Lode Craeybeckx

Lode Craeybeckx (24 November 1897 – 25 July 1976) served as Mayor of Antwerp, Belgium from 1947 until his death in 1976, becoming the longest serving mayor of the city in its history.

François Ferdinand Louis Craeybeckx, better known as Lode, was born in Antwerp in 1897. His father was a policeman from Limburg, while his mother came from Liège. He studied at the Athenaeum of Antwerp before going to the new University of Ghent in 1917. For collaborating with the German occupiers during the First World War, he was sent to prison for five years, but he was released after two years.

Lode Craeybeckx married Irma Lauwers in 1921. They had two children, Hilde and Herman. From 1925 until 1931, he works as a journalist for the newspaper De Volksgazet.

In 1932, Craeybeckx started to work as a lawyer and entered the world of politics. He became a councillor in Deurne for the Belgian Socialist Party. The same year, he entered the Belgian Parliament, where he would stay until 1968. He was the successor of Willem Eekelers as mayor of Antwerp in 1947, and remained in that position for nearly thirty years, a record for the city.

When Lode Craeybeckx dies in 1976 the first Alderman Leo Delwaide, christian democrat and collaborationist mayor of Antwerp under Nazi occupation, took over ad interim, until a new mayor was sworn in. Frans Detiège Alderman for Social Affairs, socialist, and long time companion of Craeybeckx fulfilled the position until the end of term. At the 1976 municioal election, the sitting coalition of socialists and christian democrats were re-elected and Mathilde Schroyens took office as Mayor of Antwerp in 1977.

During his run as mayor, Antwerp was massively changed. The RUCA university (1965) and the UIA university (1971) were founded (both were merged with the older UFSIA in the University of Antwerp in 2003). The Middelheim, an open-air museum for modern sculptures, was created in 1951. The city got improved traffic infrastructure and the city and Port of Antwerp were massively expanded.

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