Leon Degrelle

Leon Degrelle (June 15th 1906 with Bubble, Belgium - March 31st 1994 with Málaga, Spain) Politician, writer, director of press and Belgian journalist, war veteran of the face of the east, Brigadeführer of Waffen S.S., Volksführer of Wallonia. He is the founder of the Rexisme, an ideology with the Belgian nationalist departure, near to Fascism and anti-national-Socialist who, during the war, approached the National-socialisme, to finish in the most extreme collaboration.

Before the war

Leon Degrelle was strongly influenced by the work and the thought of Charles Maurras. He studied the right to the Catholic Université of Leuwen, but did not finish its studies. He was during the school year the 1927-1928 sub-editor of a review of Walloon action called the Avant-garde . It should be noted that this review did not form any more part of the Walloon movement when it made return to Belgian unitarianism, which caused the creation of the newspaper the Pin, body of the Walloon Fédération of the students of Leuwen , which remained to him open to the discussion on the federalism. One cannot thus affirm that Degrelle was a militant Walloon from his collaboration with the Avant-garde.

After its studies, he became director in 1930 of the publisher Christus-Rex, house depending on the catholic Action. Resulting from a preserving medium, it was radicalized rather quickly and evolved to positions close to the Fascisme.

Degrelle founds, in 1932, the nationalist review Rex , which is transformed gradually into instrument of propaganda intended for the diffusion of its ideology: the Rexisme. The political party Rex, very influenced by Fascism (Degrelle would have met several times Mussolini), is on the other hand opposed to Hitlérisme. With the head of the daily newspaper the Real Country , it succeeds in making elect 21 deputies Rexistes at the time of the legislative elections of May 24th 1936.

Leon Degrelle and Community problems

Among the elected officials of Rex one raises two notorious Walloon militants: Paul Collet, member of the Walloon Parliament which broke with Rex since 1939, and Joseph Mignolet, writer of expression Wallon, which did not remain chief of Rex-Liege until 1943 and as of this moment took an active part in intellectual collaboration within the Propaganda Abteilung . Degrelle however undergoes a reverse vis-a-vis Paul Van Zeeland at the time of a by-election on April 11th 1937, the day before the Real Pays published an agreement between Degrelle and Staf De Clercq, president of the Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond which was titrated “ Rex defends the following program: the transformation of the Belgian unit mode into a Federal state ”. At the time of the legislative elections of 1939, Degrelle earlier finds only 4 of its 21 elected deputies three years, and itself is elected appointed of Brussels (he had not been candidate in 1936).

In Politieke Geschiedenis van België sinds 1830 , Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerp, 1985, (Tr.fr. political Belgium of 1830 to our days), Els Witte and Jan Craeybeckx insist on the fact that this agreement was a purely tactical agreement between a Flemish nationalist and a Belgian nationalist (however obliged to compose with the land duality of the country). They add: the agreement was not taste of the Belgian patriots (...) among whom Rex counted many sympathizers… . For the two historians, the success of Rex rested for a great part on a misunderstanding. Altogether, the number of convinced fascists was not before 1940, in our country, as important as could not let it suppose the number of seats obtained by Rex in 1936. Many votes rexists came patriotic members and anti-German from the middle-class, victims of the depression, which also estimated victims of the politicians. In fact these voters were more concerned of stability than of agitation. There was no place at the sides of the King, incarnation of the fatherland, for a dictator. Such were the limits of Fascism, at least Fascism of Brussels and Walloon. . As for the true feelings of Degrelle, they were never those of a Walloon militant. In the hope to convince Hitler to entrust the direction of Belgium to him, Degrelle, which was not a federalist, lined up during the Second world war at the sides of the Nazis. HE succeeds, not without evil, to be made accept. He created the Walloon Legion and went itself to the face of the East. Degrelle, formerly admiror of Latin Fascism, started to proclaim that the Walloons and the French of North, although romanized, were in fact, them also, of German (...) collaboration belgicist and Walloon was very explicitly fascistic. It could not be obviously there question of resentment against Belgium. The Walloon movement had rather sought its inspiration on the left. Also the Walloon collaborators cannot practically count, to date on the comprehension of their community…

This political calculation on behalf of Leon Degrelle in favor of a federalisation of Belgium seems to fall under the tradition of the Walloon Mouvement or, more largely, in the way in which the Walloons reacted to the Flemish Mouvement. Although since April 18th, 1898, the Loi Coremans-In Vriendt known as “ Loi of equality ” did not really give a statute of official language to Dutch hitherto reserved for the French language, equal to the statute of this one, the threat is perceived. For a certain Walloon small-middle-class it becomes impossible to make career in Flanders without being bilingual. More basically, for the Walloon political world, it is a question of escaping a minorisation as well political as linguistic (the Flemings are more numerous), by asserting the autonomy of the Wallonia within Belgium: it was the catholic Flanders which maintained in saddle the catholic government, whereas the verdict of the ballot boxes was very different in Wallonia from left write two Flemish historians This for the period which goes from 1884 to 1914. But as point out it Els Witte and Jan Craeybeckx, Leon Degrelle was not federalistic, and the signature of 1936 is before a whole political calculation. It intervenes besides at a time when the Flemings obtained, by the laws of 1921, and a vote of the Belgian Parliament Flemish against Walloons (the only numerical weight of the Flemings could be in a majority with at the Belgian Parliament, and the unanimous Walloons, as in 1921, were impotent). On the contrary, later, other Walloon personalities, but, themselves democratic, as André Renard wanted the federalism das another spirit. André Renard for example regarded the Walloon theses as a stage of the realization of socialism.

The war and engagement in Waffen-SS

When the war starts, Degrelle approves the policy of neutrality of Léopold III. After the occupation of Belgium, the party rexist tears on the form of resistance to hold, part of the neutral movement being always wanted even reticent as for a collaboration with Germany main road-Socialist (see on this subject the Mob of 40 of Leon Degrelle).

Decree on May 10th, 1940 like suspect, it is taken along in France, and escapes from little from the Massacre from Abbeville (cf the File Abbeville, ED. Davidsfonds Leuven). It is released at the beginning of the Occupation. It turns over then in Belgium and then tries to engage the Rexisme in a closer cooperation with the Nazisme. The German authorities grant to him only little attention until the June 21st 1941, when the invasion of the the USSR starts. Betting on a final victory of the Germany, Degrelle decides to engage in the war against the USSR by hoping that victorious Hitler will be able to reward the Belgium the finished war.

Degrelle fights with Germany main road-Socialist engaged in the USSR. It joined for this purpose in 1941 the Légion Wallonia (setting-up by Fernand Rouleau), which fights within the Heer (Army - August 1941 - June 1943), then Waffen-SS (June 1943 - May 1945) on the Russian Front. Left like private, it gains his gallons, until those of S Brigadeführer (brigadier general) on May 2nd, 1945.

Previously, Hitler had also named it Volksführer der Wallonen (chief of the Walloon people) in November 1944, whereas Belgium was already released by the Allies.

The February 20th 1944, Adolf Hitler decorates it with the Ritterkreuz (cross of knight of the Iron Cross), one of the highest German distinctions, to which comes to be added the sheets of oak (August 1944). Later, Degrelle will claim that Hitler would have said to him: “If I had had a son, I would have liked that it was like you”.

The county of Burgundy (in Franche-Comté), detached of France, was to be used for creation of a future State model S. The regent was to be Heinrich Himmler (Reichsführer-SS) about it, the chancellor Leon Degrelle, chief of the Belgian S.

The exile in Spain

At the end of the month of April 1945, Leon Degrelle gains, with his driver and two officers of his Staff (Cpt Robert of Welz and Lt Charles Generet) the Denmark then the Norway, two countries always under German control. He reaches Oslo, where the German Governor Joseph Terboven proposes to them a Heinkel He 111 (that of the German minister Speer). Accompanied by the captain of Welz (two others having disappeared with Oslo) and of four team members, Degrelle flies over the Holland, the Belgium and the France, without being less world worried by the hunting of allied night. The TQ+MU (registration of the Heinkel) ends up landing in catastrophe, broken down gasoline, on a beach of Saint-Sebastien in the north of the Spain. Seul Degrelle is wounded in the crash landing (5 fractures).

It finds refuge there; the requests for extraditions will never succeed, more especially as Degrelle will give up its Belgian nationality with the profit of Spanish nationality.

With the release, he is considered for treason and is condemned to died by Contumace. Like any Belgian accused for facts of collaboration (Article 113,114,115,116,118bis, 119sq, 121bis of the Penal code), the Degrelle family members convinced of the same preventions were stopped, considered and imprisoned.

To his last breath, Leon Degrelle will exaltera the achievements of Hitler and the mode national-Socialist. He will fit moreover in mobility Négationniste, denying in particular the existence and the materiality of the Holocauste and, more generally the reality of the crimes against humanity charged to the mode hitlérien of which he was the one of most enthusiastic supports and admirors.

Leon Degrelle dies out at the 87 years age in the evening of Thursday March 31st 1994 with the private clinic of Parks San Antonio where it had been allowed on March 10th because of Cardiac failure. He is incinerated the following day and its ashes are dispersed above Belgium by a former captain of the S Wallonia.

Degrelle and Tintin

Degrelle affirmed, in an interview in 1981, then in its work Tintin my buddy , published after its death, to have inspired the character of Tintin to Hergé.

When Degrelle publishes Jeunes feathers and old women beards , it draws the attention of Monseigneur Schyrgens, whose eulogistic article encourages the Wallez abbot, for his newspaper, to engage it. It meets there Georges Remi, who is not yet Hergé .

According to several historians of the cartoon, the contribution of Degrelle to the work of Hergé would have been limited to send the United States various magazines American which influenced the style of the draftsman nevertheless. The first version of the character of Tintin would have been inspired by the younger brother of Hergé, Paul Remi. Photographs of Degrelle in 1929 show a certain similarity of features with the small one to defer, but it was also the case for Paul Remi adolescent. It is thought especially that Tintin was inspired by Benjamin Rabier, Alain Saint-Ogan and Joseph Pinchon.

In 1931, Degrelle publishes the booklet Histoire of the school Guerre illustrated by Hergé in person. This book is a triumph: 100.000 specimens are sold in a few months. Hergé had also illustrated the great jokes of Leuwen the previous year. In 1936, it is Hergé which composes the logo of the newspaper rexist the real country . April 2nd, 1936, the cartoon of Quick and Flupke evokes the electoral campaign with an huge crowd entering a cinema above which a large streamer proclaims REX WILL OVERCOME (the slogan of Rex). In 1937, Hergé draws the logo of the hedomadaire rexist the Oasis directed by the famous Jam (Paul Jamin, draftsman of the Petit Twentieth which gave then in propaganda anti-semite). The ideological relationship between Hergé and Degrelle is obvious even if it does not imply obviously the same responsibilities morals or policies. Hergé moved away from Degrelle as this last moved away from its catholic medium of origin to be assimilated more and more to Fascism.

Degrelle and Littell

The hebomadaire Livres Hebdo revealed that Degrelle had inspired Jonathan Littell for the character of Maximilien Aue in the novel " Bienveillantes" (Price Goncourt 2006). It should publish in 2007 a biography of Leon Degrelle under the title " Dryness and the humide".

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