XPost: alt.politics.british, uk.politics.misc, soc.culture.belgium   
   XPost: soc.culture.british, soc.culture.irish   
   From: m1cky@   
      
   Leon Degrelle was born on June 15th 1906 in the small town of   
   bouillion in Luxemburg. His family of French origin moved to the town   
   five years before. After the French governments anti-clerical   
   expulsion of the catholic Jesuit order, many degrelles had become   
   Jesuit priests.   
      
    Young Leon excelled at school and later acquired a doctorate of law   
   at the university of Louvain.A man with a deep Christian faith he   
   joined catholic Action. A multitalented orator and a charismatic   
   speaker he hoped to win over the crowds,particulary the Marxist ones.   
   At the age of 24 he had established his own catholic publishing house   
   Christus Rex,Christ the King, and soon after the Rexist political   
   movement. Putting his catholic and political views into action he   
   dealt with real issues, he was a man of the people. He worked harder   
   than any of the established politicians and during a time of high   
   unemployment the Rexists opened and manned soup kitchens and clothed   
   the children of the unemployed. By the time of the 1936 elections he   
   had addressed over two thousand meetings and his party won 33 seats in   
   the government. Due to a united campaign of vilification, violence and   
   intimidation by 1939 the Rexists were reduced to four seats in   
   parliament. As the second world war approached Leon Degrelle did all   
   he could to keep Belgium being used as a pawn and a buffer in another   
   European war and when Britain declared war on Germany he was interned   
   in a concentration camp by his political enemies and denounced as a   
   Fifth Columnist. While in prison he was often beaten and tortured.   
   When German officials had him released he at first avoided   
   collaborating with the German occupation forces unlike his pre war   
   foes in the political establishment. The European civil war continued   
   and with the communists ready to invade the rest of Europe, Germany   
   invaded Russia beating Stalin to the punch.Degrelle volunteered to   
   form a wallonian unit to fight alongside the Germans and Belgians   
   flocked in their thousands to join both the wallonian and Flemish   
   langemarck units, in a European crusade to destroy communism. Refusing   
   an officers commission he joined as a private soldier and by the end   
   of the war he was a general. During battle he led by example and like   
   his men he showed exceptional bravery, being wounded 34 times, seven   
   severely. He was involved in over 75 hand to hand combat actions and   
   was awarded the combat clasp in gold and after the wallonian rear   
   guard action at cherkassy which slowed the Russian forces and enabled   
   thousands of German soldiers time to escape imprisonment and certain   
   death, he was awarded Oak leaves to the Knights cross by Adolf Hitler   
   who said "if I had a son I would have liked him to be like you".   
      
    "If the waffen ss had not existed Europe would have been over run by   
   the soviets by 1944.they would have reached Paris long before the   
   Americans.Waffen ss heroism stopped the soviet juggernaut at   
   Moscow,Cherkov,Cherkassy and Tarnopoc.The soviets lost more than 12   
   months. Without ss resistance the soviets would have been in Normandy   
   before the Americans. The people showed deep gratitude to the young   
   men who sacrificed their lives. Not since the great religious orders   
   of the middle ages had there been such selfless idealism and heroism.   
   In this century of materialism, the ss stand out as a shining light of   
   spirituality. I have no doubt whatever that the sacrifices and   
   incredible feats of the Waffen ss will have their own epic poets like   
   schiller.greatness in adversity is the distinction of the ss"  Leon   
   Degrelle.   
      
    Of the first 800 Walloon volunteers who left for the Eastern front   
   only three survived the war, Leon Degrelle was one of them. By the   
   wars end over 2,500 Walloons lay dead in the cold ground far from   
   their friends and families.-for a full account read campaign in   
   Russia-.   
      
   In the last days of the war Degrelle led his loyal comrades clear of   
   capture of the soviets and flew to Norway where German troops were   
   still fighting to establish a last -redout-.   
      
   All was lost and Degrelle took the offer of a getaway plane from   
   Vidkun Quisling and flew to Spain. During the 1500 mile flight they   
   were constantly harassed by allied fighter planes and anti aircraft   
   fire. The plane crash landed into the sea just short of the Spanish   
   mainland. He spent many months in hospital recuperating from his   
   injuries.   
      
   General Franco refused demands to hand him over to the blood thirsty   
   allies and granted him asylum and provided him with an armed guard in   
   case of kidnap and assination.during this time he was twice sentenced   
   to death in absentia by the Belgian government.   
      
   Leon Degrelle had to rebuild his shattered life alone. His eight   
   children were kidnapped by the allies, had their names changed and   
   scattered to the four corners of Europe destined never to see each   
   other again. Through a network of friends the children were found and   
   reunited in Spain and back into the care of their devoted Father.   
      
   Degrelle was considering Ireland as a post war refuge(Otto Skorzeny   
   had a farm and raised horses in Ireland) and was favourably considered   
   a political refugee by the secretary of the department of justice S.a   
   Roche, who had earlier sought to exclude Jewish immigration.Degrelle   
   chose to stay in Spain.   
      
   Just as he did during the war he started at the bottom in the building   
   trade and went on to build a major construction company.Degrelle was   
   sought by Jewish pressure groups to stand trial for war crimes and a   
   $100,000 bounty was put on his head for capture and trial. On at least   
   two occasions there were attempts to kidnap and murder him by Israeli   
   intelligence and the Mossad(the self same Israeli intelligence and   
   Mossad who have funded and trained anti catholic Ulster loyalist   
   terrorists in Ireland),both attempts were foiled by the Spanish police   
   forces. Like the many thousands of German soldiers who were wrongly   
   convicted by false evidence and later murdered by the allies of   
   Britain and the usa,france and Russia at the Nuremberg show trials,   
   there was no evidence of wrong doing by Leon Degrelle.   
      
   On twelve occasions over 40 years Degrelle challenged the Belgian   
   government to put him on public trial with a jury in a legitimate   
   court of law, they never responded to his challenge.   
      
   Despite the constant death threats he refused to hide from his foes   
   and would face his enemies again if need be just as Joachim Peiper   
   faced his Jewish inspired communist killers when he was murdered in   
   France.   
      
   At the age of 79 Degrelle took on a 14 volume writing project called   
   the -Hitler Century- under the sponsorship of the institute for   
   historical review(IHR).The first volume-Hitler born at Versailles-was   
   met with great success and he continued to write. This was the only   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)