Dark Enlightenment on Leon Degrelle's Letter to John Paul II
Dark Enlightenment returns to Our Interesting Time to discuss Leon Degrelle's open letter to John Paul II regarding the pontiff's trip to Auschwitz in 1979.
Dark Enlightenment is the host of the Fundamental Principles podcast.
For many within the so-called WW2 "truth community;" those that understand the basic and rudimentary outlines of what that war(including WW1)was actually about, and haven't, and don't succumb to the manufactured "Good War" narrative that's been force-fed to them over-the-years in K-12 public schooling, TV, and relentlessly propagandized Hollywood films, the name Leon Degrelle is usually rarely mentioned and under-appreciated.
ReplyDeleteDegree was plain and simply a born leader, having recruited and raised thousands of volunteers throughout the war into the Waffen-SS, the Wehrmacht, and the Walloon Legion. These were some of the finest, fittest, and formidable fighting forces of the war, whose bravery and firm fortitude led to thousands of them perishing under their self-sacrifice for Europe. Hitler himself wanted to give Degrelle an instantaneous officer's commission, but Degrelle refused, wanting to earn his way from the very bottom.
Degree himself was made from the finest Krupp steel, having taken part in numerous brutal and incomprehensible battles, having, like the indomitable and ageless Ernst Junger, been injured 7x during battle, which eventually prevented him from fighting later in the war. But, he would continue to visit his troops with a cane at the front. He eventually earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, which was awarded by Hitler himself.
Towards the end of the war, as the fronts were collapsing. Degrelle attempted his daring and dangerous escape from to Spain in his own plane, at the limits of his endurance; a flight over terrain captured by the enemy, the skies filled with enemy aircraft, him then eventually surviving a brutal crash and being granted sanctuary. After all this lifelong adversity, he still lived to be almost 88 years old, dying just before his 88th birthday on April 1st of 1994.
I have a framed photograph in my living room of the somewhat well-known photo of Degrelle's meeting with Hitler during the war while shaking hands. The photo was given to Willis Carto by Degrelle himself as a gift in 1981, which he personally signed to Carto and his wife. When thinking of Degrelle, I'm reminded of Napoleon's response upon meeting Goethe for the first time- "This is a man!"