Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle (Belgium 1906 - Spain 1994) was a Belgian politician and military. In 1935 he founded the Christus Rexque movement of National Socialist ideology, which in 1936 would become the Rexist Party, after obtaining 21 of the 150 seats of the House of Representatives of Belgium. From the Rex movement emerged organizations of Belgian paramilitaries that in 1941 Leon Degrelle would organize in the Wallonia Legion to later integrate the 28th Division of Grenadiers SS Volunteers Wallonien in order to fight against communism on the eastern front during World War II.
Leon Degrelle enlisted in July 1941 as a private, rejecting Hitler's offer to leave the front with the graduation of Lieutenant. On February 10, 1942, when he reached the war front, he was promoted to Cabo. On February 28, 1942, after the bloody battle of Gromovajabalka, he was promoted to Sergeant Major. After obtaining an Iron Cross, for his merits in combat during Operation Barbaroja, Degrelle achieved the rank of Lieutenant on May 1, 1942 and on the 15th of that same month he was promoted to First Lieutenant. On January 30, 1944, during the Battle of Tcherkassy, he is promoted to Captain. On April 20, 1944, he obtained the rank of Commander. Then, on January 1, 1945, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, on April 20 of that same year he was promoted to Colonel and finally on May 2, 1945, to General, but the act was not officially confirmed since Heinrich Himmler had been dismissed. of the charge of Reichsführer-SS a few days before.
Leon Degrelle was wounded five times and decorated with the highest insignia to the military value of the German army, being the most German non-decorated during the Second World War. In August 1944 he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves by Adolf Hitler himself who told him privately: "If I had a son, I would like him to be like you".
In May of 1945, Leon Degrelle was in Norway when the German forces surrendered to the allies. Then he took the plane of Minister Albert Speer and fled to Spanish territory where he would spend the rest of his days in exile. Degrelle acquired Spanish nationality and the name of José León Ramírez Reina to avoid his extradition to Belgium where he had been tried and sentenced to death for his collaboration with the Germans. In Spain he devoted himself to writing several books on politics and history. León Degrelle died in Malaga on March 31, 1994 at 87 years of age without having ever been able to return to Belgium.
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