Rexist Party | |
|---|---|
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| Founder | Léon Degrelle |
| Founded | 2 November 1935 (1935-11-02) |
| Dissolved | 30 March 1945 (1945-03-30) |
| Split from | Catholic Party |
| Headquarters | Brussels,Belgium |
| Newspaper | Le Pays Réel |
| Paramilitary wing | Formations de Combat[1][2] |
| Ideology | Belgian nationalism Belgian royalism Authoritarian conservatism National Catholicism[3] Corporate statism[4] Fascism (from 1937)[5][6][7] Antisemitism (from 1937) |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| Political alliance | VNV (1936–1937)[8] |
| Colours | Red Black |
| Anthem | |
| Party flag | |
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TheRexist Party, or simplyRex, was a far-rightCatholicauthoritarian andcorporatist[9] political party active inBelgium from 1935 until 1945. The party was founded by a journalist,Léon Degrelle.[10] It advocatedBelgian unitarism androyalism. Initially, the party ran in bothFlanders andWallonia, but it never achieved much success outside Wallonia andBrussels. Its name was derived from theRoman Catholic journal and publishing companyChristus Rex (Latin for 'Christ the King').
The highest electoral achievement of the Rexist Party was 21 out of 202 deputies (with 11.4% of the vote) and twelve senators in the1936 election.[11] Never a mass movement, it was on the decline by 1938. During theGerman occupation of Belgium inWorld War II, Rex was the most significantcollaborationist group in French-speaking Belgium, paralleled by theVlaams Nationaal Verbond (Flemish for 'Flemish National Union') (VNV) in Flanders. By the war's end, Rex was widely discredited and banned following the liberation.
Initially modelled onItalian Fascism andSpanish Falangism, it later drew closer to GermanNazism. The Party espoused a "right-wing revolution" and the dominance of theCatholic Church in Belgium,[12] but its ideology came to be vigorously opposed by the leader of the Belgian ChurchCardinal van Roey, who called Rexism a "danger to the church and the country".[11]
The ideology of Rex, which was loosely based on the writings ofJean Denis, called for the "moral renewal" of Belgian society through the dominance of the Catholic Church by forming acorporatist society and abolishingliberal democracy.[5] Denis became an enthusiastic member of Rex, and later wrote for the party newspaperLe Pays Réel. The original programme of Rexism borrowed strongly fromCharles Maurras'integralism. It rejectedliberalism, which it deemed decadent, and was strongly opposed to bothMarxism andcapitalism, instead striving for a corporatist economic model, idealising rural life and traditionalfamily values.[6]
It has been claimed[by whom?] that in its early period until around 1937, Rexism should not be categorised as a 'fascist movement', and that it was instead apopulist,[6] authoritarian and conservative Catholic nationalist movement[13] that initially tried to win power by democratic means, and did not want to abolish democratic institutions. The party increasingly made use of fascist-style rhetoric, but only after Degrelle's defeat in a by-election in April 1937 did it openly embraceanti-Semitism and anti-parliamentarianism, following the model of GermanNazism. HistorianRoger Griffin in "The Nature of Fascism" states that the Rexist Party during the German occupation of Belgium as "fully fascist"; until then, he considers it "proto-fascist".[14]
The Rexist movement attracted support almost exclusively from Wallonia. On 6 October 1936, party leaderLéon Degrelle made a secret agreement with Rex'sFlemish counterpart, theVlaams Nationaal Verbond ("Flemish National Union", VNV), led byStaf De Clercq.[15] Both movements strove for a corporatist system. Still, unlike the Rexists, the VNV sought to separate Flanders from Belgium and to unite it with theNetherlands. The Flemish side cancelled the agreement after just one year.[16] It also faced competition from the ideologically similar (but explicitly anti-German)Légion Nationale ("National Legion") ofPaul Hoornaert.
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.[17][18] He proclaimed a new, revolutionary "Burgundian" nationalism within the framework of apan-German state.[19][20] Following the speech, Streel and much of Rex's old guard left the party,[21][22] Walloon competitors to Rex for German favor evaporated,[17][23] 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.[24]
The Rexist Party was founded in 1935 after its leader, Léon Degrelle, had left the mainstreamCatholic Party, which he deemed too moderate. It targeted disappointed constituencies such as traditionalist Catholics, veterans, small traders and jobless people. In theDepression era, it initially won considerable popularity — mostly due to its leader's charisma and energy. Its most tremendous success was winning 11.5 per cent of the total vote in the1936 election.[25] On that occasion the Rexist Party took 21 of the 202 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 8 out of 101 in the Senate, making it the fourth-strongest force in Parliament, behind the significant established parties (Labour, Catholic, Liberal).
However, the support for the party (even at its height) was extremely localized: Rexists succeeded in garnering over 30 per cent of the vote in the French-speakingprovince of Luxembourg, compared with just 9 per cent in equally French-speaking Hainaut.[5] Degrelle admiredAdolf Hitler's rise to power and progressively imitated the tone and style of fascist campaigning, while the movement's ties to theRoman Catholic Church were increasingly repudiated by the Belgian clergy.
Degrelle ran in the April 1937 Brussels by-election against Prime MinisterPaul van Zeeland of the Catholic Party, who was supported — in the hope of thwarting a Rexist victory — by all other parties, including even the Communists.[26] TheArchbishop of Mechelen and primate of the Catholic Church of Belgium,Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, intervened, rebuking Rexist voters, insisting that even abstention from voting would be sinful, and calling Rexism "a danger to the country and to the Church". Degrelle was decisively defeated: he obtained only 20 per cent of the vote, the rest going to Van Zeeland.[27]
"[Degrelle] could always command a large and enthusiastic audience, for he was a handsome young man, with dreamy but searching eyes, and a voice that could be impressively thunderous or tender when he spoke (and he almost always did) about small children and his own aged mother. He presented himself as an undaunted crusader fighting for law and order, decency and selflessness, and his attacks on party leaders who had important interests in banks and industries made a deep impression and indeed were not always without justification. After his victory in the 1936 election, followed by defeat the next year, he became more overtly national socialist, introducing the theme of anti-Semitism and advocating dictatorship."
The missionary spirit of Catholic Action attracted them because it allowed them to actively pursue societal reform and see tangible results from their efforts. However, they also understood that political involvement could only achieve meaningful, large-scale change. The story of the Rexist movement is, at its core, about the attempt to channel Catholic activism—focused on moral and religious renewal—into the political sphere in Belgium. It is also how fascism took root in the Belgian context. As Rex developed politically, it came under the influence of a rapidly spreading ideology across Europe—fascism—which appeared to offer solutions to others seeking societal transformation. Given Belgium's unique historical and geographic position and the political tensions in 1930s Europe, the form of fascism that emerged within Rex held particular significance.[29]
Afterwards, Rexism allied itself with the interests ofNazi Germany even more strongly and incorporatedNazi-styleantisemitism into its platform.[30] At the same time, its popularity declined sharply.[31] In the1939 national election, Rex's share of votes fell to 4.4 per cent, and the party lost 17 of its 21 seats, largely to the mainstreamCatholic andLiberal parties.[31]
The fleeting support the movement received in 1936 came mainly from discontented, lower-middle-class French-speaking Catholics affected by the economic depression. Following 1940, a new wave of leaders and activists emerged—those who chose to align themselves with the Nazi occupiers. As the Légion grew into the most active faction within Rex, the final generation consisted primarily of alienated young people, many of whom were trying to conceal their pasts or avoid compulsory labour service in Germany, similar to the followers ofJacques Doriot studied by Paul Jankowski in Marseilles.[32]
With theGerman invasion of Belgium in 1940, Rexism welcomed German occupation, even though it had initially supported the pre-war Belgian policy of neutrality.[33] While some former Rexists went into the underground resistance or (likeJosé Streel) withdrew from politics after they had come to see the Nazis' anticlerical and extreme anti-Semitic policies enforced in occupied Belgium, most Rexists, however, proudly supported the occupiers and assisted German forces with the repression of the territory wherever they could.[33] Nevertheless, the popularity of Rex continued to drop. In 1941, at a reunion inLiège, Degrelle was booed by about a hundred demonstrators.[33]
In August 1944, a Rexist militia was responsible for theCourcelles Massacre.
Closely affiliated with Rex was theWalloon Legion, a unit within theGerman ArmyWehrmacht and later theWaffen-SS raised from French-speaking volunteers in Belgium with Rexist support afterGerman invasion of the Soviet Union. After an initial failure to attract recruits, Degrelle volunteered for the unit as apublicity stunt and spent much of the rest of the war outside Belgium on theEastern Front. He increasingly saw the Walloon Legion as a better vehicle for seeking German support than the Rexist Party, and recruitment drained the party of itscadres. Whilst Degrelle was absent, nominal leadership of the party passed toVictor Matthys.
The Rexists had their paramilitary wing known as theFormations de Combat (Combat Formations), founded in 1940 and having around 4,000 members.[34][35] Their members wore dark blue uniforms with the redBurgundian cross.[36] Due to the constant depletion of its strength through members volunteering for more active forms of service in the German forces, theFormations had, by the end of 1943, virtually ceased to function.[34]
The Walloon Legion (Légion Wallonie,lit. "Wallonia Legion") was a unit of theGerman Army (Wehrmacht) and later of theWaffen-SS recruited among French-speakingcollaborationists inGerman-occupied Belgium duringWorld War II.
Established in July 1941, the Walloon Legion was envisaged byLéon Degrelle's Rexist Party as a means of demonstrating its loyalty and political indispensability in German-occupied Belgium where it had been largely ignored since theGerman invasion of May 1940. Degrelle himself enlisted and increasingly saw the unit as a more important political vehicle than the Rexist Party. It participated in fighting on the Eastern Front from February 1942 but struggled to find sufficient recruits in Belgium to replace its persistently heavy losses.
The unit was integrated into the Waffen-SS in June 1943 as theSS Assault Brigade Wallonia (SS-Sturmbrigade Wallonien) and was almost destroyed by Soviet forces in theKorsun–Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944. It expanded slightly after theAllied Liberation of Belgium in September 1944 as Belgian, French, and Spanish collaborators were drafted into the unit. It was upgraded to the notional status of adivision and re-designated as theSS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonia (SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division Wallonien) in October 1944. After heavy losses during the 1945 retreats, its remaining personnel surrendered to British forces in April 1945.
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The party had been banned from the liberation of Belgium in September 1944. With the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, many former Rexists were imprisoned or executed for their role during collaboration.Victor Matthys andJosé Streel were both executed by firing squad,Jean Denis (who had played only a minor role during the war) was imprisoned. On March 30, 1945, at a meeting between Degrelle, Matthys and Collard in Germany, the Rexist movement was officially dissolved.[37]
Degrelle took refuge inFrancoist Spain. He was convicted oftreasonin absentia in Belgium andsentenced to death, but repeated requests toextradite him were turned down by the Spanish government. Stripped of his citizenship and excommunicated (later lifted in Germany), Degrelle died inMálaga in 1994.[38]
On November 10, 1947, Collard was shot along with 26 other members of the Rexist movement convicted of their crimes. He was part of the first firing squad scheduled for 7:30 a.m.[39] After smoking his last cigarette, he was visibly overwhelmed and devastated by what awaited him and needed to be carried by the police to his execution post.[40]
| No. | Leader (birth–death) | Portrait | Constituency ortitle | Took office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Léon Degrelle (1906–1994) |  | Leader of the Rexist Party | 2 November 1935 | July 1941 |
| 2 | Victor Matthys (1914–1947) |  | Leader of the Rexist Party | July 1941 | August 1944 |
| 3 | Louis Collard (1915–1947) |  | Leader of the Rexist Party | August 1944 | 30 March 1945 |
| Election year | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall seats won | +/− | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1936 | 271,481 | 11.49 (#4) | 21 / 202 (10%) |  21 | in opposition |
| 1939 | 83,047 | 4.25 (#6) | 4 / 202 (2%) |  17 | in opposition |
... fascist Italy ... developed a state structure known as the corporate state with the ruling party acting as a mediator between 'corporations' making up the body of the nation. Similar designs were quite popular elsewhere in the 1930s. The most prominent examples wereEstado Novo in Portugal (1932–1968) and Brazil (1937–1945), the AustrianStandestaat (1933–1938), and authoritarian experiments in Estonia, Romania, and some other countries of East and East-Central Europe,
Media related toRexist Party at Wikimedia Commons
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