'Les Aventures de Mr. Ding', Le Petit Vingtième #51, 24 December 1936.
Jean Vermeire was a Belgian illustrator, war correspondent and World War II Nazi collaborator. Despite his dubious track record during and after the war, he had a modest role in the upcoming Belgian comic culture as the cartoonist behind the signature Jiv. He drew 'Les Aventures de Mr. Ding' (1936) for Le Petit Vingtième and 'Les Aventures de Mr. Bob' (1940-1941) for Le Pays Réel.
Le Petit Vingtième
Jean Vermeire, born in 1918, was eighteen years old when he began his career as a journalist and artist with the Catholic and ultra-conservative newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. Its chief editor Norbert Wallez openly sympathized with Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. In 1936, Vermeire joined the paper's juvenile supplement, Le Petit Vingtième, filling the spot of cartoonist Paul Jamin (Jam). The supplement was edited by Hergé, who also produced the publication's main comics 'Tintin' and 'Quick & Flupke'. Another artist working for Le Petit Vingtième was Eugène Van Nyverseel (Evany). Vermeire was responsible for a great many illustrations, but he also made the pantomime comic strip 'Les Aventures de M. Ding' (1936). When in May 1940, Hitler invaded Belgium, Le Petit Vingtième was disbanded.
Illustrations for 'Le roi Dogabert et le Courtisan Barbabil', a text story by Jiv (1936).
World War II
During his Petit Vingtième years, Jean Vermeire had become friends with the journalist Léon Degrelle, who in 1935 founded Belgium's Catholic-Fascist Rexist Movement. When the Nazis occupied Belgium (1940-1944), Hitler named Degrelle "Volksführer der Wallonen", making him the number one Walloon collaborator. Jean Vermeire served as Degrelle's loyal right hand. He also remained active in the press. A strong advocate of collaboration with the Nazis, Vermeire was a journalist and war correspondent for the Rexist newspaper, Le Pays Réel, responsible for propaganda articles and reports, as well as the paper's weekly youth supplement, Le Magazine. Under the pseudonym Jiv, he drew the paper's comic serial 'Les Aventures de Bob' (November 1940 - March 1941), about a detective investigating the murder of Dr. Erskin. The two assassins repeatedly try to kill Bob as well, but with no success. The other comic strip in Le Pays Réel was 'Boulou et l'Aventure', credited to "Tiboir & Badour", but Vermeire is believed to be the artist.
In 1941, Hitler rallied thousands of volunteers to join an official army to fight Communism in the name of Christianity. In reality, these armies were purely in support of Hitler's own personality cult and prepared a secret invasion of Russia. In Belgium, they were divided into a Flemish and a Walloon Legion, both divisions of the Rexist SS army. Vermeire was Obersturmführer in the Walloon Legion. The same year, Hitler invaded Russia on the Eastern Front. However, the invasion failed spectacularly and Vermeire fled back to Belgium, where he was promoted to SS Captain within Degrelle's inner circle. In 1943, Degrelle sent him to Berlin to serve as Rexist ambassador. Remaining faithful to him, Vermeire eventually became Sturmbannführer SS in January 1944. He also oversaw the propaganda association Deutsch-Wallonische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (German-Walloon Working Community). In September 1944, Belgium was liberated. While Degrelle managed to flee to Spain, Vermeire was arrested and sentenced to death. However, he was given a life sentence instead and stayed imprisoned until he was pardoned.
Post-war activities and death
Free again in 1951, Vermeire became a dealer of textile machines. Nevertheless, he hadn't abandoned his former Nazi sympathies and kept affiliated with neo-fascist and neo Nazi organizations. In 1978, Jean Vermeire founded Les Bourguignons, an association of Walloon and Brussels SS veterans from the Eastern Front. He also remained close to Léon Degrelle, who lived in exile in Spain. In 1989, Vermeire organized a meeting of 150 Walloon Legion veterans in Degrelle's villa in Spain. When Degrelle died in 1994, Vermeire allegedly scattered the ashes of the former Rexist leader on the Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden, Germany, where Adolf Hitler had his Berghof home. Remaining nostalgic for Nazi Germany and Rexism throughout his later life, Vermeire also spent his final years in Spain, passing away from a stroke in September 2009, three days short of his 91st birthday.
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