I appreciate your focus here on broader questions of belief, historical determinism, spiritual meaning, and the machinery of power - it reads almost like a meditation on the tragedy of ideals in an age of manipulation. You show important empathy for Degrelle while acknowledging the limits of his vision. It’s not a hagiography, and it’s not just a takedown. It’s a tragic meditation on belief, idealism, and what happens when history breaks a soul’s dream...
Wonderful piece. I find it hard to pick out a single quote for a restack on account of being spoiled for choice (which makes substack refusing to allow me the ability to quote-restack a mixed blessing). I haven't heard of Degrelle before, and he resonates with me a lot.
His outlook is definitely infecious, it's a statement to the grandeur of the man's soul and how easily it can find itself transposed onto others. From the account provided, he must have been possessed by a great force of good. It's a shame that this world offers so very few (or maybe even no) ways for these forces to manifest in lasting, cascading effects.
It reminds me of the current trump moment in a way. Many of /ourguys/' hearts are in the right place, but as it stands there's no higher-order power to pour these hearts into that aren't fake and gay. While the more decisively pessimistic people on substack might deride his boundless, provedly hopeless optimism as pathetic, I'd say the only thing that would have been worse for him (if I took to the pessimistic position) would be him renegging on his beliefs and descending into quiet despair. John Milton suffered this fate at the tail end of his life, and I don't think it's a very fitting end at all.
From his writing about the nature of despair, I'd say he's felt its pangs - and won out over it. That, if nothing else, should be held up as vindication.
Thanks for taking the time to write this NLF. I waited to read it until I had the free time to do it all in one sitting. Was previously unfamiliar with Leon Degrelle, he's a very interesting character.
Maybe not the "top guy", but the most interesting Nazi to me is Herbert Himmler. Mainly for his rise to power and religious views.
I confess your article was long and demanding. It required several reading sessions. Even if the points you wanted to make are not totally clear to me, I still found it informative and interesting. Overall, it exudes a positive overview of the protagonist, which should somehow be related to today's challenges. Guessing how Degrelle would be connected to our current concerns has been the subject of my reflections to write this comment. I generally find your texts interesting and pertinent compared to other worthy Substackers. I don't pretend to be right; just add some extra information and topics for reflection.
As far as I knew, Degrelle lived in Malaga, southern Spain, in an extravagant, pretentious, castle-like rural palace, which tells a lot about his fantastical mindset. His presence in Spain was excluded from public awareness. It was a kind of taboo that even the Spanish Communist Party respected. In my early years, I can't remember any reference to this character in any political review, right or left wing. My father was an avid reader, and I was relatively well-informed about the Spanish regime's deep politics. If that's even possible... It was only later in my life when I crossed some extreme right elements, generally related to football hooliganism and fascist remnant parties, when I learned more about Degrelle, who actually was a reference to European fascist networks, like the Italian MSI and others. Then, I learned that he was not alone. Skorzeny also prosperously lived and died in Spain, together with other high-ranking Nazi officials. Malaga was/is, in fact, a fascist hub, where many of them made considerable fortunes during the Costa del Sol 60's building boom, with the help of José Antonio Girón de Velasco, “The Lion of Fuengirola,” a violent falangist gunman who was the main developer of the coast real estate developments. So, the assumption that “Degrelle” made a fortune as a businessman in Spain should be clarified, as he was widely helped by Spanish fascists, together with other Nazis, to become a rich man. But not for no reason. Malaga, and Spain, became an international hub for the World Anticommunist League, the Triple A, the Gladio networks, and other undercover fighting anticommunist assets. As for today, Spain keeps being a safe haven for all kinds of CIA-related regime change operatives, especially in Argentina, Cuba, and Venezuela, but they have lost relevance due to the empire's priority to support Islamic terrorist organizations based in London.
Something in your article particularly struck my attention. This is when you talked about Degrelle's “Baraka,” this kind of divine luck he was aware of. It was not only him. Franco himself had had a bad time justifying his fascist regime until he signed the 1954 Treaty with the US, by which 4 American naval and air bases were built in Spain. This treaty also implied the political ostracism of the regime's openly fascist elements, like Giron, who were then utilized for undercover international anticommunist operations. This move was necessary to attract foreign investments and resulted in the industrial and touristic development of the country. They were allowed to unhesitatingly enrich themselves, though. Then, Franco, Degrelle, the Greek generals, the South American dictators, and the rest were recycled as heroes for the good of the new capitalist world anticommunist crusade, as they managed to live free and unmolested until they died.
For this reason, the socializing allegations of the fascist ideologists are nothing but a smoke curtain to divert an uninformed public. The reality is that fascism was supported, from its early stages, by Big Capital in order to counter and neutralize the growing influence of socialist ideas among the working class. The fight for the abolition of child labor, for higher wages, and for fewer working hours was hitting hard the extraction of surplus value by the industrialist-financier class. Not only that, it was threatening to bring socialist parties to power in colonial empires like the British or the French. I don't mean to justify it, but I can understand how the European oligarchies feared the rise of communism as an existential threat and therefore subsidized fascist gunmen gangs to terrorize their opponents by violence. Besides, the communist organizations were no joke. They had succeeded in bringing down the Kaiser and the Tsar and created revolutionary states in Hungary, Germany, and, of course, the USSR. This phenomenon is brilliantly studied by communist historian Anne Lacroix-Riz in her studies about the French Sinarchie, the “Cagoule” fascist gangs, and their role in the purportedly prepared French defeat to Hitler's Nazi hordes.
This is pretty much the situation today, since these networks were never dismantled and could surge anytime to suppress civil unrest in Europe and elsewhere. No need to say that these networks were also utilized for clandestine drug and arms trafficking, political blackmail, prostitution, and all things related to organized crime. In his early political years, Degrelle was fully participating in these fascist gangs and murders. I therefore can't agree to the assumption that he hadn't committed crimes against humanity; neither can I admit the allegation that thousands of collaborators were unjustifiably punished. There were mass crimes, years of fascist terror, forced work deportations, political assassinations, racial laws, and tortures, in total impunity. We could compare what happened at that time with the Covid situation, in which thousands of doctors, judges, and journalists were along with one of the bloodiest crimes ever committed on humanity. If a day of justice must be done, it must be really done, implying massive arrests and condemnations. Unfortunately, most of them got away with it since you omitted to mention that most Nazis, Banderists, Petainists, and other collaborators were recycled by Operation Paperclip, the Gehlen Organization, the Gladio stay-behind network, and others. They finally got to inflict a total defeat on the USSR, so this is pretty much the situation today. They are still there.
But I digress. This was to reflect on the reality of the alleged Baraka, and I must admit that God, the Universe, Fate, you name it... seems to choose some individuals for historical purposes. When examining Degrelle's personality, nothing makes him specially different from other radical fascists. In Spain we had General Millán Astray, founder of the Spanish foreign legion, a mutilated one-eyed crippled maniac who claimed to be “Death's boyfriend,” the title of the Legion's anthem. Much could be said about the nature of fascism. In my opinion, it has to do with the Catholic petty bourgeoisie's struggle to protect its social position against the rise of the working class. This could explain why the fascist thinkers position themselves between capitalism and communism. On the one hand, the rising capitalist accumulation deprives them of their relative social position, increasingly turning them into the working class. On the other hand, communism threatens to expropriate their businesses and properties, as well as to displace them from state bureaucratic managing positions. I think this statement is valid for today too. The violence fascists preached and practiced is the expression of a declining class, who was seeing how the churches were emptying, their fortunes shrinking, and their social position disappearing. Degrelle didn't mention the horrendous genocide the Belgian empire committed in Congo or the abominable condition of the industrial workers. The fanaticism and emphasis Degrelle spoke with are the symptoms of profound fear and desperate panic against a cultural and economic shift. All his idealism (supremacist, racial, and classist), religious fervor, and aesthetic pretensions sound like hypocritical, fake justifications to me.
Which brings us to the roots of the Paneuropean struggle of which the EU is the heir today. I think we have to go back to Imperial Rome to understand how the idea of a civilizational “limes” border grew up in Europe. The Romans conquered and subjugated everything they could until they settled a stable border along the rivers Rhine and Danube. Everything beyond that line was “barbaric.” Everything before was “civilized.” Little has been written about the need for Roman Europe to reassess the implications of Roman brutality and barbarism. How religions, languages, cultures, and bloodlines were massacred and crushed by the Romans is of no importance for the official culture and narrative in Europe. Furthermore, this is the root justification, civilization vs. barbarism, which enabled subsequent European colonial atrocities all over the world. But who is who? This border fear, this panic about barbaric incursions, has lasted to our days and, to tell the truth, has been checked multiple times.
It is the fear of losing a “so believed” higher stage of civilization, of falling into nomadic and tribal “chaos,” of losing the stability (through slavery and punishment) the Roman laws and trade brought to Europe, and of losing the madness, hypocrisy, and folly of deep state power abominations of which totally deranged emperors like Nero or Caligula were the acme. The Romans grew stronger by means of wars and violence, enslaved the world, and then feared the invasions of the people they could not subjugate. It's pretty much the same thing today. The Russians are blamed today for being what Attila, the Mongols, or the Turks were yesterday, deliberately ignoring that it was Russia who pushed the Mongols back to the steppes. Pretending that Europe, an appendage, the rectum of the Eurasian continent, can isolate itself from Asia is delusional to the extreme, but useful to maintain the Roman inherited structures, which keep Roman barbarism alive. It's also a historical fallacy, as the Goths, the Alans, the Slavs, the Huns, and others were not racially pure but pretty much mixed with the Sarmatians, the Suomi, and Altaic populations. On the other hand, we cannot ignore this fact as a motive for transcendental European togetherness, like when fighting the Turks or Islamic invasions, which would have brought a complete change of civilization. We must admit that European centralized structures, like the Vatican, managed to keep Islam and communism out. Will they be able to keep civilizational change out, preserving the Roman imperial statecraft forever? I doubt it.
Today, the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie, finds itself ejected from capitalism and naturally approaches the condition of the working class. However, decades of anticommunist conditioning prevent it from fully understanding the situation. Thus, they keep pretending they can be placed somewhere in the middle of the capital and the labor factors, which is the perfect brewing soup for characters like Degrelle to pop. Degrelle was the definition of a fascist, following the archetype once settled by D'Annunzio, this kind of crazy, death-defying, poetish nihilist adventurer. History, however, tends to marginalize the individual in favor of the collective organization and, above all, the economic production factors. This is what Marxism is really about, beyond all the hallucinations and mystifications anticommunism holds dear.
Marxism is misunderstood. Purposedly? Ironically, Davos understands Marxism, which doesn't imply they are Marxists. Yes, they are, but in a negative way. As Guy Debord put it, “I know that what I write is going to be read and used both by my supporters and by my enemies.” Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship. They can surely postpone it by decades or even centuries. They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks. Take Trump's first 100 days. American history has advanced more in that time span than in the last 30 years.
Thank you for your detailed and interesting responses, Yoni. You touch on a host of issues that would require basically a new post to flesh out responses in it's entirety, so apologies for the points I don't respond to. First, you're right that the post-war Nazi networks in Spain (as in Argentina and elsewhere) played a major role in protecting and empowering figures like Degrelle. These networks weren’t just passive shelters - they were active political instruments, supported under the pretense of anti-communism. I also agree with your reading of fascism as, in many respects, a class reaction - a desperate attempt to halt the downward mobility of the petty bourgeoisie in the face of both capitalist centralization and socialist movements.
With that said, I see both communism and anti-communism as ultimately functioning within the same dialectic. The purpose was to (1) sunder the European landmass pursuant to Mackinder's thesis, i.e. manipulating Germany and Russia to fight against each other instead of ally, therefore allowing for British/American domination (as Preparata argues), and (2) to usher in the modern international financial system worldwide; the forces, as they competed ideologically and militarily during the Cold War, stripped away local customs and traditions through violence and compulsion in order to prepare each country for entry into the international order. I discuss this process here, which was described by Julian Assange: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-three-stages-of-integration-into
Your response also reminds me of the comment of Eustace Mullins, who commented on the way that our upper elites function, where the central bank owners "adopted the Hegelian dialectic, the dialectic of materialism, which regards the World as Power, and the World as Reality. It denies all other powers and all other realities. It functions on the principle of thesis, antithesis and a synthesis...Thus the World Order organizes and finances Jewish groups; it then organizes and finances anti-Jewish groups; it organizes Communist groups; it then organizes and finances anti-Communist groups. It is not necessary for the Order to throw these groups against each other; they seek each other out like heat-seeking missiles and try to destroy each other. By controlling the size and resources of each group, the World Order can always predetermine the outcome. In this technique, members of the World Order are often identified with one side or the other. John Foster Dulles arranged financing for Hitler, but he was never a Nazi. David Rockefeller may be cheered in Moscow, but he is not a Communist...a distinguishing trait of a member of the World Order, although it may not be admitted, is that he does not believe in anything but the World Order. Another distinguishing trait is his absolute contempt for anyone who actually believes in the tenets of Communism, Zionism, Christianity, or any national, religious or fraternal group...If you are a sincere Christian, Zionist or Moslem, the World Order regards you as a moron unworthy of respect. You can and will be used, but you will never be respected.”
Personally, seeing what this world has become - completely internationalized, peoples and cultures intermixed and intermingled, dissolved into the slop of U.S. produced mass media, with zero autonomy, atomized with below replacement birthrates and a completely destroyed environment, with the planet far past it's carrying capacity, everyone obese and tattoo'd and homogenized, descending into poverty as the middle class is not now dying but totally dead - goes against the picture I have of the world, which is that people both individually and collectively should be able to exist with autonomy, dignity and have the right to assemble and prosper via the organizations that they decide. But the nature of the world is an ever-centralizing one and that vision is not how the world operates. To me, the tragedy of Degrelle is that he gave himself fully to a cause (the preservation of Western civilization) that was controlled from the outset, and Western civilization is now deeply in terminal decline. Yes, he participated in violence, much as the communists and democracies did, but I see that as the clash between fundamentally incompatible core values. I discuss this in my post about the egalitarian ratchet effect here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-egalitarian-ratchet-effect-why
Lastly, regarding your comment "Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship. They can surely postpone it by decades or even centuries. They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks. Take Trump's first 100 days. American history has advanced more in that time span than in the last 30 years" I found this to be fairly cryptic; what do you mean by it? I don't put much stock in Marxist utopian visions, and it seems the way things are developing is that a combination of (1) CBDC plus (2) a ubiquitous woke AI scanning everyone's electronics and (3) assigning social credit scores, which if you have a bad social credit score your funds will be stolen and you'll be cut out of society, is basically here; in other words, the international financial elite centralizing world power fully amongst themselves and turning the vast majority of the world population into even deeper slaves.
I was going to reply to this leftist's comment but you beat me to it. Thank you for having historical grounding and the patience to have studied these concepts without the propaganda from the institutions, who have had nearly four full generations to slow cook their lies to perfection.
Degrelle was a hero and had more energy than anyone else in Europe for a singular man, with the exception of a few of the German military elite soldiers and pilots. If one reads all of his works, and watches all of his interviews, and even goes so far as to seek out people who knew him, just as one could have done for Hitler until recently (the last person to know him on a personal basis died in 2022, one of his housekeepers for the Berghof), then one would understand the colossal vision these men were fighting and dying for, willing to risk it all.
The monarchies became corrupted, not entirely their fault, but prominently weaker over the centuries both in spirit and in producing effective leaders with holy qualities, so much so that the most virulent forms of proto-Bolshevism erupted in France in 1793 with many attempts that are often overlooked in the 19th century (1848 in Germany, with many early Marxists coming to America afterwards). Fascism and National Socialism were not the revanchists of the hour but the natural antibody to the growing effete and limp monarchical system that was easily beset and upturned by the twin antipodal evils of capitalism and communism (who were designed to be antipodal, one begets there other in a perpetual cycle of dialectical cementation of power). History is rife with occultists who were sowing these seeds long before we can put together a comprehensive account of human affairs over the millennia. All the fraternal societies that kept the Babylonian traditions for thousands of years (and wherever they picked it up from before, Sumeria, or otherwise) have been this cancerous parasite that is now reveling and revealing in its alien behavior in front of the world whilst simultaneously telling them to put a sock in their noticing.
The "spirit" that Hitler, Degrelle, even Mussolini talked about (read Codreanu's writings for a more monastic interpretation of this) is what I've come to understand as the inherent vicarial essence of the will of the Creator, of God and His laws of nature, that seek to keep our domain according to the divine hierarchy. Unlearned men call this a various number of trite insults like gnosticism, pantheism, pan-entheism, theism, deism, what have you, but they are all handicapped by horse blinders courtesy of the international tribal controllers of the dialectic.
"The great flame of the ideal that animated us," was very well a new way of life that would have been the natural synthesis which Hegel described, away from the hands of the manipulators and more in line with what is good for all mankind. I grew up Catholic, and I recognize that limitations in organized religions are not for the detriment of the few souls who burn with greatness, but for the masses of followers who will never be great. That is without delving into the many other issues of organized religion we can see in retrospect that naturally abound in parallel with human flaws.
The Church paid the price for both supporting the Axis and not helping them enough after the war as the Vatican II, imposed by the victors, made globalism and kalergism a part of theology.
So we come to today, confusion is abound everywhere except for those who know what to look for and where to look (as well as where not to look). Hitler's work was supposed to continue with Degrelle. He was the successor for an Axis victory post-war. Since that did not happen, Degrelle at least kept the torch alive and his writing's are evident of the cyclical nature of this defiance against the system of things. I cannot explain why I am also invigorated to carry on this great work, I simply know that it is beyond my flesh, and when I have done all that I can, it will manifest in another to continue the same. Degrelle's work continues in awakened European souls (even in Americans who have awakened).
You have thrown some disgusting accusations on me, which is somehow good, proving my comment has annoyed you for the good reason. My response is not for you, since you have closed any possibility to a debate by your stupid psychoanalytical personal slandering against me, but for third readers.
First you admit that the CIA was "working" (like the mafia works?) with far right groups but you strongly doubt that industrialists businessmen shadow organisations like the Sinarchie, which were in fact the cradle of fascism, could have financed gunmen gangs to kill workers, the same thing Mussolini gangs practiced from minute one. This is not something you must believe or not, it is history, but dont expect sold off presstitutes talk about it. It is hidden like 9-11 or what happened to the missing Pentagon budget trillions. Dont hold your breath to have it on CNN or the NYT. When you ask for evidence or backing up, you are ignoring that this is mostly hidden information. I am not going to waste my time jotting down a 50 page reference list, especially for someone so biased like you, a helpless case. In a trial, the verdict does not come exclusively out of evidences, especially since evidences can be forged, masked or disappeared. JFK, someone...? There are also signs, indications, deductions out of reasoning processes that apply for plausible conclusions. You have to do your own research. If you cannot read communist writers, like Lacroix-Riz or others, you will hardly find anything worthy other than the crap that you read.
To begin with you can start looking up for the trade unions and strikers masacres in America. Who paid the SA 300.000 brown shirts who spread street terror ir Germany, their subscribers? Who do you think paid for that? In Colombia or Mexico, who do you think kill thousands of sindical leaders? Some mad bad people? Dont pretend you dont know.
"Franco was not a fascist.." This is a big selfcommenting LOL. He wasnt a dictator either, right? ;) Thats what your friends claim. Was even Degrelle a fascist to your mind? A hero, like your fascist apologist Hibernia rising (Irish?) states in the comment below? Your ideological line is clear and there is not much to add. Neoliberal Feudalism is attracking this kind of public, willingly or not. The whitewashing of Degrelle should have been a clue to guess so. “The Belgian gruesome colonisation of Congo was not a genocide”... Does an “holocaust” fits better with your definition playbook? What could be expected from a fascist, racist apologist...? To your words, General Milán Astray wasn't a fascist either... You claim that to identify Franco with the murders committed by the fascist kill squads he was the suppreme commander and leader of, doesn't make him a fascist... You don't need to insist in whitewashing fascists. They publicly admit they are fascists. Franco had his fascist time, and the got over it when his old friends were getting undesirable for the yanks. Suck it up.
"Franco wasnt a US puppet..." Well, he gave away big swaths of the Spanish sovereignty installing American bases in Spain. He wanted to join NATO and the EU and filed several requests to be admitted but was rejected because one of the requisites to become a member is to formally be a democracy. If he didnt get closer to the Americans its because he was repulsive for them. His true protector was Churchill, who paid +40 Spanish generals to prevent Spain from joining the Axis. Franco owed everything to Churchill, who decided Franco will be the leader of the 18 July coup against the Spanish republic and then, through jewish banker Juan March, funelled the London money to pay the colonial mercenary moors Franco commanded in Africa. Franco appointed king Juan Carlos as his successor by direct instructions of Henry Kissinger. The fact that todays Spain is an American protectorate is a product of his work. This does not imply that the Americans didnt have leverage to make him do what they wanted arming and financing the terrorist basque organisation ETA or destroying some critical hard industrial assets like tractors Barreiros, to make the country dependend on the American industry. Of course he had some nacionalist chauvinist deliria, especially towards south America, but he couldnt afford it..When Kissingers ETA killed Admiral Carrero Blanco he understood what his rank really was. All the democratic transition were steered from Washington with Franco's collaboration and the outcoming 1978 regime is a de facto occupied country, like Germany, Japan or South Korea still are. Thanks to Franco. Was a different outcome possible? Thats another story.
"The reality is that fascism was supported, from its early stages, by Big Capital in order to counter and neutralize the growing influence of socialist ideas among the working class". Untrue and without evidence...?
After WWI Compiegne armistice France pushed to the stricker terms over Germany, with a total control of the German economy, Rheinland occupation, unbearable war reparations and a powerless regime in Weimar. Then the British came up with a better idea and preferred to bring the German economy afloat by means of debt, as a way to fortify Eastern Europe against the USSR and the rise of communist parties. They wanted to crush the workers movement in Europe by allowing Hitler's terror massacres and subsequently let him expand eastwards by grabbing Austria and Czechoslovakia. But they didnt want him to go any further. Poland was a red line. That's why WWII started. Churchill let a mad dog bite and grow and had to kill him at a certain point. The connexions between Hitler's banker Hjalmar Schacht and Montagu Norman are well known. In fact, Schacht was the Norman's man in Berlin. The British and American “debt” money which enabled Hitler's rise was funneled through the Netherlands and the Thyssen and Krupp families. Historian Webster Tarpley describes how the Bush family, among others, participated in this operation.
Concerning the state owned property under Mussolinian fascism, as an argument to discard the hegemony of capitalim in the state, despite fascism present some socialising elements, fascism is a system where the state and corporate power merge, with the state exercising control over the economy and society through collaboration with powerful business interests. Mussolini claimed that fascism was a merger of state and corporate power. Such a system can lead to a government dominated by business interests, often referred to as a corporatocracy. In addition to this, Furthermore, In his essay "The Doctrine of Fascism," Mussolini wrote that fascism is the "complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism," denying the economic determinism of Marxism and emphasizing the importance of holiness and heroism, actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. This is to say, that not only fascism denies class struggle, production systems and human labor as the leading drives in history, but fanatically opposes them, defending the need of a class society, where an elite is in charge of the state organisation. Whereas fascism extracted some ideas from socialism, since Mussolini started off being a socialist, for him history is made by individuals, not by economic circumstances, denying the economic determinism of Marxism and emphasizing the importance of holiness and heroism, actions influenced by no economic motive. This is exactly what defines characters like Degrelle and... you. However, it is the dominant class of a country who exploit and repress the workers, not foreing powers. It is your boss who fucks you everyday, not the Mexican bricklayer next door. Pretending to unite all the nation under racial premises for colonial expansion was a way to divert the workers struggle abroad and consequently protect the Italian ruling class.
Concerning Operation Paperclip, whereas it is true that the USSR had German scientists for their own purpose, this nazis were never recycled into political, intelligence or military organisation, unlike the US and the UK. The whole postwar Europe was build with recycled nazis and collaborators, who by the way are still there, like Van der Leyen or Kallas, both the offspring of nazi ancestors.
"They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks". These are Lenin's words, not mine.
"Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship" Another vague, meaningless statement, you claim.
This reminds me of the first sentence of Marx's Communist Manifest: "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism." Apparently the spectre of communism keeps haunting Europe, even after the fall of the USSR, as there is nothing capitalists fear more than communism. They laught at fascists. Fascists are their dogs.
I skip a couple of crap paragraphs here and go the the gist of your rant.
“Your final two paragraphs are meaningless word slop, indicative of a narcissist trying to use a writing style incomprehensible to the person they're responding to make their argument appear stronger than it actually is. "crazy, death-defying, poetish nihilist adventurer" Completely meaningless and untrue statement”.
Are you that idiotic, really? Do you think I would spend my time to impress the unlikely readers of an offgrid Substack, who in addition happened to be spineless fascists? Do you think this is the way I purposedly use vague, meaningless word dribble designed to make myself feel smarter than other people? As I stated in my introduction, my comment was addressed to the article's writer, whoever hides behing the Neoliberal feudalism profile. The tone and language of my comment was in line with the author's style, which could sometimes be demanding. If I have had to write something to you, the language would have been different. Did more than 3 adjectives in a row blow your mind? My point was that all those bloody delusional bastards you admire, like Degrelle, were all influenced by Gabriele D'Annunzio, who you obviously don't know anything about. Go educate yourself, you little fascist scumbag.
I know the kind of tit for tat bastards you both are. You are exactly what you accuse me to be: misleading and narcisistic. Your ad personam attacks were pathetic. Don't waste your time. I won't read your response.
Thank you. This was very touching and enlightening. I consider myself a Degrellian in my fundamental optimism, but a pessimism in how it plays out until the end.
I enjoyed the piece Neo, he's a facinating character. I can imagine him, and people like him, fitting in well with the Gladio network. I imagine there is much more nefariousness to his story left unspoken by anyone, including himself.
He must have realised his idealism was (maybe indirectly) used by the banksters, but maybe because he did well, in a materialistic sense, out of those networks, he managed to cling to it regardless. I understand he lived in relative luxery, which makes it easier to suffer the slings and arrows.
Looking forward to your exploration of these subjects. Thanks.
Found this paragraph of yours particularly insightful:
"Hitler, [...] did not seem to really understand what he was up against [...]"
Besides their identity, there may have been naivety concerning their available means:
In this most interesting interview https://youtu.be/S3JfWwx-UiY (English translation: https://youtu.be/nNa9X92CmvM) with the Berghof's house administrator Herbert Döhring, he recalls that he found out by chance (1:27:20-1:28:40 in the German version) that discussion around the "Kartentisch" (map table) --- notably attack plan discussions between Hitler and his generals in 1940 --- could simply be overheard in the building's basement, the sound being transmitted by the heating pipes. He closes this observation just with amplifying that *he* would never have betrayed that information.
Just a little earlier in the interview (1:24:52) he is being asked whether it would have been possible to spy on the telephones in the building, and his reply is: "ohne Weiteres" ("without problem") just to add that it would never have occurred to *him* to do so.
While this is at face value just the house administrator being naive, it does suggest that this otherwise highly alert guy (judging from the remarkable interview he gives at high age) was not exposed in his environment to the idea of the possible ambitions and means of foreign spies. Extrapolating from this situation in the Berghof may put into perspective the common observation that the Wolfsschanze was apparently spied on thoroughly.
While I am at it, to point out just a couple of other historically possibly relevant tidbits in this interview:
At 1:32:40 Döhring recalls that Hitler was absolutely furious ("fuchsteufelswild") with Goebbels and Himmler ("zusammengeschissen wie einen kleinen Hund") for staging the "Kristallnacht" in Berlin without his information or consent.
At 1:01:05 Döhring recalls Hitler, in 1942, cursing the war on the basis of "what he could have already built" otherwise.
Yet if u take Skorzeny, its astounding how the switch back to euro mediocre normalcy happened. Like a fever dream before the exitus. Degrelle sure was an exceptional outlier, not coincidentally from an outlier place.
Meanwhile,the coudenhouve kalergi bastardization is in full swing, without mercy for the few remaining conscientious whatsoever.
Really cool essay. Took me a while to get through it - because the news cycle is so dramatic these days - but a very interesting subject handled in a very interesting way.
The Chinese have labelled many different types of chi, which is similar/same to Indian prana. One chi is Group (Dzong) Chi. You feel it in a sports stadium, political rally, rock concert, church. This chi - like all chis - is heightened by focus, in this case when a number focus on the same thing at the same time there is some sort of convergence which heightens the chi field. This may be hard to explain for materialist scientists but it's very obvious experientially.
So this is one reason why leadership matters. I don't think we need the materialist evolutionary speculation. When a leader speaks in front of a crowd, all participants focus on his speech and gestures, thereby synchronizing attention. Further, groups need leaders to make decisions for the group which otherwise cannot navigate through the minefield of endlessly differing opinions. A leader in a functional situation, like general or boss, calls the shots, determines Yes or No or This Way versus That Way. Nothing magical about it.
So first there is this heightened group chi aspect from synchronized object of attention.
Then there is the decision factor: leaders provide decision points for groups which otherwise mill around aimlessly. Therefore, no matter what the system developed, checks and balances, soviet-committees, voting or non-voting etc., leadership will always matter wherever humans are involved in group activities.
Which they always are. I believe the mission of human beings is to create high civilizations, the ultimate collective art form. Times always change so civilizations also change with them and what worked 3,000 years ago will not work today. We have to find the ones which work today. There is no one right answer and each one is a product of terrain and cultural past skeins; they are always a work in progress. Unfortunately due to widespread over-emphasis on materialism - which has its positives of course - we are unable to build good civilizations these days. Maybe when the industrial revolution period is over, probably by the end of this century, other things can be layered in, but for now we seem to be on a downward trajectory which spirits like Degrelle are doomed to fight and doomed to lose against.
I liked reading the final bit - where Hitler talks about the role of the media in pacifying the minds of the plebs, as the leaders do one flip flop after another and which would turn the average pleb against the cabal, had the news media not justified each flip flop as reasonable and wise.
Speaking of psychology - I also liked Larken Rose's (the author of jones plantation) bit from yesterday - where he looks at the psychology behind the false dichotomy that nearly every nation is subjected to in the political realm - and how it keeps the general population in the box. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPaP5aVbWJs&t=254s
I thought it was enlightening. You might want to take a look.
Despairing in the face of our current predicament is an easy refuge. Acceptance is a much disciplined response. Calamitous events are a certainty in the lives of us all, high and low alike.
Meet the challenge with courage and steel yourself for the revelation that only death can offer.
I'm not sure what more he was good for, but William Sloane Coffin was fond of stating the following maxim, which I have adopted as the hallmark of my worldview: "Show up for life, do your honest best, and let go of the results."
If I accept that all of this is even... serious. People like this are not idealists. Idealists don't have real power, fame, they can't escape prison and usually are not even mass murderers. I understand that here we are imagining some great warrior spirit or spirit like in the "spiritual world" not naive idealists but it is still true. No matter how hard one meditates he won't become a top Hitler guy. People with great ambitions might think they have a mission or "a dream" it doesn't mean its true. Usually they are just lying. If Trump or Bush say that God chose them - its a show for the plebs.
I appreciate your focus here on broader questions of belief, historical determinism, spiritual meaning, and the machinery of power - it reads almost like a meditation on the tragedy of ideals in an age of manipulation. You show important empathy for Degrelle while acknowledging the limits of his vision. It’s not a hagiography, and it’s not just a takedown. It’s a tragic meditation on belief, idealism, and what happens when history breaks a soul’s dream...
Wonderful piece. I find it hard to pick out a single quote for a restack on account of being spoiled for choice (which makes substack refusing to allow me the ability to quote-restack a mixed blessing). I haven't heard of Degrelle before, and he resonates with me a lot.
His outlook is definitely infecious, it's a statement to the grandeur of the man's soul and how easily it can find itself transposed onto others. From the account provided, he must have been possessed by a great force of good. It's a shame that this world offers so very few (or maybe even no) ways for these forces to manifest in lasting, cascading effects.
It reminds me of the current trump moment in a way. Many of /ourguys/' hearts are in the right place, but as it stands there's no higher-order power to pour these hearts into that aren't fake and gay. While the more decisively pessimistic people on substack might deride his boundless, provedly hopeless optimism as pathetic, I'd say the only thing that would have been worse for him (if I took to the pessimistic position) would be him renegging on his beliefs and descending into quiet despair. John Milton suffered this fate at the tail end of his life, and I don't think it's a very fitting end at all.
From his writing about the nature of despair, I'd say he's felt its pangs - and won out over it. That, if nothing else, should be held up as vindication.
Nice work, NF. Here's the salient quote for me:
"Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it?"
In the immortal words of the Pretenders: It's a thin line between paganism and gnosticism.
Thanks for taking the time to write this NLF. I waited to read it until I had the free time to do it all in one sitting. Was previously unfamiliar with Leon Degrelle, he's a very interesting character.
Maybe not the "top guy", but the most interesting Nazi to me is Herbert Himmler. Mainly for his rise to power and religious views.
I confess your article was long and demanding. It required several reading sessions. Even if the points you wanted to make are not totally clear to me, I still found it informative and interesting. Overall, it exudes a positive overview of the protagonist, which should somehow be related to today's challenges. Guessing how Degrelle would be connected to our current concerns has been the subject of my reflections to write this comment. I generally find your texts interesting and pertinent compared to other worthy Substackers. I don't pretend to be right; just add some extra information and topics for reflection.
As far as I knew, Degrelle lived in Malaga, southern Spain, in an extravagant, pretentious, castle-like rural palace, which tells a lot about his fantastical mindset. His presence in Spain was excluded from public awareness. It was a kind of taboo that even the Spanish Communist Party respected. In my early years, I can't remember any reference to this character in any political review, right or left wing. My father was an avid reader, and I was relatively well-informed about the Spanish regime's deep politics. If that's even possible... It was only later in my life when I crossed some extreme right elements, generally related to football hooliganism and fascist remnant parties, when I learned more about Degrelle, who actually was a reference to European fascist networks, like the Italian MSI and others. Then, I learned that he was not alone. Skorzeny also prosperously lived and died in Spain, together with other high-ranking Nazi officials. Malaga was/is, in fact, a fascist hub, where many of them made considerable fortunes during the Costa del Sol 60's building boom, with the help of José Antonio Girón de Velasco, “The Lion of Fuengirola,” a violent falangist gunman who was the main developer of the coast real estate developments. So, the assumption that “Degrelle” made a fortune as a businessman in Spain should be clarified, as he was widely helped by Spanish fascists, together with other Nazis, to become a rich man. But not for no reason. Malaga, and Spain, became an international hub for the World Anticommunist League, the Triple A, the Gladio networks, and other undercover fighting anticommunist assets. As for today, Spain keeps being a safe haven for all kinds of CIA-related regime change operatives, especially in Argentina, Cuba, and Venezuela, but they have lost relevance due to the empire's priority to support Islamic terrorist organizations based in London.
Something in your article particularly struck my attention. This is when you talked about Degrelle's “Baraka,” this kind of divine luck he was aware of. It was not only him. Franco himself had had a bad time justifying his fascist regime until he signed the 1954 Treaty with the US, by which 4 American naval and air bases were built in Spain. This treaty also implied the political ostracism of the regime's openly fascist elements, like Giron, who were then utilized for undercover international anticommunist operations. This move was necessary to attract foreign investments and resulted in the industrial and touristic development of the country. They were allowed to unhesitatingly enrich themselves, though. Then, Franco, Degrelle, the Greek generals, the South American dictators, and the rest were recycled as heroes for the good of the new capitalist world anticommunist crusade, as they managed to live free and unmolested until they died.
For this reason, the socializing allegations of the fascist ideologists are nothing but a smoke curtain to divert an uninformed public. The reality is that fascism was supported, from its early stages, by Big Capital in order to counter and neutralize the growing influence of socialist ideas among the working class. The fight for the abolition of child labor, for higher wages, and for fewer working hours was hitting hard the extraction of surplus value by the industrialist-financier class. Not only that, it was threatening to bring socialist parties to power in colonial empires like the British or the French. I don't mean to justify it, but I can understand how the European oligarchies feared the rise of communism as an existential threat and therefore subsidized fascist gunmen gangs to terrorize their opponents by violence. Besides, the communist organizations were no joke. They had succeeded in bringing down the Kaiser and the Tsar and created revolutionary states in Hungary, Germany, and, of course, the USSR. This phenomenon is brilliantly studied by communist historian Anne Lacroix-Riz in her studies about the French Sinarchie, the “Cagoule” fascist gangs, and their role in the purportedly prepared French defeat to Hitler's Nazi hordes.
This is pretty much the situation today, since these networks were never dismantled and could surge anytime to suppress civil unrest in Europe and elsewhere. No need to say that these networks were also utilized for clandestine drug and arms trafficking, political blackmail, prostitution, and all things related to organized crime. In his early political years, Degrelle was fully participating in these fascist gangs and murders. I therefore can't agree to the assumption that he hadn't committed crimes against humanity; neither can I admit the allegation that thousands of collaborators were unjustifiably punished. There were mass crimes, years of fascist terror, forced work deportations, political assassinations, racial laws, and tortures, in total impunity. We could compare what happened at that time with the Covid situation, in which thousands of doctors, judges, and journalists were along with one of the bloodiest crimes ever committed on humanity. If a day of justice must be done, it must be really done, implying massive arrests and condemnations. Unfortunately, most of them got away with it since you omitted to mention that most Nazis, Banderists, Petainists, and other collaborators were recycled by Operation Paperclip, the Gehlen Organization, the Gladio stay-behind network, and others. They finally got to inflict a total defeat on the USSR, so this is pretty much the situation today. They are still there.
But I digress. This was to reflect on the reality of the alleged Baraka, and I must admit that God, the Universe, Fate, you name it... seems to choose some individuals for historical purposes. When examining Degrelle's personality, nothing makes him specially different from other radical fascists. In Spain we had General Millán Astray, founder of the Spanish foreign legion, a mutilated one-eyed crippled maniac who claimed to be “Death's boyfriend,” the title of the Legion's anthem. Much could be said about the nature of fascism. In my opinion, it has to do with the Catholic petty bourgeoisie's struggle to protect its social position against the rise of the working class. This could explain why the fascist thinkers position themselves between capitalism and communism. On the one hand, the rising capitalist accumulation deprives them of their relative social position, increasingly turning them into the working class. On the other hand, communism threatens to expropriate their businesses and properties, as well as to displace them from state bureaucratic managing positions. I think this statement is valid for today too. The violence fascists preached and practiced is the expression of a declining class, who was seeing how the churches were emptying, their fortunes shrinking, and their social position disappearing. Degrelle didn't mention the horrendous genocide the Belgian empire committed in Congo or the abominable condition of the industrial workers. The fanaticism and emphasis Degrelle spoke with are the symptoms of profound fear and desperate panic against a cultural and economic shift. All his idealism (supremacist, racial, and classist), religious fervor, and aesthetic pretensions sound like hypocritical, fake justifications to me.
Which brings us to the roots of the Paneuropean struggle of which the EU is the heir today. I think we have to go back to Imperial Rome to understand how the idea of a civilizational “limes” border grew up in Europe. The Romans conquered and subjugated everything they could until they settled a stable border along the rivers Rhine and Danube. Everything beyond that line was “barbaric.” Everything before was “civilized.” Little has been written about the need for Roman Europe to reassess the implications of Roman brutality and barbarism. How religions, languages, cultures, and bloodlines were massacred and crushed by the Romans is of no importance for the official culture and narrative in Europe. Furthermore, this is the root justification, civilization vs. barbarism, which enabled subsequent European colonial atrocities all over the world. But who is who? This border fear, this panic about barbaric incursions, has lasted to our days and, to tell the truth, has been checked multiple times.
It is the fear of losing a “so believed” higher stage of civilization, of falling into nomadic and tribal “chaos,” of losing the stability (through slavery and punishment) the Roman laws and trade brought to Europe, and of losing the madness, hypocrisy, and folly of deep state power abominations of which totally deranged emperors like Nero or Caligula were the acme. The Romans grew stronger by means of wars and violence, enslaved the world, and then feared the invasions of the people they could not subjugate. It's pretty much the same thing today. The Russians are blamed today for being what Attila, the Mongols, or the Turks were yesterday, deliberately ignoring that it was Russia who pushed the Mongols back to the steppes. Pretending that Europe, an appendage, the rectum of the Eurasian continent, can isolate itself from Asia is delusional to the extreme, but useful to maintain the Roman inherited structures, which keep Roman barbarism alive. It's also a historical fallacy, as the Goths, the Alans, the Slavs, the Huns, and others were not racially pure but pretty much mixed with the Sarmatians, the Suomi, and Altaic populations. On the other hand, we cannot ignore this fact as a motive for transcendental European togetherness, like when fighting the Turks or Islamic invasions, which would have brought a complete change of civilization. We must admit that European centralized structures, like the Vatican, managed to keep Islam and communism out. Will they be able to keep civilizational change out, preserving the Roman imperial statecraft forever? I doubt it.
Today, the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie, finds itself ejected from capitalism and naturally approaches the condition of the working class. However, decades of anticommunist conditioning prevent it from fully understanding the situation. Thus, they keep pretending they can be placed somewhere in the middle of the capital and the labor factors, which is the perfect brewing soup for characters like Degrelle to pop. Degrelle was the definition of a fascist, following the archetype once settled by D'Annunzio, this kind of crazy, death-defying, poetish nihilist adventurer. History, however, tends to marginalize the individual in favor of the collective organization and, above all, the economic production factors. This is what Marxism is really about, beyond all the hallucinations and mystifications anticommunism holds dear.
Marxism is misunderstood. Purposedly? Ironically, Davos understands Marxism, which doesn't imply they are Marxists. Yes, they are, but in a negative way. As Guy Debord put it, “I know that what I write is going to be read and used both by my supporters and by my enemies.” Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship. They can surely postpone it by decades or even centuries. They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks. Take Trump's first 100 days. American history has advanced more in that time span than in the last 30 years.
Thank you for your detailed and interesting responses, Yoni. You touch on a host of issues that would require basically a new post to flesh out responses in it's entirety, so apologies for the points I don't respond to. First, you're right that the post-war Nazi networks in Spain (as in Argentina and elsewhere) played a major role in protecting and empowering figures like Degrelle. These networks weren’t just passive shelters - they were active political instruments, supported under the pretense of anti-communism. I also agree with your reading of fascism as, in many respects, a class reaction - a desperate attempt to halt the downward mobility of the petty bourgeoisie in the face of both capitalist centralization and socialist movements.
With that said, I see both communism and anti-communism as ultimately functioning within the same dialectic. The purpose was to (1) sunder the European landmass pursuant to Mackinder's thesis, i.e. manipulating Germany and Russia to fight against each other instead of ally, therefore allowing for British/American domination (as Preparata argues), and (2) to usher in the modern international financial system worldwide; the forces, as they competed ideologically and militarily during the Cold War, stripped away local customs and traditions through violence and compulsion in order to prepare each country for entry into the international order. I discuss this process here, which was described by Julian Assange: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-three-stages-of-integration-into
Your response also reminds me of the comment of Eustace Mullins, who commented on the way that our upper elites function, where the central bank owners "adopted the Hegelian dialectic, the dialectic of materialism, which regards the World as Power, and the World as Reality. It denies all other powers and all other realities. It functions on the principle of thesis, antithesis and a synthesis...Thus the World Order organizes and finances Jewish groups; it then organizes and finances anti-Jewish groups; it organizes Communist groups; it then organizes and finances anti-Communist groups. It is not necessary for the Order to throw these groups against each other; they seek each other out like heat-seeking missiles and try to destroy each other. By controlling the size and resources of each group, the World Order can always predetermine the outcome. In this technique, members of the World Order are often identified with one side or the other. John Foster Dulles arranged financing for Hitler, but he was never a Nazi. David Rockefeller may be cheered in Moscow, but he is not a Communist...a distinguishing trait of a member of the World Order, although it may not be admitted, is that he does not believe in anything but the World Order. Another distinguishing trait is his absolute contempt for anyone who actually believes in the tenets of Communism, Zionism, Christianity, or any national, religious or fraternal group...If you are a sincere Christian, Zionist or Moslem, the World Order regards you as a moron unworthy of respect. You can and will be used, but you will never be respected.”
Personally, seeing what this world has become - completely internationalized, peoples and cultures intermixed and intermingled, dissolved into the slop of U.S. produced mass media, with zero autonomy, atomized with below replacement birthrates and a completely destroyed environment, with the planet far past it's carrying capacity, everyone obese and tattoo'd and homogenized, descending into poverty as the middle class is not now dying but totally dead - goes against the picture I have of the world, which is that people both individually and collectively should be able to exist with autonomy, dignity and have the right to assemble and prosper via the organizations that they decide. But the nature of the world is an ever-centralizing one and that vision is not how the world operates. To me, the tragedy of Degrelle is that he gave himself fully to a cause (the preservation of Western civilization) that was controlled from the outset, and Western civilization is now deeply in terminal decline. Yes, he participated in violence, much as the communists and democracies did, but I see that as the clash between fundamentally incompatible core values. I discuss this in my post about the egalitarian ratchet effect here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-egalitarian-ratchet-effect-why
Lastly, regarding your comment "Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship. They can surely postpone it by decades or even centuries. They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks. Take Trump's first 100 days. American history has advanced more in that time span than in the last 30 years" I found this to be fairly cryptic; what do you mean by it? I don't put much stock in Marxist utopian visions, and it seems the way things are developing is that a combination of (1) CBDC plus (2) a ubiquitous woke AI scanning everyone's electronics and (3) assigning social credit scores, which if you have a bad social credit score your funds will be stolen and you'll be cut out of society, is basically here; in other words, the international financial elite centralizing world power fully amongst themselves and turning the vast majority of the world population into even deeper slaves.
I was going to reply to this leftist's comment but you beat me to it. Thank you for having historical grounding and the patience to have studied these concepts without the propaganda from the institutions, who have had nearly four full generations to slow cook their lies to perfection.
Degrelle was a hero and had more energy than anyone else in Europe for a singular man, with the exception of a few of the German military elite soldiers and pilots. If one reads all of his works, and watches all of his interviews, and even goes so far as to seek out people who knew him, just as one could have done for Hitler until recently (the last person to know him on a personal basis died in 2022, one of his housekeepers for the Berghof), then one would understand the colossal vision these men were fighting and dying for, willing to risk it all.
The monarchies became corrupted, not entirely their fault, but prominently weaker over the centuries both in spirit and in producing effective leaders with holy qualities, so much so that the most virulent forms of proto-Bolshevism erupted in France in 1793 with many attempts that are often overlooked in the 19th century (1848 in Germany, with many early Marxists coming to America afterwards). Fascism and National Socialism were not the revanchists of the hour but the natural antibody to the growing effete and limp monarchical system that was easily beset and upturned by the twin antipodal evils of capitalism and communism (who were designed to be antipodal, one begets there other in a perpetual cycle of dialectical cementation of power). History is rife with occultists who were sowing these seeds long before we can put together a comprehensive account of human affairs over the millennia. All the fraternal societies that kept the Babylonian traditions for thousands of years (and wherever they picked it up from before, Sumeria, or otherwise) have been this cancerous parasite that is now reveling and revealing in its alien behavior in front of the world whilst simultaneously telling them to put a sock in their noticing.
The "spirit" that Hitler, Degrelle, even Mussolini talked about (read Codreanu's writings for a more monastic interpretation of this) is what I've come to understand as the inherent vicarial essence of the will of the Creator, of God and His laws of nature, that seek to keep our domain according to the divine hierarchy. Unlearned men call this a various number of trite insults like gnosticism, pantheism, pan-entheism, theism, deism, what have you, but they are all handicapped by horse blinders courtesy of the international tribal controllers of the dialectic.
"The great flame of the ideal that animated us," was very well a new way of life that would have been the natural synthesis which Hegel described, away from the hands of the manipulators and more in line with what is good for all mankind. I grew up Catholic, and I recognize that limitations in organized religions are not for the detriment of the few souls who burn with greatness, but for the masses of followers who will never be great. That is without delving into the many other issues of organized religion we can see in retrospect that naturally abound in parallel with human flaws.
The Church paid the price for both supporting the Axis and not helping them enough after the war as the Vatican II, imposed by the victors, made globalism and kalergism a part of theology.
So we come to today, confusion is abound everywhere except for those who know what to look for and where to look (as well as where not to look). Hitler's work was supposed to continue with Degrelle. He was the successor for an Axis victory post-war. Since that did not happen, Degrelle at least kept the torch alive and his writing's are evident of the cyclical nature of this defiance against the system of things. I cannot explain why I am also invigorated to carry on this great work, I simply know that it is beyond my flesh, and when I have done all that I can, it will manifest in another to continue the same. Degrelle's work continues in awakened European souls (even in Americans who have awakened).
You have thrown some disgusting accusations on me, which is somehow good, proving my comment has annoyed you for the good reason. My response is not for you, since you have closed any possibility to a debate by your stupid psychoanalytical personal slandering against me, but for third readers.
First you admit that the CIA was "working" (like the mafia works?) with far right groups but you strongly doubt that industrialists businessmen shadow organisations like the Sinarchie, which were in fact the cradle of fascism, could have financed gunmen gangs to kill workers, the same thing Mussolini gangs practiced from minute one. This is not something you must believe or not, it is history, but dont expect sold off presstitutes talk about it. It is hidden like 9-11 or what happened to the missing Pentagon budget trillions. Dont hold your breath to have it on CNN or the NYT. When you ask for evidence or backing up, you are ignoring that this is mostly hidden information. I am not going to waste my time jotting down a 50 page reference list, especially for someone so biased like you, a helpless case. In a trial, the verdict does not come exclusively out of evidences, especially since evidences can be forged, masked or disappeared. JFK, someone...? There are also signs, indications, deductions out of reasoning processes that apply for plausible conclusions. You have to do your own research. If you cannot read communist writers, like Lacroix-Riz or others, you will hardly find anything worthy other than the crap that you read.
To begin with you can start looking up for the trade unions and strikers masacres in America. Who paid the SA 300.000 brown shirts who spread street terror ir Germany, their subscribers? Who do you think paid for that? In Colombia or Mexico, who do you think kill thousands of sindical leaders? Some mad bad people? Dont pretend you dont know.
"Franco was not a fascist.." This is a big selfcommenting LOL. He wasnt a dictator either, right? ;) Thats what your friends claim. Was even Degrelle a fascist to your mind? A hero, like your fascist apologist Hibernia rising (Irish?) states in the comment below? Your ideological line is clear and there is not much to add. Neoliberal Feudalism is attracking this kind of public, willingly or not. The whitewashing of Degrelle should have been a clue to guess so. “The Belgian gruesome colonisation of Congo was not a genocide”... Does an “holocaust” fits better with your definition playbook? What could be expected from a fascist, racist apologist...? To your words, General Milán Astray wasn't a fascist either... You claim that to identify Franco with the murders committed by the fascist kill squads he was the suppreme commander and leader of, doesn't make him a fascist... You don't need to insist in whitewashing fascists. They publicly admit they are fascists. Franco had his fascist time, and the got over it when his old friends were getting undesirable for the yanks. Suck it up.
"Franco wasnt a US puppet..." Well, he gave away big swaths of the Spanish sovereignty installing American bases in Spain. He wanted to join NATO and the EU and filed several requests to be admitted but was rejected because one of the requisites to become a member is to formally be a democracy. If he didnt get closer to the Americans its because he was repulsive for them. His true protector was Churchill, who paid +40 Spanish generals to prevent Spain from joining the Axis. Franco owed everything to Churchill, who decided Franco will be the leader of the 18 July coup against the Spanish republic and then, through jewish banker Juan March, funelled the London money to pay the colonial mercenary moors Franco commanded in Africa. Franco appointed king Juan Carlos as his successor by direct instructions of Henry Kissinger. The fact that todays Spain is an American protectorate is a product of his work. This does not imply that the Americans didnt have leverage to make him do what they wanted arming and financing the terrorist basque organisation ETA or destroying some critical hard industrial assets like tractors Barreiros, to make the country dependend on the American industry. Of course he had some nacionalist chauvinist deliria, especially towards south America, but he couldnt afford it..When Kissingers ETA killed Admiral Carrero Blanco he understood what his rank really was. All the democratic transition were steered from Washington with Franco's collaboration and the outcoming 1978 regime is a de facto occupied country, like Germany, Japan or South Korea still are. Thanks to Franco. Was a different outcome possible? Thats another story.
"The reality is that fascism was supported, from its early stages, by Big Capital in order to counter and neutralize the growing influence of socialist ideas among the working class". Untrue and without evidence...?
After WWI Compiegne armistice France pushed to the stricker terms over Germany, with a total control of the German economy, Rheinland occupation, unbearable war reparations and a powerless regime in Weimar. Then the British came up with a better idea and preferred to bring the German economy afloat by means of debt, as a way to fortify Eastern Europe against the USSR and the rise of communist parties. They wanted to crush the workers movement in Europe by allowing Hitler's terror massacres and subsequently let him expand eastwards by grabbing Austria and Czechoslovakia. But they didnt want him to go any further. Poland was a red line. That's why WWII started. Churchill let a mad dog bite and grow and had to kill him at a certain point. The connexions between Hitler's banker Hjalmar Schacht and Montagu Norman are well known. In fact, Schacht was the Norman's man in Berlin. The British and American “debt” money which enabled Hitler's rise was funneled through the Netherlands and the Thyssen and Krupp families. Historian Webster Tarpley describes how the Bush family, among others, participated in this operation.
Concerning the state owned property under Mussolinian fascism, as an argument to discard the hegemony of capitalim in the state, despite fascism present some socialising elements, fascism is a system where the state and corporate power merge, with the state exercising control over the economy and society through collaboration with powerful business interests. Mussolini claimed that fascism was a merger of state and corporate power. Such a system can lead to a government dominated by business interests, often referred to as a corporatocracy. In addition to this, Furthermore, In his essay "The Doctrine of Fascism," Mussolini wrote that fascism is the "complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism," denying the economic determinism of Marxism and emphasizing the importance of holiness and heroism, actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. This is to say, that not only fascism denies class struggle, production systems and human labor as the leading drives in history, but fanatically opposes them, defending the need of a class society, where an elite is in charge of the state organisation. Whereas fascism extracted some ideas from socialism, since Mussolini started off being a socialist, for him history is made by individuals, not by economic circumstances, denying the economic determinism of Marxism and emphasizing the importance of holiness and heroism, actions influenced by no economic motive. This is exactly what defines characters like Degrelle and... you. However, it is the dominant class of a country who exploit and repress the workers, not foreing powers. It is your boss who fucks you everyday, not the Mexican bricklayer next door. Pretending to unite all the nation under racial premises for colonial expansion was a way to divert the workers struggle abroad and consequently protect the Italian ruling class.
Concerning Operation Paperclip, whereas it is true that the USSR had German scientists for their own purpose, this nazis were never recycled into political, intelligence or military organisation, unlike the US and the UK. The whole postwar Europe was build with recycled nazis and collaborators, who by the way are still there, like Van der Leyen or Kallas, both the offspring of nazi ancestors.
"They can succeed in blocking history for several generations until history catches up to its natural course in a few months or even weeks". These are Lenin's words, not mine.
"Marxism is utilized to avoid the rise of the working-class dictatorship" Another vague, meaningless statement, you claim.
This reminds me of the first sentence of Marx's Communist Manifest: "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism." Apparently the spectre of communism keeps haunting Europe, even after the fall of the USSR, as there is nothing capitalists fear more than communism. They laught at fascists. Fascists are their dogs.
I skip a couple of crap paragraphs here and go the the gist of your rant.
“Your final two paragraphs are meaningless word slop, indicative of a narcissist trying to use a writing style incomprehensible to the person they're responding to make their argument appear stronger than it actually is. "crazy, death-defying, poetish nihilist adventurer" Completely meaningless and untrue statement”.
Are you that idiotic, really? Do you think I would spend my time to impress the unlikely readers of an offgrid Substack, who in addition happened to be spineless fascists? Do you think this is the way I purposedly use vague, meaningless word dribble designed to make myself feel smarter than other people? As I stated in my introduction, my comment was addressed to the article's writer, whoever hides behing the Neoliberal feudalism profile. The tone and language of my comment was in line with the author's style, which could sometimes be demanding. If I have had to write something to you, the language would have been different. Did more than 3 adjectives in a row blow your mind? My point was that all those bloody delusional bastards you admire, like Degrelle, were all influenced by Gabriele D'Annunzio, who you obviously don't know anything about. Go educate yourself, you little fascist scumbag.
I know the kind of tit for tat bastards you both are. You are exactly what you accuse me to be: misleading and narcisistic. Your ad personam attacks were pathetic. Don't waste your time. I won't read your response.
This is the second biography of Degrelle I’ve read on Substack and it is fascinating.
Do you know who wrote the first one you read?
Sorry I can’t recall if now.
That’s okay. Take care. ✌🏻
Thank you. This was very touching and enlightening. I consider myself a Degrellian in my fundamental optimism, but a pessimism in how it plays out until the end.
I enjoyed the piece Neo, he's a facinating character. I can imagine him, and people like him, fitting in well with the Gladio network. I imagine there is much more nefariousness to his story left unspoken by anyone, including himself.
He must have realised his idealism was (maybe indirectly) used by the banksters, but maybe because he did well, in a materialistic sense, out of those networks, he managed to cling to it regardless. I understand he lived in relative luxery, which makes it easier to suffer the slings and arrows.
Looking forward to your exploration of these subjects. Thanks.
Found this paragraph of yours particularly insightful:
"Hitler, [...] did not seem to really understand what he was up against [...]"
Besides their identity, there may have been naivety concerning their available means:
In this most interesting interview https://youtu.be/S3JfWwx-UiY (English translation: https://youtu.be/nNa9X92CmvM) with the Berghof's house administrator Herbert Döhring, he recalls that he found out by chance (1:27:20-1:28:40 in the German version) that discussion around the "Kartentisch" (map table) --- notably attack plan discussions between Hitler and his generals in 1940 --- could simply be overheard in the building's basement, the sound being transmitted by the heating pipes. He closes this observation just with amplifying that *he* would never have betrayed that information.
Just a little earlier in the interview (1:24:52) he is being asked whether it would have been possible to spy on the telephones in the building, and his reply is: "ohne Weiteres" ("without problem") just to add that it would never have occurred to *him* to do so.
While this is at face value just the house administrator being naive, it does suggest that this otherwise highly alert guy (judging from the remarkable interview he gives at high age) was not exposed in his environment to the idea of the possible ambitions and means of foreign spies. Extrapolating from this situation in the Berghof may put into perspective the common observation that the Wolfsschanze was apparently spied on thoroughly.
While I am at it, to point out just a couple of other historically possibly relevant tidbits in this interview:
At 1:32:40 Döhring recalls that Hitler was absolutely furious ("fuchsteufelswild") with Goebbels and Himmler ("zusammengeschissen wie einen kleinen Hund") for staging the "Kristallnacht" in Berlin without his information or consent.
At 1:01:05 Döhring recalls Hitler, in 1942, cursing the war on the basis of "what he could have already built" otherwise.
Yet if u take Skorzeny, its astounding how the switch back to euro mediocre normalcy happened. Like a fever dream before the exitus. Degrelle sure was an exceptional outlier, not coincidentally from an outlier place.
Meanwhile,the coudenhouve kalergi bastardization is in full swing, without mercy for the few remaining conscientious whatsoever.
Really cool essay. Took me a while to get through it - because the news cycle is so dramatic these days - but a very interesting subject handled in a very interesting way.
The Chinese have labelled many different types of chi, which is similar/same to Indian prana. One chi is Group (Dzong) Chi. You feel it in a sports stadium, political rally, rock concert, church. This chi - like all chis - is heightened by focus, in this case when a number focus on the same thing at the same time there is some sort of convergence which heightens the chi field. This may be hard to explain for materialist scientists but it's very obvious experientially.
So this is one reason why leadership matters. I don't think we need the materialist evolutionary speculation. When a leader speaks in front of a crowd, all participants focus on his speech and gestures, thereby synchronizing attention. Further, groups need leaders to make decisions for the group which otherwise cannot navigate through the minefield of endlessly differing opinions. A leader in a functional situation, like general or boss, calls the shots, determines Yes or No or This Way versus That Way. Nothing magical about it.
So first there is this heightened group chi aspect from synchronized object of attention.
Then there is the decision factor: leaders provide decision points for groups which otherwise mill around aimlessly. Therefore, no matter what the system developed, checks and balances, soviet-committees, voting or non-voting etc., leadership will always matter wherever humans are involved in group activities.
Which they always are. I believe the mission of human beings is to create high civilizations, the ultimate collective art form. Times always change so civilizations also change with them and what worked 3,000 years ago will not work today. We have to find the ones which work today. There is no one right answer and each one is a product of terrain and cultural past skeins; they are always a work in progress. Unfortunately due to widespread over-emphasis on materialism - which has its positives of course - we are unable to build good civilizations these days. Maybe when the industrial revolution period is over, probably by the end of this century, other things can be layered in, but for now we seem to be on a downward trajectory which spirits like Degrelle are doomed to fight and doomed to lose against.
I liked reading the final bit - where Hitler talks about the role of the media in pacifying the minds of the plebs, as the leaders do one flip flop after another and which would turn the average pleb against the cabal, had the news media not justified each flip flop as reasonable and wise.
Speaking of psychology - I also liked Larken Rose's (the author of jones plantation) bit from yesterday - where he looks at the psychology behind the false dichotomy that nearly every nation is subjected to in the political realm - and how it keeps the general population in the box. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPaP5aVbWJs&t=254s
I thought it was enlightening. You might want to take a look.
Fantastic article. Thank you.
Despairing in the face of our current predicament is an easy refuge. Acceptance is a much disciplined response. Calamitous events are a certainty in the lives of us all, high and low alike.
Meet the challenge with courage and steel yourself for the revelation that only death can offer.
I'm not sure what more he was good for, but William Sloane Coffin was fond of stating the following maxim, which I have adopted as the hallmark of my worldview: "Show up for life, do your honest best, and let go of the results."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIfv99ThQE
Zoomer Historian made a video biography of Leon Degrelle, it's almost 3h long.
Fantastic bio-piece on Leon Degrelle. I was just about to begin reading his memoirs. Peace ✌🏻
If I accept that all of this is even... serious. People like this are not idealists. Idealists don't have real power, fame, they can't escape prison and usually are not even mass murderers. I understand that here we are imagining some great warrior spirit or spirit like in the "spiritual world" not naive idealists but it is still true. No matter how hard one meditates he won't become a top Hitler guy. People with great ambitions might think they have a mission or "a dream" it doesn't mean its true. Usually they are just lying. If Trump or Bush say that God chose them - its a show for the plebs.