Verhofstadt Belgian Nazi Collaborators Conway

Collaboration In Belgium: Léon Degrelle And The Rexist Movement, 1940 1944, by Martin Conway. 1993

Guy Verhofstadt Lesson. The “German-Led New Order In Europe” Mentality Drove Old Nazi Collaboration AND Today’s European Union!

It is easy to see that the author of this work is a careful thinker. For instance, instead of using the term fascist indiscriminately, as leftists are prone to do to those they dislike, Martin Conway realizes that it is not an easy term to define in any case, and that the various so-called fascist movements in interwar Europe had little in common with each other than antipathy towards liberal, parliamentary government structures. (pp. 4-5).

THE ONGOING AND UNEXPECTED RELEVANCE OF THIS BOOK

My review goes beyond the immediate contents of this book. It relates its content to current events.

In November 2017, Belgian Europarliament leader Guy Verhofstadt has called Polish Independence Day marchers Nazis. Besides being a totally scurrilous lie, it is ironic, as it is Verhofstadt’s Belgium, and not Poland, that had engaged in Nazi collaboration, as this book makes so clear. In fact, scholar and author Martin Conway writes, “From Quisling’s Norwegian regime in the North to the Greek fascist groups in the South and from Vichy France in the West to Vlassov’s pro-German Russian forces in the East, all of the diverse territories of Axis-occupied Europe—WITH THE EXCEPTION OF POLAND—produced a collaborationist movement of some importance.” (p. 3; Emphasis added). Hear that, Guy Verhofstadt?

Furthermore, Leon Degrelle and the Belgian Waffen SS were not the only Belgian collaborators: So were Flemish collaborationists who, if anything, were preferred by the Nazi German leadership. (p. 245). After WWII, between 1944 and 1949, no less than 53,005 Belgian citizens were found guilty of Nazi collaboration. (p. 277).

LEON DEGRELLE INCREASINGLY ADOPTS THE ANTI-CATHOLICISM OF THE NAZIS

Although the Rexist movement began as a Catholic one, it had outgrown its Catholic moorings well before WWII. (p. 11). By 1937, Belgian Catholicism and Rexism had come in open conflict. (p. 14). Soon thereafter, despite the fact that many Rexists continued practicing Catholicism as a private religion, Rexist propaganda became strident in its attacks on the Catholic hierarchy (p. 39; pp. 52-53), and came to see the Church establishment as “part of the problem” of decadent democracy. (pp. 91-92).

In the mid-1930s, neither Degrelle nor his followers were enamored with Nazism itself. Instead, they tended to see Nazism as a combination of Prussian militarism and pagan racism. (p. 13). Later, Degrelle’s thinking did come closer to that of Nazism, but it was never deep. (pp. 132-133).

So why did Degrelle become an ally of Hitler?

NAZI COLLABORATIONISM: BECOMING PART OF THE GERMAN NEW ORDER [LIKE EUROPEAN UNION TODAY]

Before each act of collaboration had begat further acts of collaboration, Degrelle’s support for Nazi Germany had come from another source, and, pointedly, this can be generalized to most other high-level Nazi collaboration, “Forged in the chaotic circumstances of Occupation, collaborationist movements rarely achieved great coherence and often shared little beyond support for the German cause and a belief in the need for a vaguely-defined ‘New Order’”. (p. 3). That’s just it!

In fact, this is exactly how Degrelle rationalized his new affinity to the Nazi Germany, despite its just-concluded brutal conquest of Belgium (1940). Conway quips, “A narrow nationalism which placed a patriotic loyalty to a nation above all allegiances therefore seemed to the Rexists, as to a number of other movements of the radical right in Europe during the 1930s, to be outmoded. They remained patriots but, rather like many European communists of the same generation, they sought to balance their loyalty to their country with a broader commitment to their European-wide political cause.” (p. 19). As an example, Conway relates, “Rex, he [Degrelle] declared, was fighting to win a place for Belgium in the New Europe…” (p. 65).

[Much the same kind of thinking exists behind support of the Fourth Reich (European Union) today. We are told that sovereign nations are obsolete, or largely so, and that the future of European nations lies with the “New Order” created by Berlin and Brussels. We have recently seen a latter-day Targowica in which certain Polish political leaders betrayed their own country in favor of the Brussels-Berlin “New Order”. Yet these LEWAKS insist that they are not being disloyal to Poland. Really.]

The Belgian-Nazi collaboration was also hoped to give Belgium major advantages [as is the case with Brussel’s leadership, today, in the European Union]. Conway identifies these advantages, “…the CHIEF DE REX once again reiterated how collaboration with Germany would enable Belgium to recover its position as the cultural and mercantile center of Europe.” (pp. 62-63).

DEGRELLE DEPENDS ON NAZI GERMANY TO RETAIN HIS INFLUENCE

As the war began to turn against Germany, Degrelle got less and less support from the Belgian people. His increasingly marginal status made Nazi Germany his only lifeline. Conway remarks, “Instead, they [Belgian collaborators] were obliged to gravitate—like mothers fluttering around a light—towards the German officials who had become their only source of money, influence, and ultimately, power. It was a dependent relationship which dragged them out of the real world of Belgian life…” (p. 87).

[Much the same situation exists with the LEWACTWO in Poland today. It is marginal in Poland itself. For this reason, the LEWAKS are getting more and more dependent on foreign and international leftist organizations for financial, organizational, and financial support. For example, reportedly, 90% of the funding for the Polish Left comes from foreign sources, notably George Soros. He also recently funded the otherwise-flagging left-wing GAZETA WYBORCZA.]