SS STANDARTENFUHRER LEON DEGRELLE. You are about to meet Leon Degrelle, who before the Second World War was Europe’s youngest political leader and the founder of the Rexist party in Belgium. During that cataclysmic confrontation, he was one of the greatest heroes on the eastern front and the most highly decorated foreign soldier in the Third Reich. After joining as a private he earned all stripes from corporal to General in command for exceptional bravery in combat. He engaged in seventy-five hand to hand combat actions, he was wounded on numerous occasions. He was the recipient of the highest honors: The Ritterkreuz, The Oak leaves, The Gold German Cross and numerous other decorations for outstanding valor under enemy fire. Leon Degrelle was the epitome of the new type of soldier: Recklessly heroic, granite hard and politically conscious. He fought to win a leading role for his people in a free, regenerated Europe. Hitler, during his award of the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross presented personally to Leon Degrelle by the Fuhrer said to him: “You are almost unique in history, a political leader who fights as a true soldier”. As a statesman and a soldier Leon Degrelle had known very closely Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Franco, Laval, Marshall Petain and all the European leaders during that enormous ideological and military clash that was World War II. Alone among them he survived, and remained the number one witness of that historical period, for which he lived through it all in the grandest of epics. Leon Degrelle’s arresting appearance was the outer manifestation of his strong personality and powerful will. He was endowed with the qualities of intelligence, sparkling wit and character that produce successful men in all walks of life. Leon Degrelle studied at the University of Louvan where he acquired a doctorate in Law. As a student his natural gift of leadership became apparent. By the time he reached twenty he had already published five books and operated his own weekly newspaper. Out of his deep Christian conviction he joined Belgium’s Catholic Action Movement and became one of its leaders. But his passion has always been people. He wanted to win the crowds, particularly the Marxist ones. He wanted them to share his ideals of social and spiritual change for society. He wanted to lift people up; to forge for them a stable, efficient and responsible state, a state backed by the good sense of people, and for the sole benefit of the people. He addressed more than 2000 meetings. His books and newspaper were read everywhere because they always dealt with real issues. Although not yet twenty-five, people listened to him avidly. In May 1936 his Rexist Party won against the established parties a smashing electoral victory: Thirty-four house and senate seats. Leon Degrelle had widely traveled across Latin America, the United States and Canada. He had visited North Africa, the Middle East and all the European countries. Mussolini invited him to Rome, Churchill saw him in London, and Hitler received him in Berlin. He felt that Europe had a unique destiny and must unite. Putting his political life on the line he made desperate efforts to stop the railroading of Europe into another war. Thus, war started. First in Poland, then in western Europe in 1940. This was to become the Second World War in 1941. When Germany went to war against the Soviet Union (the mortal enemy of European culture) on June 22 1941, Leon Degrelle was one of the many thousands of European volunteers who joined the great crusade against Bolshevism. If the saying be true that fortune favors the brave, Leon Degrelle proved it amply in the Eastern Front. Always in the thick of the fighting, he seemed un-killable. And proved his ability to lead men into combat as well as in electoral campaigns. His notions of tactics were hazy, but his unflinching courage in the face of enemy fire carried one objective after another in all his fierce battles. In an unending succession of blood-drenched actions against overwhelming odds across the sun-baked steppes of the Ukraine, in the depths of the marrow-chilling Russian winter, to the foothills of the Caucasus, and the threshold of Asia, through the stinking mud and the flaming hell at Cherkassy, across the rolling plains of Estonia and the Pomeranian lake country. Leon Degrelle had shown character and guts, the sheer energy of willpower, the refusal to surrender, the will to hang tough against all odds would win the situation. Napoleon had said: “There will be no Europe until a leader arises”. The exact reverse happened in January 1943 at Stalingrad with General Paulus. The defeat there was decided by a man without courage. General Paulus was not capable of facing danger with determination, of saying unequivocally: I will not surrender, I will stand fast until I win. General Paulus was morally and physically gutless, and he lost. A year later Leon Degrelle’s Wallonie SS Division was encircled the same way at Cherkassy. With the disaster of Stalingrad fresh in the minds of these soldiers, they could have been subject to demoralization. Commander Leon Degrelle was laid down with a deep side wound and a 102 degree temperature. And as General in command of the SS Wallonie forces, he knew that all this was not conducive to high morale. He got up, and for 17 days he led charge after charge to break the blockade, engaged in numerous hand to hand combats, was wounded four times but never stopped fighting. All his men did just as much and more. The siege was broken by sheer willpower, guts and spirit. Leon Degrelle, a man of profound culture: Publicist, Writer, Author, Political Leader, Soldier, Catholic, Man of the West, The 20th Century Christian Knight, survived combats by the hundreds, hurricanes of steel by the thousands. Outnumbered and outgunned but never out-manned. Leon Degrelle never wavered and never flinched in a battle that was far less tangibly his than that of by far the majority of combatants. For the honor of his country, for the future of his continent. He braved a hundred Alamos, rising by his courage and resolve alone through the ranks to the position of commander of the unit he raised. No foreign soldier in the armies of the Third Reich was as highly honored for his heroism in defense of the west as Leon Degrelle, none so much merited honor. One of the last to fight on the eastern front, Leon Degrelle escaped unconditional surrender by flying some 1,500 miles across Europe towards Spain. Against all odds he survived. He had lived the grandest of epics. He had done all that was required of himself, he had fought with skill courage and idealism against a murderous and barbaric enemy: the Soviet Union, that enslaved half of Europe under the pretext of liberating it.
