A Belgian minister has voiced concern that Belgian former Nazi collaborators may still be receiving German pensions, the BBC has reported .

Belgian survivors of Nazi persecution have appealed to the government to stop the payments, and Pensions Minister Daniel Bacquelaine “shares their indignation”, his spokeswoman told the BBC.

But Germany manages the payments and “we have no official figures” for the recipients, Geraldine Lamoureux added.

Belgians who served in the SS were made Germans by an Adolf Hitler’s personal decree.

After the 1945 liberation, 57,000 Belgian collaborators were convicted.

The Memorial Group, lobbying the Belgian government, estimates that as many as 2,500 ex- Nazi collaborators are still receiving German pensions.

The petition to stop the German pension payments was the group’s initiative. They include Belgians who survived the Nazi camps and who want modern Belgium to remember the wartime occupation.

Belgians were recruited into the German Waffen SS and Wehrmacht, and collaborators also helped the Nazis to send Jews and resistance fighters to concentration camps.

The group’s president, Pieter Paul Baeten, quoted by Belgian broadcaster RTBF, said: “It’s sad. Belgium can’t get hold of the information [on pension recipients], or doesn’t want to.

“But I don’t understand how, in today’s Europe, Belgium and Germany can’t manage to exchange this information.”

It is not clear if those receiving the pensions are all living in Belgium.

The Memorial Group wants an official Belgian-German commission to be set up, to investigate the pensions and reveal who the recipients are.

Ms Lamoureux said the pensions minister “will discuss the matter with other ministers, to find a solution”.