Massimiliano Afiero - Belgian Waffen-SS Legions & Brigades, 1941–1944

A t dawn on 22 June 1941 troops of the Third Reich crossed the borders of the Soviet Union, beginning the largest military invasion in history. As the news spread all over the world, Germanys allies Italy, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia hurried to declare their loyalty in this crusade against Bolshevism. Germany immediately sought to further internationalize the war in the East, organizing recruiting centres throughout occupied Western Europe for so-called Freiwilligen Legionen (Volunteer Legions). However, this programme was complicated by the Nazis racial fantasies.

Spring 1942, Leningrad front: a soldier of the Frw Legion Flandern, displaying on his field-grey Waffen-SS uniform the units Trifos collar patch, inherited in 1941 from the disbanded SS-Standarte Nordwest. (US NARA)

Historically, Belgium comprises two distinct regions. In the south, Wallonia is largely Roman Catholic and French-speaking; in the north, Flanders is generally Protestant and Flemish-speaking (though there are exceptions in both cases). Since Walloons were then considered by the Nazis to be racially non-Germanic, the formation of a Walloon volunteer legion was left to the German Army (Deutsches Heer). Flemings were considered to be Germanic, so their legion could be organized from the start by the racially sensitive Waffen-SS. The latter had been accepting individual volunteers from Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Flanders for its Nordwest and Westland Regiments since spring 1940, and a branch of the Allgemeine-SS (the black-uniformed political organization) had also been established in Flanders.

In summer 1943, after both the Walloon and Flemish volunteer battalions had proved themselves in battle, the former was then transferred from the Army into the Waffen-SS (largely due to the efforts of its politically influential commanding officer, Lon Degrelle), and each was expanded into a new motorized SS assault brigade. This book covers their history until their partial destruction in summer 1944, after which remnants of both formed the nucleii for two new paper Waffen-SS divisions. (For notes on both those formations, see MAA 420, The Waffen-SS (4): 24. to 38. Divisions, & Volunteer Legions.)

Sketchmap by the author showing basic regional divisions of Belgium.

Belgiums divided regions naturally provided fertile ground for the growth of right-wing nationalist political movements in the 1920s30s. In Wallonia the first of these, founded by Paul Hoornaert in May 1922, was the Lgion Nationale ; this later absorbed smaller groups such as the Fasceau Belge and the Jeunesses Nationales . In 1929, a Catholic Action group in Leuven/Louvain entrusted a 23-year-old law graduate named Lon Degrelle with the direction of a small publishing house, Christus Rex (Christ the King), which Degrelle transformed into a vehicle for his fascist beliefs. From 1932 his new magazine, REX , enjoyed great success, and on 2 November 1935 Degrelle founded the Parti Populaire de Rex , which in 1936 obtained 34 seats in the Senate.

Lon Degrelle addressing a Rexist Party meeting; note the party flag. (Authors collection, from a wartime book)

Rexism called for a range of social reforms based on restoring the primacy of the Roman Catholic family, and was hostile to both international high finance and Communism. In the years immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II the party therefore maintained a non-aligned stance, and the German western offensive in May 1940 led to its attempted suppression by the Belgian government. Arrested for alleged subversive activity, Degrelle was handed over to the French, and narrowly escaped execution alongside Joris van Severen, head of the Flemish Verdinaso movement (see below).

Degrelle was released following the Franco-German armistice of 22 July 1940, and in the same month the Rexist party began formation of a new paramilitary branch, the Formations de Combat, modelled on the German SA. Some 4,000 strong by the end of 1940, its remit was to protect Rexist leaders and assemblies, and to collaborate with the local police and German authorities in maintaining order; its leader from February 1941 was Fernand Rouleau.