Leon Degrelle in the
uniform of an SS Officer
The rise in contemporary times of White Nationalism has meant that many
of its adherents have sought inspiration from the Nazi and Fascist era of the
20thCentury. This is not limited to the political parties that came
to power in Germany and Italy, but encompasses the likes of the Spanish Falange,
the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, the British Union of Fascists and the Belgian Rexist
Party. The founder of Rexism, Leon Degrelle serves as an icon to those who
range from adventurers seeking military action with the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion
of Ukraine to the White Nationalist groups who have marched in cities like
Charlottesville. White identitarians claim they are reacting to mass
immigration of non-whites, the threat of Islam and the domination of Jews in
their societies. And in Degrelle they conceptualise the creation, in his words,
of “a European world which would be the master of the universe of all time.”
“You must
train harder than the enemy who is trying to kill you. You will get all the
rest you need in the grave.”
- Leon
Degrelle
The dark era
of the ascendant European right-wing prior to and during World War II produced
a range of figures who continue to be revered not only by present day neo-Nazis,
but by adherents to the belief system of what is contemporarily termed “White
Nationalism”. Reinhard Heydrich, the S.S. chief who was assassinated in Prague
in 1942, unlike many figures of the German Third Reich, escaped the humiliation
of a criminal’s fate of death on the gallows, while Robert Brasilliach, the
French writer-advocate for fascist movements, is martyred by those who consider
his culpability for intellectual rather than for political or military crimes
to be a vindication of sorts. And there is Otto Skorzeny, the swashbuckling
Austrian special forces officer, who came to be known as Hitler’s favourite
commando.
But Leon
Degrelle, the Belgian Nazi-collaborator and long-term exile in Francoist Spain,
perhaps embodied a sufficient quotient of the properties each of the
aforementioned possessed. A man composed of great resourcefulness, intellect
and physical courage, he does not carry the sort of ‘baggage’ of Heydrich whose
homicidal activities with einsatzgruppen
forces speak of more of sadism than heroism. At war’s end, Brascillach hid in
his mother’s attic to evade capture before meekly giving himself up. And
Skorzeny’s reputation as ‘Commando Extraordinary”, built up by Nazi propaganda
and self-publicity, has been severely revised in recent times. He was also
revealed to have compromised his national socialist credentials by working for
the Israeli Mossad.
Born on June
15th 1906 in the municipality of Bouillon, Degrelle was a Walloon
who formed and developed the political ideology of Rexism, a far-right
Catholic, nationalist, authoritarian and corporatist creed. After studies, he
became a journalist for Christus Rex,
a conservative Roman Catholic
periodical, and then led a radical group within the Catholic Party. The
friction with the mainstream factions within the party led to Degrelle and
others to form the Rexist Party in 1935.
The ideology of
Parti Rexiste, which agitated for religious and social reform, was heavily
influenced by Benito Mussolini’s fascism and was avowedly anti-Communist. Degrelle’s
charisma and oratorical skills played a huge part in the party’s initially
promising electoral success. His rising profile led to meetings with both Mussolini
and Adolf Hitler. He also forged links with the major far-right parties in
Spain and Romania, respectively the Falange and Iron Guard.
But his rise
would be halted and the commencement of a downward spiral in his fortunes begun
when he lost a by-election in 1937 that had been triggered by the resignation
of a Rexist whose departure had been supposed to have paved the way for
Degrelle’s entry into the Belgian legislature. He had been labelled as an
extremist by his political opponents and the Catholic Church, and the next
stage of his descent was his internment in France when war was drawing closer.
German
conquest and occupation of his country paid little dividend for Degrelle after
his release. With the occupying power favouring the Flemish population, he
tried to make himself relevant by reaching out to German administrators,
Belgian and French collaborators as well as the Church. It was to no avail.
Degrelle then decided to rebirth his party as a clone of the Nazi Party. It
marked the beginning of his collaboration.
The
reformation of his party notwithstanding, Degrelle continued to be ignored by
the Nazi leadership including Joseph Goebbels who considered him to be a
“fraud”. His next move was an audacious one. In response to Hitler’s invasion
of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Degrelle, despite having no previous military
experience, decided to join the Legion Walloonie (Walloon Legion) as part of
Hitler’s ideological crusade against Bolshevism. The legion was initially
attached to the Wehrmacht, but from June 1943 became a part of the Waffen-SS.
Beginning as a private, Degrelle survived the harsh conditions of the German
Ostfront, including material privations and a high casualty rate, to win the
German Iron Cross (2nd Class and then 1st Class) and
eventual promotion to SS-Standartenfuhrer (colonel) and leader of the legion.
Degrelle’s
triumphs led to a meeting with Himmler, and after his part in his legion’s
holding back of superior Soviet forces during the battle of Cherkasy to enable
the withdrawal of 60,000 German troops during the by now permanent retreat of
the Nazis, he was rewarded with a meeting with Hitler, who awarded him the
Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. According to Degrelle, Hitler is supposed to
have told him:
You are truly
unique in history. You are a political leader who fights like a soldier. If I
had a son, I would want him to be like you.
But despite
this and his triumphant speaking tours in his native land, the tide had begun
to turn against the Nazis, and collaborators such as Degrelle. The retreat
already a consistent factor on the Eastern Front had begun in the western
theatre after the D-Day landings at Normandy in June 1944. The violent
retribution against collaborators which followed had a personal impact on
Degrelle, whose brother, a pharmacist was assassinated by guerrillas of the
Belgian resistance. Degrelle’s part in conducting reprisals including the
murder of three hostages –all political enemies of his- further consolidated
his post-war designation as a war criminal.
As the Third
Reich collapsed around him, Degrelle, one of the few survivors of the Walloon
Legion, commandeered a Heinkel 111 bomber in Oslo and along with three others
embarked for Francoist Spain where, short of fuel, the plane crash landed on a
beach in San Sebastian.
He lived in
Spain under the protection of the Franco regime, which rebuffed all entreaties
from the allies to hand him over for trial with the post-war authorities in
Belgium who would condemn him to death in absentia. There he remained staunchly
committed to the cause of Nazism and resolutely proud about the anti-Bolshevik
campaign in which he had participated. In his interviews he continually
extolled the racial theories of the Third Reich and wrote an open letter to the
Pope denying the extent of the official number of Jews murdered during the war,
claiming that it was scientifically and logistically impossible to have killed
the amount of people claimed to have been exterminated at Auschwitz.
He died in
Malaga on March 31st 1994 at the age of 87, defiant to the last.
Once asked if
he had any regrets about the war, Degrelle replied:
“Only that we
lost!”
© Adeyinka
Makinde (2019)
Adeyinka
Makinde is a writer based in London, England.
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