 As the Belgian army clashed with the invading Germans in May 1940 , Hergé and his wife fled by car to France along with tens of thousands of other Belgians , first staying in Paris and then heading south to <unk> @-@ de @-@ <unk> , where they remained for six weeks . On 28 May , Belgian King Leopold III officially surrendered the country to the German army to prevent further killing ; a move that Hergé agreed with . Germany placed Belgium under occupation . Hergé followed the king 's request that all civilians who had fled the country return ; he arrived back in Brussels on 30 June . There , he found that an officer of the German army 's <unk> occupied his house , and he also faced financial trouble , as he owed back taxes yet was unable to access his financial reserves ( his fee due from Casterman eventually arrived ) . All Belgian publications were now under the control of the German occupying force . The Catholic publication Le Vingtième Siècle and its supplement Le Petit Vingtième , where Hergé had always worked <unk> The Adventures of Tintin , no longer had permission to continue publication . Land of Black Gold , the story that Hergé had been <unk> there , had to be abandoned . Victor <unk> , the <unk> editor of Le Pays <unk> , offered Hergé employment as a cartoonist , but Hergé perceived Le Pays <unk> as an explicitly political publication and thus declined the position . 
