Verhofstadt Full Fledged Belgian Nazis Bruyne de

For Rex and For Belgium, by Eddy deBruyne and Marc Rikmenspoel. 2004

Inadvertent Guy Verhofstadt Tutorial. Beyond Leon Degrelle and Collaboration: Full-Fledged Belgian Nazis

Nowadays, images of Nazi collaboration remain topical. Belgian Europarliament leader Guy Verhofstadt has recently (November 2017) called Polish Independence Day marchers Nazis. Besides being an egregious falsehood, and a rather hysterical use of the PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU (politics of shame), it is ironic for this reason: It is Verhofstadt’s Belgium, and not Poland, that had engaged in Nazi collaboration, as this book makes so clear. Furthermore, this was not limited to the well-known Degrelle and his Belgian Waffen SS. It consisted of several Belgian-Nazi collaborationist organizations, and, moreover, encompassed a nontrivial fraction of the Belgian population–both the French-speaking and the Flemish components of the same, as elaborated below.

THE AGRA: BELGIAN NAZI COLLABORATORS COMPLETELY EMBRACE NAZI NORDIC RACISM

Authors de Bruyne and Rikmenspoel write, “The AMIS DU GRAND REICH ALLEMAND–or AGRA for short–was founded in Liege on 13 March 1941,by Rexist dissidents, unconditional sympathizers of Nazi Germany…AGRA members did not recognize Degrelle’s authority; only Hitler was the undisputed leader of the New Europe. The AGRA movement was in favor of creating a racial state and claimed Wallonia belonged to the Nordic vital space, in which Nazi Germany was the shining light…Although AGRA [“several thousands” in 1941-1942: p. 47] had far less members than Rex, it was the second New Order grouping in importance in Wallonia and the Rex Movement’s most dangerous opponent.” (p. 47).

RELATIVELY HIGH RATES OF NAZI COLLABORATION IN THE BELGIAN POPULATION AS A WHOLE

The authors, de Bruyne and Rikmenspoel, thus summarize the odious facts, “For the French-speaking part of Belgium (38.53% of the population, that is 3.5 million inhabitants), the investigated cases numbered 110,803 [3.2%], and are shown in Table 1 [elaborated in the next paragraph]. In Wallonia, statistics show that 0.52% of the Walloon population (and 0.56% of Brussels capital city) were convicted, under various degrees and under various forms, of having collaborated with the enemy.” (pp. 86-87). [To put these rates in perspective, only 1 in 4,000 (0.025%) ethnic Poles collaborated with the Nazis. See THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST, by Lukas]. (pp. 86-87).

As for the contents of Table 1 (p. 87), the 110,803 Francophone Belgian Nazi collaborators are apportioned as follows: 24,317 (military collaboration), 29,016 (political collaboration), 17,066 (press, radio, cinema), 17,454 (economic collaboration), 502 (espionage), and 2,388 (various).

MOTIVES FOR NAZI COLLABORATION IN THE BELGIAN WAFFEN SS

Authors de Bruyne and Rikmenspoel (pp. 192-193) identify several reasons for Belgian collaboration with the Third Reich. These included: Taking advantage of the German presence,by Rexists, to impose their New Order; admiration of the social achievements of National Socialism, a desire to protect Christian civilization from the Communist efforts to destroy it; a fulfillment of a personal admiration of Leon Degrelle, etc. The authors also finger the following motive, “individuals attracted by material advantages for themselves and their families; individuals eager to avoid a criminal conviction…” (p. 193).

Let us put the latter in broader context. Neo Stalinist Jan Grabowski, in his JUDENJAGD (Hunt for the Jews), has tried to make a big deal of the (alleged) fact that a few Poles, who had ostensibly collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews, later switched their services to the new Soviet masters of Poland, and joined Communist formations (e. g, the dreaded BEZPIEKA, or U. B.). This is called double collaboration. If true, this is nothing remarkable. As the Belgian example shows, it is common for collaborationists, driven as they are by extreme selfish opportunism, for criminals to collaborate with an enemy in order to escape justice for their criminality. It is also easy, for collaborators to effortlessly switch masters, for the same reason.