Two biographies look back at the commitment of two Nazi leaders, engaged
on the Russian Front who after the war would live an almost goldenretirement. ---- First of all, Léon Degrelle is an important figure of
the extreme right since the interwar period. His biography also looks
back at the galaxy of Degrelle supporters who today constitute one of
the leading figures of fascism. He emphasizes that until today many
extreme right groups in Belgium as in France, from Golodfaff to Legion
88 (88 for "Heil Hitler") via Dieudonné and Robert Faurisson, all pay
homage to this Belgian in SS uniform. ---- Degrelle was born in 1906 in
the Ardennes in a family of very Catholic merchants. Naturally, he
studied in religious institutions. From that moment on, he was
passionate about the theses of integral nationalism: Maurras, Léon
Daudet. Having become a journalist, he directed L'avant-garde, the
newspaper of the Aumônerie de Louvain, took up literature and poetry, a
nationalist understood. He then took over the management of Le Vingtième
siècle - which would later allow him to claim to be friends with Hergé,
which was false, but did not prevent the cartoonist from also having
collaborated. In addition to his activity as a national-Catholic
journalist, he took over the management of the Christus-Rex publishing
house where he put his pen at the service of integral Catholicism. He
multiplied his publications and met with a certain success to the point
of seeking to create a movement: Rexism, close in the political universe
of the Croix de feu. Their newspaper, Le Pays réel, directed by
Degrelle, had similar positions (defense of veterans, small traders, etc.)
Like another fascist, Jacques Doriot, who had just founded the French
Popular Party, Degrelle wanted to obtain the approval and support of
Germany and Italy. After several attempts to gain power, Degrelle
naturally sided with the occupier when Belgium was invaded and in 1941
called for fighting the "Judeo-Bolsheviks" on the Eastern Front. First
in the Wehrmacht then in the SS battalions where the division committed
numerous crimes against humanity - massacres of villagers, summary
executions. In 1944, decorated by Hitler with the Croix de Guerre.
Returning to Belgium, he devoted himself entirely to the service of
German propaganda and then took part in the Battle of the Bulge to
"liberate Belgium". Forced to flee, he took refuge in Spain.
Next to Degrelle, Alfred Douroux represents a basic soldier who is just
as responsible at his level. He is a young fascist. His son discovered
his journey late and offers an uncompromising biography. Born in 1920,
he comes from a right-wing family of the lower middle class. Very young,
Douroux is haunted by the victory of the Popular Front to the point of
displaying a tricolor cockade in the middle of a working-class
neighborhood that was very left-wing at the time.
At the age of twenty, he joined the League of French Volunteers against
Bolshevism and went to fight on the Eastern Front. The author emphasizes
that nearly 10,000 French speakers who went there did not only fight,
they also participated in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies, helping
the mobile killing commandos and in several massacres in Belarus such as
in Kotovo or Kormoran. The young man participated in the Nazi system
until the end, fighting with the last Nazis in Berlin in May 1945.
Alfred Douroux managed to return to France, still hoping to regain
power, organizing a plot with his comrades. He then managed to hide
although he was sentenced in absentia before benefiting from the amnesty
laws. If he testified for works praising those that the extreme right
presented as lost soldiers like Le Rêveur casqué or Les Volontaires. The
gap between reality and the constructed mythology is striking. These
were perfect Nazis proud of their journey. Those who survived retrained
in private companies while maintaining a nostalgia, even devoting a real
cult to their youthful commitment. Some like Christian Lamazière became
Dalida's impresario or others like Jean-Marie Balestre, president of an
international sports federation. Degrelle, for his part, is hiding in
Spain; Belgium's requests to obtain his extraction have been
unsuccessful. In 1955, he finally obtained Spanish nationality. He tries
to organize the European far right, notably supporting his friend Le
Pen. The author shows that if he is a central figure of the far right,
his importance remains relative in the history of Belgium. These girls
participate in this mythologization. This is not the case of Philippe
Douroux who in his book conceived as a journalistic and historical
investigation also responds to another logic, he questions family
relationships, the unsaid, the little phrases. Reading it, we understand
why the son did not want to call his father, papa.
* Léon Degrelle
Frédéric Saenen
Perrin 2025 368 p. EUR25
* Un Père ordinaire
Philippe Douroux
Flammarion 2025 364 p. EUR21.50
https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8243
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