, Soviet Union At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Belgium declared its
neutrality, which Rex vociferously supported. Degrelle additionally blamed the war on Britain, France, and "the occult forces of Freemasonry and the Jewish finance", precipitating a further decay of Rex's membership and reputation. In January 1940, Degrelle secretly and unsuccessfully requested German funding for a new, pro-neutrality newspaper. Amid the
German invasion of Belgium on 10 May 1940, Degrelle was detained by the Belgian government, as were other Rexist leaders not enlisted in the
Belgian Army such as
Victor Matthys and
Serge Doring. Degrelle was first imprisoned in
Bruges, then was transferred to French custody on 15 May 1940 and interrogated at
Dunkirk, and then moved to the
Camp Vernet internment camp in southern France as the military situation deteriorated amid the
Battle of France. Leopold III surrendered at the head of the Belgian Army on 28 May and became a
prisoner of war, while France sought an armistice a month later. In
German-occupied Belgium, Degrelle was assumed to have been executed. On 22 July, Rexist journalist
Pierre Daye discovered Degrelle in
Carcassonne with the assistance of
Otto Abetz, a German diplomat Degrelle had met in 1936. Daye and Degrelle arrived in
Paris on 25 July and were invited to dinner with Abetz, with whom Degrelle spoke at length about
expanding Belgium at the expense of France and the Netherlands.
Return to German-occupied Belgium Degrelle returned to Brussels on 30 July, and found that Belgium
had been placed under a military administration and that Rex had been reorganized and had formed a militia known as the Combat Formations (
Formations de Combat). Degrelle began reasserting his leadership, attempting to establish contact with German leadership through Abetz, and adopting facets of Nazi ideology. In early August, Degrelle returned to Paris to meet on 10 or 11 August with Abetz, now the ambassador to France in Paris, and to attempt to convince him of the validity of his territorial designs with the aid of maps of the
Duchy of Burgundy. Also at the meeting, however, was
Henri de Man, president of the
Belgian Labor Party and one of Leopold III's advisors, as Abetz desired an alliance between Degrelle and de Man. They agreed to a pact and met again on 18 August in Brussels to sign an official agreement, sketching out the possible political future of Belgium as a state with no parties and an all-powerful royal government. On his return to Brussels, Degrelle met with Belgian notables such as , Leopold III's secretary,
Albert Devèze, a former minister, and
Maurice Lippens at his residence on the . He came to no agreement with any of these men, however, and thus could not form a government. This required the support of Leopold III, who disliked Degrelle, and of the Germans, who were unwilling to delegate any power to Rex, and had orders from Goebbels to ignore Degrelle. Leopold III refused to meet with Degrelle or consider him for the office of
Prime Minister, and summons to meet with Nazi leadership promised by Abetz were not forthcoming. Degrelle also failed to gain support for a government under his leadership from the
Belgian Catholic Church. With his other ventures flagging, Degrelle returned to attempting to gain power through popular support. He relaunched
Le Pays Réel on 25 August and attempted to transform Rex into a mass movement, beginning with a tour of the country in September and the appointment of Doring and newcomers
Félix Francq, Rutger Simoens, and
Fernand Rouleau to positions of leadership. The revitalized
Le Pays Réel achieved some success over late 1940, dramatically expanding the Combat Formations, which began attacking Jewish-owned businesses and engaging in street violence to weaken local governments. Rex remained, however, a minor entity and the disturbances caused by its street violence further angered the German military government, who were collaborating with the Belgian establishment. The Germans ordered the Rexist violence to cease and Rexist leaders complied by the end of 1940.
Rex's embrace of collaborationism By 1941, Belgian leaders including Degrelle had realized that the war would be long and that while it was ongoing, the Germans would not delegate any power to the Belgians. Degrelle became increasingly and publicly pro-Nazi until, on 1 January 1941, in
Le Pays Réel, and in a speech on 6 January, Degrelle declared his support for the German occupation of Belgium. This new orientation was unpopular within Rex, whose members came to be seen as traitors by most Belgians, and sparked another exodus of disillusioned members. Following the January declaration, the German military administration of General
Alexander von Falkenhausen remained unimpressed by Degrelle but began subsidizing Rex, appointed members to civil office, and allowed it to freely organize. In February, it also decided to seek Belgian enlistees in the
National Socialist Motor Corps (
Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK). Degrelle, who had petitioned the military administration for Rexist units in the
German armed forces over late 1940, began to recruit Walloons for a Rexist brigade in the NSKK. He promised 1,000 drivers, but only recruited 300. At the same time, Degrelle began courting members of the working class and socialist leaders via
Le Pays Réel to replenish Rex's membership, but again achieved little. By April, Rex was collapsing from a combination of resignations, defections, popular and sometimes violent hostility from other Belgians, and German indifference. When the military administration appointed new, collaborationist civil servants and officials on 1 April, no Rexists were appointed. In response, Degrelle attacked the military administration in
Le Pays Réel and was subsequently chastised in person by
Eggert Reeder, the head of civil affairs in the military administration. On 10 April, Degrelle wrote to Hitler to request, without success, permission to enlist in the German military. On 10 May, the VNV, who were favored by the military administration and
by Nazi ideology, was ceded Rex's Flemish branch in an agreement that also established Rex and the VNV as the only legitimate parties in German-occupied Belgium. No top-level Rexist leaders, however, were consulted—Rex's Flanders branch had acted independently—and Rex was not given the option of refusing the merger. This opened a rift between Rex and more moderate francophone collaborators, who attacked Rex and Degrelle as being impotent and began forming rival parties. The Germans ignored those rivals, but Rex continued to stagnate over May.
Barbarossa and the Walloon Legion On 22 June 1941, Germany
launched an invasion of the
Soviet Union. Degrelle joined other prominent Rexists in announcing his support of the invasion, which he hoped would stem Rex's decline. He again went to meet with Abetz in Paris. In his absence, Rouleau unsuccessfully requested permission from the military administration to organize volunteer units for the
Eastern Front. When Degrelle returned from France, he repeated the request. Likely because of instructions from Berlin, the military administration granted Rex permission to form a unit of francophone Belgian volunteers. As the Nazis considered Walloons an inferior people to the Flemish, Walloon and Flemish volunteers would be segregated into different units. Walloons would also only be able to enlist in the regular armed forces. Degrelle announced the permission to organize a volunteer unit at a meeting of the Combat Formations on 6 July and exhorted Rexists to join. Claiming to have Leopold III's support, Degrelle began energetically promoting and organizing his "
Walloon Legion" but achieved little. To bolster this venture, Degrelle announced on 20 July that he would enlist as a foot soldier, and gave leadership of Rex to Matthys. As a result, the Walloon Legion ballooned to 850 or 860 volunteers, 730 of whom were Rexists. The force departed Belgium for basic training on 8 August, taking with it much of Rex's provincial leadership. By this time, Degrelle had decided that the Legion was a better political vehicle than Rex, and strove to totally control it. In August, believing Rouleau to be plotting to wrest control of the Legion and then Rex from him, Degrelle ousted him from both. Beginning in November 1941, the Legion was assigned to
anti-partisan operations in occupied Soviet territory. In February 1942 it was attached to the
100th Jäger Division and moved to the frontline, where it engaged in combat with regular Soviet forces for the first time on 28 February. By the end of 1942, the Legion was reduced by attrition to 150 men and would have to rely on new recruitment drives to sustain itself. The Legion's battlefield performance was of great value to Degrelle, who came to be appreciated by German officers. In May, he was made an officer and awarded the
Iron Cross, First Class, for his conduct in battle.
Overtures to the SS As early as September 1941, Degrelle had taken an interest in the
Schutzstaffel (SS), a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party led by
Heinrich Himmler, and came to see the SS as the most powerful force in
Nazi-occupied Europe. In 1942, Degrelle began lobbying for the integration of Walloons into the SS, and in June made a brief visit to Berlin to meet with Nazi functionaries and Rex's interim leaders. Degrelle did not meet any SS leaders during that trip, but after returning to the front from this meeting, the Walloon Legion was briefly assigned to the command of
Waffen-SS general
Felix Steiner. Degrelle met
Gottlob Berger, head of the
SS Main Office, on 19 December. Himmler also personally warmed to Degrelle, and by the end of the year he was persuaded to name the Walloons a Germanic people. On 17 January 1943, Degrelle gave a speech at an assembly of Rexists in Brussels in which he declared that Walloons were a Germanic people forced to adopt the French language. He proclaimed a new, "Burgundian" nationalism within a
pan-German state. Following the speech, Streel and much of Rex's old guard left the party, Walloon competitors to Rex for German favor evaporated, and Degrelle definitively turned his attentions away from Rex and towards the SS. Over the rest of January and February 1943, Degrelle met with Nazi functionaries in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris to gain influence in the Nazi Party.
Incorporation in the Waffen-SS , featuring Degrelle's likeness. On 23–24 May 1943, Degrelle met with Himmler near Rastenburg (
Kętrzyn) to discuss the transfer of the Walloon Legion from the German Army to the Waffen-SS. On 1 June 1943, the Legion was integrated into the
Waffen-SS as the
SS-Sturmbrigade Wallonien. Degrelle spent the rest of mid-1943 enriching himself and his family with assets seized by the Germans in Belgium and France, and recruiting for the Legion. He purchased a seized Jewish-owned perfume company, and on 29 July 1943 launched a newspaper named ''L'Avenir
that, devoid of the sensational tone and polemics of Le Pays Réel'', found immediate financial success. Also in July, Degrelle attended Mass in his hometown in SS uniform and was refused the sacraments per standing orders from the Belgian bishops. In response, Degrelle and his bodyguards apprehended the offending priest and imprisoned him in Degrelle's home, provoking his
excommunication by the
Bishop of Namur on 19 August 1943. Degrelle successfully appealed to the Legion's chaplain and the German military chaplain service to have his excommunication overturned. In October and again in November, Degrelle met with Berger, and at his direction wrote to Hitler to denounce the military administration in Belgium and request an SS-run government, only a few days after sending a letter of praise to Reeder. Reeder was made aware of the letter to Hitler and wrote to German field marshal
Wilhelm Keitel, then the commander of the regular German armed forces, to denounce Degrelle. Degrelle rejoined the Legion on 2 November, and nine days later arrived in Ukraine with the unit, now numbering about 2,000 men. On 28 January 1944, the Legion was trapped by the Red Army in the
Cherkassy pocket. The Legion was savaged in the subsequent fighting, being reduced to 632 men by the time the encirclement was broken in mid-February. Among the casualties were the Legion's commanding officer, Lucien Lippert, who was killed, and Degrelle himself, who had been injured. Degrelle was promoted to the rank of
SS-Sturmbannführer (
Major) to replace Lippert, but effective control of the Legion was given to another German SS officer. Degrelle was flown to Berlin and became, according to historian Nico Wouters, "the poster boy for all European collaborators." On 20 February, Degrelle was awarded the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Hitler. Two days later Degrelle was sent to Brussels to recuperate and was met there by Matthys and
Richard Jungclaus, head of the SS in Belgium. Degrelle was received by collaborators in Brussels on 27 February and in Paris on 5 March, and on 2 April the surviving members of the Legion paraded through
Charleroi. Degrelle, however, could not translate his military service into political aggrandizement, as the SS desired for him to remain an instrument of propaganda. While on leave, Degrelle tried to make connections with collaborators in Paris and Flanders without success. On 8 July, Degrelle's brother Edouard, who had had no role in Rex but was sympathetic to the party and the German occupation, was shot and killed in his pharmacy in their hometown. In response, German authorities arrested 46 men and Rexist militants murdered another pharmacist. Returning from a speaking tour in Germany, Degrelle arrived in Bouillon on 10 July to demand reprisals. He wrote to Himmler to request the retaliatory killing of 100 Belgian civilians and was ignored, but on 21 July Rexists attached to the
Sicherheitspolizei murdered three hostages near Bouillon. (l.), awarding a member of the
Walloon Legion, Charleroi, 1 April 1944 On 22 or 23 July 1944, Degrelle returned to the Legion as it was engaged in the
Battle of Narva in Estonia. The Legion was depleted by the fighting and after the battle returned to Germany, where Degrelle was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves on 25 August. On 18 September the Legion was expanded and renamed the 28th Waffen-SS Division and placed under Degrelle's acting command. To staff the Division, Degrelle now made service in the Legion mandatory for all Rexists, many of whom were fleeing the then-ongoing
liberation of Belgium, and recruited French collaborators who
had fled to
Sigmaringen and the Spanish volunteers of the defunct
Blue Legion. In December, the Legion was assigned an armored unit was moved back to the front in January 1945. It was destroyed in battle by the Red Army at the
Battle of the Oder–Neisse in April. ==Exile in Spain, 1945–1994==