page_title: Léon Degrelle
section_title: Collaboration
hierarchical_section_title: Léon Degrelle / Collaboration
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Léon Degrelle sur la place Charles II à Charleroi (Belgique), devant l'église Saint-Christophe. 1 avril 1944 De gauche à droite&#160;: Roger Wastiau Josef Dietrich Léon Degrelle Marcel Lamproye Pascal Bovy Marcel Bonniver Jean-Marie Lantier Source&#160;: William Theys et Jean-Louis Roba, Charleroi 1940-1945, Erpe, Éditions De Krijger, coll. «&#160;La Belgique en Guerre / Hier et aujourd'hui&#160;» (no 1), 2000, 96 p., p. 66-67 (ISBN 90-72547-92-6) - photo non créditée dans l'ouvrage, l'auteur est inconnu/anonyme.
context_page_description: Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Belgian politician and one of the most important Nazi collaborators and Holocaust denialists from Belgium. Degrelle rose to prominence in the 1930s as the leader of the Catholic authoritarian Rexist Party in Belgium. During the German occupation in World War II, he enlisted in the German army and fought in the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. After the collapse of the Nazi regime, Degrelle went into exile in Francoist Spain where he remained a prominent figure in neo-Nazi politics. He died 50 years after being sentenced to death and losing his Belgian nationality for collaboration in 1944.
context_section_description: When the war began, Degrelle approved of King Leopold III's policy of neutrality. After the Germans invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, the Rexist Party split over the matter of resistance. He was arrested as a suspected collaborator and evacuated to France. Unlike other Belgian deportees, Degrelle was spared in the Massacre of Abbeville and instead sent into a French concentration camp. He was later released when the occupation began.
  Degrelle returned to Belgium and proclaimed reconstructed Rexism to be in close union with Nazism—in marked contrast with the small group of former Rexists (such as Théo Simon and Lucien Mayer) who had begun fighting against the Nazi occupiers from the underground. In August, Degrelle started contributing to a Nazi news source, Le Pays Réel (a reference to Charles Maurras). Degrelle joined the Walloon legion of the Wehrmacht, which was raised in August 1941, to fight against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. The leadership of the Rexists then passed to Victor Matthys. Lacking any previous military service, Degrelle joined as a private and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class in March 1942. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a lieutenant in May 1942, and received the Iron Cross First Class the same month. Initially, the group was meant to represent a continuation of the Belgian Army, and fought as such during Operation Barbarossa, while integrating many Walloons who had volunteered for service. The Walloons were transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS in June 1943, becoming the Sturmbrigade Wallonien and served on the Eastern Front.
  From 1940, the Belgian Roman Catholic hierarchy had banned all uniforms during Mass. On 25 July 1943, in his native Bouillon, Degrelle was told by Dean Rev Poncelet to leave a Requiem Mass, because he was wearing his SS uniform, which church authorities had prohibited. Degrelle was excommunicated by the Bishop of Namur, but the excommunication was later lifted by the Germans since as a German officer he was under the jurisdiction of the German chaplaincy.
  After being wounded at Cherkasy in 1943, Degrelle continued to climb the SS hierarchy after the inclusion of Walloons in the Waffen-SS.
  During the battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket, fought from 24 January to 16 February 1944, the Wallonien was given the task of defending against Soviet attacks on the eastern side of the pocket. While General Wilhelm Stemmermann, the overall commander for the trapped forces, moved them to the west of the pocket in readiness for a breakout attempt, Wallonien and Wiking were ordered to act as a rearguard. After Lippert was killed, Degrelle took command of the Brigade, and the Wallonien began its withdrawal under heavy fire. Of the brigade's 2,000 men, only 632 survived.
  For his actions at Korsun, Degrelle was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (major).  He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz) by Hitler in February 1944.  Degrelle later claimed Hitler 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."  
  Six months later Degrelle was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, as were seven other non-Germans.
  The unit was sent back to Wildflecken to be reformed. In June 1944, a 440-man battalion of the Wallonien was sent to Estonia to assist in the defence of the Tannenberg Line. After Operation Bagration began, Army Group North began to fall back into the Kurland Pocket. The battalion left through the port of Tallinn (Reval) on the Baltic Sea. The remnants of the Battalion were sent back to join the rest of the brigade, which was located at Breslau.
  On 8 July 1944 Degrelle's brother Édouard, a pharmacist, was killed in Degrelle's hometown of Bouillon by Belgian resistance fighters. Shortly afterwards, a Rexist hit squad executed pharmacist Henri Charles.  A few days later, three civilian hostages were executed, apparently on Degrelle's orders, as all three were known to be his political enemies.
  He commanded Sturmbrigade Wallonien from 18
caption: Léon Degrelle (center-left) awarding medals to members of the Walloon SS, April 1944
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