José Luís Jerez Riesco traces Léon Degrelle's forty-nine years of exile in Spain, from his 1945 crash-landing near San Sebastián to his death in 1994. Drawing on letters, interviews, speeches and personal recollections, this English translation examines his political convictions, Catholic faith and controversial role in postwar debates. Paperback.
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In May 1945, as the war in Europe ended, Belgian political leader and Waffen-SS officer Léon Degrelle escaped from Germany in a German aircraft. Badly injured when it crash-landed near San Sebastián, he survived to begin a new life in Spain. Belgium stripped him of his citizenship and sentenced him to death in absentia; he remained in Spanish exile until his death in 1994.
José Luís Jerez Riesco follows those forty-nine years rather than simply retelling Degrelle's wartime career. The account draws extensively on correspondence between Degrelle, his family and his friends, together with interviews, speeches and recollections from people who knew him.
The book examines Degrelle's life in Spain, the pressure placed upon his family, his disputes with the Catholic Church and his continuing interventions in arguments about the Second World War. It also documents his refusal to renounce National Socialism and the Catholic faith that remained central to his own understanding of his life.
Much of the material comes from Degrelle and those close to him. It therefore gives readers direct access to how he and his circle presented his past, his beliefs and the changing postwar world. This makes the volume particularly relevant to readers studying political exile, Franco-era Spain, European collaboration and the long contest over the memory of the war.
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