<P> Leopold III, King and commander in chief of the Belgian army, surrendered personally to German forces on 28 May, contrary to the advice of Pierlot's government, having personally decided that the Allied cause was lost . His decision was fiercely criticized by the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud and by Pierlot in a radio broadcast on 28 June 1940, where he declared Leopold's decision to be "an event without precedent in history". </P> <P> The King remained in Belgium during the war as a German prisoner while the government went into exile and continued military action in the Allied cause . Unlike the Netherlands and Luxembourg where the monarchy was repressed or had joined the government in exile, Leopold III remained prominent in the occupied territory, and coins and stamps produced during the occupation continued to carry his face or monogram . Nevertheless, Leopold remained a focus for resistance, his position explained by the slogan "Belgium is captive! Long live Belgium! The King is captive! Long live the King!" While imprisoned, he sent a letter to Adolf Hitler in 1942 which has been credited with saving an estimated 500,000 Belgian women and children from forced deportation to munitions factories in Germany . In November 1940, Leopold visited Hitler in Berchtesgaden where he asked for Belgian prisoners of war to be freed . </P> <P> After the war, allegations that Leopold's surrender had been an act of collaboration provoked a political crisis, known as the Royal Question, about whether he could return to the throne, which ultimately ended with his abdication . </P> <P> Belgium was run by a German military government under General Alexander von Falkenhausen and Eggert Reeder until July 1944, and then by Reichskommissar Josef Grohé until liberation . The German government levied the costs of the military occupation on the Belgians through taxes, while also demanding "external occupation costs" (or "Anti-Bolshevik charge") to support operations elsewhere . In total, Belgium was forced to pay nearly two - thirds of its national income for these charges, a figure equaling 5.7 billion Reichsmarks . </P>

Which city was an allied capital during the second world war