The Burning Souls

Více o knize

Born in 1906 to a Belgian family, Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle became a prominent newspaper editor and leader of the militant monarchist, Catholic, and anticommunist Parti Rexiste. During the German occupation of Belgium, he and his loyalists joined the Wehrmacht-organized Walloon Legion to assist in liberating the Soviet Republics. Over the war, he raised about 6,000 volunteers for the Wehrmacht and later the Waffen-SS, though only a third would survive. Degrelle and his men were recognized for their extreme bravery and ferocity in close combat, with Degrelle earning the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. After Berlin's fall, he escaped to Spain, where Franco's government protected him. Belgium later sentenced him to death in absentia for collaboration with the Germans, but he expressed no regrets about his wartime actions. He lived in Spain until his death in 1994, remaining active in anticommunist and pan-European causes despite various threats against him. His reflections, part poetry and part memoir, trace his journey from a joyful childhood to the harsh realities of war, emphasizing the need for self-sacrifice in pursuit of a transcendent ideal to combat spiritual malaise.