The Committee formed part of the policy of officially sanctioned "lesser evil" collaboration among the civil service and government bureaus left behind.

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