On the 10th of May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium and quickly occupied the industrial city of Sha Lewis. The occupiers imposed strict control with new rules, propaganda, and a local administration willing to work with them. As resistance groups formed, members of the Rexist movement stepped in to run the city for the Nazi authorities. Among them was a local collaborator who rose quickly through the political ranks and became mayor of Sha Loa. He appeared at official events, oversaw wartime supplies, and tried to control a population growing increasingly hostile.
By mid 1944, especially after the Allies landed in Normandy, tensions in the region were extremely high. On the 17th of August 1944, as he traveled home with his wife and son, resistance fighters ambushed their car and opened fire. All three were killed. Within hours, Rexist militias launched brutal reprisals, pulling civilians from their homes and executing them in what became one of the deadliest acts of the occupation, the Corsel massacre. The name of the assassinated Nazi collaborator was Oswald Anglebong.
Oswald Anglebong was born on the 27th of December 1893 in the small town of Senev in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. During his military service in 1914, he suffered an injury that prevented him from taking part in the First World War, which lasted from the 28th of July 1914 to the 11th of November 1918. In the interwar years, Anglebong married Fur Phipe, and the marriage produced a son. At the same time, Belgium was entering a period of deep economic and political crisis.
As the Great Depression hit Belgium, the country descended into economic crisis and political unrest. Economic hardship, social tension, and fear of communism drove many toward radical ideas. Among them was Rex, a movement founded in the early 1930s by Leon Degr. Originally a Catholic publishing group called Christus Rex, meaning Christ the King, it soon evolved into a political force combining religious traditionalism, nationalism, and authoritarianism. Rex called for the moral regeneration of Belgium, the defense of Catholic values, and the rejection of parliamentary democracy.
It denounced corruption, communism, and liberalism, instead promoting a vision of a disciplined, unified, and devout state. In 1936, the movement shocked the country by winning more than 11% of the national vote, but the success was short-lived. Inspired by Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Rex grew increasingly fascist and openly sympathetic to Nazi Germany, causing Degr to lose the support of moderate Catholics and conservatives who had once backed him. The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.
Belgium was attacked on the 10th of May 1940, and after 18 days of fighting, the Belgian army surrendered on the 28th of May. During the occupation, Oswald aligned himself with the Rexist movement and entered local collaborationist politics. In October 1941, he was appointed Rexist Mayor of Trazini, a small town in Wallonia. When in July 1942 the Germans created a centralized administrative district named Greater Sha Lewis, he became the municipal executive in charge of supplies. After the resistance assassinated Prosper Gels, the mayor of Greater Sha Lewis, Anglebong was appointed to succeed him in December 1942.
As mayor, he became increasingly visible at official events staged by the Nazi authorities. In March 1944, he welcomed Leon Degr to Sha Lewis City Hall and praised the Belgian volunteers fighting for Germany on the Eastern Front. A month later, he formally received SS troops who had recently returned from fighting in the Soviet Union, delivering a speech to Degr, senior Nazi officials, and Rexist officials. These public displays of loyalty placed him firmly at the center of collaborationist authority in the region.
On the 17th of August 1944, just after noon, Anglebong left Sha Lewis city hall in a car heading toward his home in Trazini. His son Philipe was driving, with the mayor's bodyguard Jean Marcel Duken seated beside him and a submachine gun placed between his legs. In the back sat Oswald Anglebong and his wife Filipe. The vehicle, running on wood gas due to wartime fuel shortages, struggled up the steep road between the Sha Lewis district of Monsu Suombra and the nearby town of Corsel.
At a place known as Ryak, Duken noticed a car stopped on the right side of the road. A man stood beside it, seemingly changing a wheel. In the next instant, four other men suddenly appeared and opened fire with automatic weapons. Duken tried to reach for the gun, but Philipe had already been hit. Mortally wounded, he collapsed forward, losing control of the car. It rolled forward and slipped into a roadside ditch as the attackers continued firing. Two of the gunmen closed in, ordering the occupants to get out with their hands up.
Only Duken could move. The 50-year-old Oswald, his wife, and his son had already been fatally wounded. More shots rang out at close range. Later counts found six bullet impacts in Anglebong's body, 18 in his wife's, and four in Philipe's. Mrs. Anglebong was slumped forward, her face turned toward the door. Anglebong lay still beside the car. Philipe remained stretched across the seat. Duken slipped away to raise the alarm.
When he returned, three Rexist brigade members had already arrived and attempted to pursue the attackers without success. Enraged, they launched immediate reprisals. Believing without any evidence that the attackers might be hiding among passersby, the Rexist gunmen turned on the first civilians they encountered. A truck happened to arrive carrying two men from the Monso Fontan coal mines, commercial director Paul Vonenbar and works director Jean Lini. Threatened with execution, both tried to flee. Lini managed to escape. Vondenbar was gunned down in the street and collapsed mortally wounded.
This killing marked the beginning of the reprisals that would soon culminate in the Corsel massacre. Later that day, the Rexists widened their reprisals across the region. During the night of the 17th of August, more than 20 civilians were dragged to a requisitioned house in Corsel, close to the place where Oswald and his family were assassinated. They were locked in the cellar as their captors prepared their execution. Among them was Father Pierre Armi, the dean of Sha Lewis, known for his outspoken criticism of the Nazi occupiers. Others included lawyers, engineers, and police officers, respected figures who had served as pillars of their community.
At dawn, the Rexists started the engines of their vehicles to drown out the sound of gunfire. One by one, the hostages were led outside. Father Armi reportedly offered comfort to the others before his death, saying, "I die and we all die so that peace may reign in the world and so that men may love one another." Each victim was shot in the back of the head. Their bodies were dumped without ceremony near the spot where Anglebong had fallen. Nineteen were executed this way, the single largest group of victims in the Corsel massacre.
The killings did not stop there. Later that day, Jaman von Ugard Deandre, president of the Sha Lewis Red Cross, was taken away and shot with three bullets to the back. Elizabeth Derida, the housekeeper of a local architect, was also murdered. In total, 27 civilians were killed in Corsel between the 17th and 18th of August 1944. Amid the slaughter, two prisoners survived. Marcel Stoka was released before the transfer, while German gobb was spared when a Rexist cousin recognized her. For the rest, no mercy was shown.
Anglebong had previously stated that he wanted a private funeral. Despite the Rexist leadership pushing for a large public ceremony, his burial on the 21st of August 1944 was held quietly and without fanfare. Despite the discreet setting, numerous Rexist figures attended. The massacre at Corsel did not go unnoticed by the occupiers. German authorities not only tolerated the killings but actively used them for propaganda. Newspapers across Belgium declared that Anglebong and his family had been murdered by so-called terrorists.
In reality, the victims in Corsel were innocent civilians chosen precisely to spread fear and strengthen collaborationist control. Entirely separately, the Germans also carried out their own reprisal, executing 20 hostages who had already been held for earlier resistance actions. It was a brutal reminder that under occupation, both the collaborators and the Nazis used terror as a weapon of control. Only weeks later, Allied forces liberated Belgium in September 1944.
The massacre was still a fresh memory, and the pursuit of collaborators began almost immediately. Belgian authorities launched investigations into the events at Corsel. Out of around 150 suspected participants, 97 were identified. Eighty were captured and put on trial. On the 10th of November 1947, justice was carried out in the city of Sha Lewis. Twenty-seven Rexists were executed by firing squad, including leading figures such as Victor Matis, who had served as interim leader of the party, and Louisie Kolar, his successor. Joseph Pvenas, the regional leader and lawyer, also faced trial for his role in organizing the killings.
During the Second World War, around 88,000 Belgian citizens lost their lives, including 25,000 Belgian Jews who were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps. Oswald Anglebong chose to collaborate with the regime responsible for those deaths, and in the end, he and his family paid the highest price for that choice.