When a house in the Kirchstraße in Nidrum was sold a few years ago, a shoebox was noticed during the house clearance. It contained photos, family documents, passports, pay books, etc. They belonged to Wilhelm Benker, who was born in 1881 in a house called ‘Brongs’ (house names are a tradition in the Eifel area) in Nidrum. In 1919 he was secretary of the mayoralty of Bütgenbach and one of the leading figures against ceding Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium. He saw this as an injustice against which he protested all his life. He founded the ‘Home Organisation for the Protection of the Popular Consultation’. Even though the group operated underground, the Belgian state put the double agent Christian Sand on the rebels. On 19 June 1920, Benker was arrested. His protest resulted in a four-week prison spell, and he lost his post as mayoral secretary. Some measures were withdrawn, but the reprisals against him continued. Benker left home and moved to Aachen, where he became chief city manager.
In this shoebox was a print version of Wilhelm Benker’s diary, published from August 1940 to March 1941 in the ‘Westdeutscher Beobachter’ (a Nazi paper), Malmedy-St.Vith edition, which is now forgotten. However, this memoir is an important testimony of the times. The scan is my gift to East Belgium, which should continue to listen to history in order to shape our coexistence with each other and creatively shape our own future.
Gerhard Reuter
Nidrum