The Crusade of a Walloon Volunteer: August 8, 1941 - May 5, 1945

Kenneth Estes studies the 100,000 West Europeans who fought against Russia as volunteers for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. A retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, Estes shows tremendous knowledge of combat and writes gripping battlefield prose. Two-thirds of the West European volunteers came from Spain and the Netherlands, yet Estes demonstrates wide range and covers Flemish, Walloon, French, Danish, and Norwegian combat units. Avoiding over-generalization, the author distinguishes carefully among the Danes and Flemings who fought competently with the SS-Wiking Division and later with Nordland, the courageous but poorly-armed Spanish, the ill-trained Dutch and French in Landstorm Nederland and SS-Charlemagne, and the Norwegians who after a first wave of enthusiasm held back altogether. Estes pulverizes the Nazi propaganda notion of a multinational European army defending 'Western civilization' against 'Bolshevism'. He shows that West Europeans, mainly of the urban working classes, volunteered from a mix of motives -adventure-seeking, ideology, hopes of personal advantage or material gain, a desire for better food, or a wish to escape a criminal record at home. He demonstrates that the best-performing foreign legions were trained and led by German officers and formed parts of larger SS units, and also that the Wehrmacht placed little value on foreign formations until its other manpower reserves ran out in 1944-45. This is a landmark work on a subject, which has been much written about, but rarely understood or described as perceptively as in the pages of this book. This book-an exploration of the fascinating and controversial subject of collaboration during World War II-is the first serious study of collaboration in Belgium. The book demonstrates how the right-wing Catholic Rexist movement, led by its charismatic leader, Leon Degrelle, became one of the most important collaborationist movements in Nazi New Order Europe.Based on a comprehensive examination of the Belgian and German records, as well as on personal interviews with Degrelle and other surviving Rexists, the book tells the story of the movement's beginnings, its political success before the war, and its collaboration during the war. Martin Conway shows how Degrelle, building on a wave of popular antipathy toward the democratic government that had led Belgium to a humiliating defeat, posed as the savior who would construct a New Order Belgium within a German-dominated Europe. Degrelle not only declared his open support for the Nazi cause, but he founded a volunteer army that fought alongside the German armies in the combats of the Eastern Front. Bolstered by this military prowess and a close alliance with Himmler's SS, Degrelle emerged as a hero of the Nazi propaganda machine.As the resistance developed, however, the Rexists found themselves a detested minority within Belgium. Liberation forced them to flee to Germany in 1944, and with the final collapse of the Reich, most were captured and returned to Belgium to face trial, imprisonment, and in some cases execution. Degrelle himself escaped to Spain, where he continues to live in exile, the last surviving collaborationist political leader of the Nazi era. Conway's original account of Degrelle's influential movement is a major contribution to the history of German-occupied Europe Contemporaries and historians have found it difficult to interpret the ambiguous relationship between National Socialism and Christianity. Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches tended to agree with National Socialists in their authoritarianism, their attacks on socialism and communism, and their campaign against the Versailles Treaty; but the doctrinal position of the Churches could not be reconciled with the principle of racism, a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive warfare, or a domestic agenda involving the complete subservience of Church to State. Important sections of the Nazi Party sought the complete extirpation of Christianity and its substitution by a purely racial religion, but considerations of expediency made it impossible for the National Socialist leadership to adopt this radical anti-Christian stance as official policy. The Kulturkampf Newsletters, which have not appeared in English since the 1930s, were produced by German Catholic exiles in France. They scrupulously document the tensions between various strands of Nazi policy, and the nature of the policy eventually this was to reduce the Churches influence in all areas of public life through the use of every available means, yet without provoking the difficulties diplomatic as well as domestic which an openly declared war of extermination might have caused. This book examines the history of political collaboration in Belgium during World War II. The Rexist movement was founded in the early 1930s by Leon Degrelle as a movement of "renovation" and "conquest", and it was gradually transformed into a political party which won 11% of the vote in the general election of 1936. After the German blitzkreig which overwhelmed Belgium in May 1940, Degrelle and the Rexists declared open support for the Nazis, founding a volunteer army which fought on the Eastern front, and eventually receiving the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves for his efforts in supporting the Nazis. After the fall of the Reich, Degrelle fled to Spain where he continues to live today. Conway has based this account of a little-known part of the history of World War II on a comprehensive examination of the Belgian and German records, as well as personal interviews with Degrelle himself and other surviving Rexists. 1. May-december 1940: The Origins Of Collaboration -- 2. January-august 1941: The Choice Of Collaboration -- 3. August 1941-spring 1942: Rex Without Degrelle -- 4. Spring-autumn 1942: Between Moderation And Extremism -- 5. Autumn 1942-january 1943: The Decisive Turning -- 6. January-autumn 1943: The Pursuit Of Total Collaboration -- 7. Autumn 1943-september 1944: Impotent Success And Final Failure Martin Conway. Includes Bibliographical References ([p. 346] - 354) And Index. A history of the European nationalists who took part in collaborationism with the Third Reich. Individual chapters are devoted to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the Soviet Union. Emmanuel Gerard En Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse (red.) ; [krt.: Koen Adams]. Includes Bibliographical References. Mostly In Dutch ; Some French. Herwerkte druk uit 2010 van de eerste druk uit 2005