Mouvement National Royaliste

The National Royalist Movement (Mouvement national royaliste (MNR), Nationale Koninklijke Beweging (NKB)) was a right-wing group of the Belgian Resistance during the Second World War, opposed to the German occupation of Belgium. It was active chiefly in Brussels and Flanders.

Background
The MNR was founded in 1940 by former members of the fiercy pro-Catholic and authoritarian Rexist Party who were disillusioned by the cooperation of the party with German occupying forces, including Eugène Mertens de Wilmars, a former admirer of Leon Degrelle. The group aimed to create a Belgian state as a dictatorship of the king, Leopold III.

The MNR went "underground" from July 1942 after being targeted by German forces and began to print various underground journals (including the paper Vrije volk) and collect information. The founder, Mertens de Wilmars, was arrested in May 1942 and was succeeded by Ernest Graff who made the group's policy more overtly anti-German.

160 members of the MNR were executed or died in Nazi camps. Around 100 were killed in action during the liberation of the Port of Antwerp in September 1944. A monument to five members of the group killed during the liberation of Brussels is visible next to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts.