In this program, August introduces and reads an essay entitled, The Enigma of Hitler, by Leon Degrelle, which was published in The Journal for Historical Review in 1994. August begins by providing some basic details of the life of Degrelle himself, including his history as a Belgian nationalist, anticommunist, and future volunteer for the Waffen-SS. Decorated by and personally acquainted with Adolf Hitler, Degrelle argues that “the enigma of Hitler” has persisted in part because in spite of all of the volumes of historical writing and discussion on Hitler, few have discovered the real Hitler. The enigma of Hitler remains with us because of the extraordinary depth of Hitler himself, a fact taken in conjunction with a variety of myths about him. August concludes by reiterating a point he has already made on previous shows: That coming to positive terms with Adolf Hitler is a necessary precondition for any salvaging and rescuing of our race.
Image: Leon Degrelle being congratulated and decorated by Adolf Hitler.
Break music: “Memories of Sunlight” and “Memory” from The Road soundtrack.
Email: worldswomb AT gmail DOT com
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I can’t wait for this premiere! Leon Degrelle is the man that Hitler felt was the son he never had. Excellent, excellent subject matter for a show. If Degrelle was a musician, I would have a whole show just on him myself.
One of the most stimulating talks published in DVD format by noontide press is the one given by Leon Degrelle about the Waffen SS, described by him as a truly international/European army fighting against Bolshevism. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for the reference, Carl. I wanted to make mention of that perception of the Waffen-SS because the cynical, standard Allied view is that it was a mere appendage of the German war machine. The struggle against the Soviet Union was a truly international struggle, and the transparency of Hitler’s intentions to fend off Bolshevism from Europe (expressed in several places, but explicitly in the 1937 meeting between Ribbentrop and Churchill) should have galvanized more support. The Soviet Union was the real threat to Europe, not National-Socialist Germany. Degrelle expresses, in “The Enigma of Hitler”, the tragedy of that failed opportunity. The British and French Empires should have helped Germany in this struggle, rather than stymied it. As I established in the first two programs, Hitler had no ill intentions toward the West. His underlying motivation was to gather all German people together into a single Reich and secure their existence. This in part meant taking into account the threat of the Soviet Union to Europe in general and Germany in particular.
Thanks, Robert.
The bulk of the show is a reading, of course, of Degrelle’s “The Enigma of Hitler”, but I wanted to make some remarks at the beginning and end about general issues, and some implications. I hope you enjoyed it.
Looking forward to the podcast.
BTW, Degrelle’s book ‘Campaign in Russia’ is available at the link given below.
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http://archive.org/details/Campaign-in-Russia-Leon-Degrelle
Leon Degrelle
CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA
THE WAFFEN SS ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Degrelle recounts the war in the East as he lived and fought it, across the sun-baked steppes of the Ukraine, in the depths of the marrow-chilling Russian winter, to the foothills of the Caucasus and the threshold of Asia, through the stinking mud and the flaming hell of Cherkassy, across the rolling plains of Estonia and the Pomeranian lake country. You’ll be with him as time and time again he leads his men through torrents of shot and shell that would have daunted all but the most fearless. You’ll learn what drove the 35-year-old Degrelle—a man who had never so much as fired a gun, a brilliant intellectual and his country’s most charismatic political leader, idolized by the multitudes who followed him—to enlist as a private in the legion he himself organized to join his nation’s conqueror in its fight against the Communist enemy.
You’ll learn the other side of the Bitburg story, the epic of the Waffen SS, suppressed in the controlled media, told by a man whose unique literary talent and unmatched combat experience make him the premier spokesmen for his fallen comrades. War criminals? Victims of Hitlerism? Now you’ll be able to judge for yourself.
“Through the epic of the Belgian volunteers—one unit among a hundred others—it is the entire Russian front which is going to come into view once more, with the sunny days of the great victories, with the still more moving days of the great defeats, defeats that were imposed by physical circumstances, but that the will did not accept.
“Out there, in the endless steppes, men lived.
“You, reader, friend or enemy—watch them come back to life; for we are living in a period when one must look very hard to find real men, and they were that, to the very marrow of their bones, as you are going to see.”
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Dear Sir,
Thank you, thank you!
Degrelle, as I’ve mentioned several times in past comments to Carolyn’s shows, was absolutely seminal in my conversion. I, of course cannot leave out Der Fuhrer himself and his writings, nor can I understate the importance WWII/Holohoax Revisionism played but it was when I came upon the translations of Degrelle as well has hearing and seeing him on video that I felt the paradigm shift take place. Often Revisionism and Hitler are just not enough to bring one over to National Socialism, perhaps it is just not for some people? but reading Degrelle and his accounts of Hitler’s Social Revolution, this article you read from tonight August, and Degrelle’s Campaign in Russia that I finally ‘got it’.
The link is to Degrelle’s 350 page account Campaign in Russia: The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front
http://archive.org/details/Campaign-in-Russia-Leon-Degrelle
katana we must have been on the same wave-length because when I wrote my comment yours had not been posted yet!
Well, I guess I can add another good link though,
Also by Degrelle: Hitler Born at Versailles
http://www.radioislam.org/degrelle/hitler-born-at-versailles.htm
Degrelle got a little carried away in some instances. For example, Hitler did not “buy a piano” to create his musical scores, but the piano belonged to his friend and roommate August Kubichek, who was a music student at the Conservatory in Vienna. I also don’t think he washed and ironed his own clothes except individual items sometimes. The landlady took care of that (or had someone else take care of it) and also cleaned and “tidied up” the room (especially of males), and even brought them tea and snacks at different times. Sometimes fixed them breakfast. There was no such thing as privacy from your landlord or landlady; they came into the room when you were out. Hitler spent lots of time with August Kubichek in Vienna, and after he moved away from their shared room he made other friends and worked with associates while still in Vienna for several years selling his paintings. When he went to Munich, he took meals and spent evenings in the company of his landlord’s family and they treated him like family. But they did say he spent many hours reading “big books” in his room.
Degrelle didn’t know Hitler until the 1940’s so he got all that information about his early life from others. It’s beautifully written though, and was well read; it was enjoyable listening to the program.
I can´t download it (no download link).
Marketing move of a genius! The anticipation of this show builds and there is no podcast this morning… Oh my. Please help!
Robert and others, I just wanted to let you know that I verified the link as a download. It should be available, if it was not before, so my regrets for any inconvenience.
Degrelle (and Skorzeny) represent good sources for NS because they lived it and fought for it. This doesn’t detract from their objectivity, it ADDS to it. Same thing with the letters and memoirs of certain Wehrmacht men like Wilhelm Pruller and others.
This show is pure gold. Thank you.
Thanks for that feedback Carolyn. I am no professional revisionist but I of course felt that Degrelle’s impressions of Hitler were so deep and profound that he might have gotten carried away in some places. That would likely be my own tendency, had I had that privilege. It was difficult to read some parts because the feeling of Degrelle in conveying his impressions was so deep. I read it less conveying that I believed it projected complete factuality than to project the magnitude of his positive impression of the man. As Degrelle correctly points out, so much has been written of Hitler that is flawed at best and simply trash at worst.
It is my firm belief that sensitivity to our racial situation should inculcate empathy for at least some of Hitler’s policies.
Hitler accomplished so much. He took a broken country and revivified it. In three years, by 1936, he had eliminated unemployment. By 1939, he had folded in the bulk of lost German lands and peoples. It is easy to look back and see in the war against him some kind of inevitability in his failure, but that is just not the case. No leader, before or since him, in my opinion, comes close to his magnitude of depth and scope of vision. As a National-Socialist, I am not obliged to agree with every single policy he implemented, but like Degrelle, I fold in the immensity of the man and his life and as transformative for what might have and should have been mindful of the realization that how he should be judged is not a function of how he has in fact been judged.
Konrad and Haakon,
I really appreciate that. It is this kind of feedback that sustains my desire to continue this show.
Excellent!!!I post(linked) it on my blog.
Good deal, Fallout Shelter 7. I’m glad you enjoyed this program. I enjoyed recording it and took some added effort to rectify problems in previous shows. Katana and Konrad both mention another very rich source, and I have already begun to consider doing that as a program in the future. Please sustain the feedback because it is a great incentive and reinforcement in my efforts.
Every White person in the world should listen to this podcast. I am listening to it over and over as I don’t want to miss any point that is made. I agree with Degrelle… this might be one of the most important men in history, if not THE most.
Very hard to do a reading a keep it interesting, well done August. You have unique voice and talent, keep it up.
Hitler Discusses How Jews Gain Power (Mein Kampf in English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xblyxX9_4oE&bpctr=1350759551
I read this essay many years ago in the IHR bulletin. It’s extraordinary. Degrelle was a giant.
I’m glad you all got something from this program. As Carolyn points out, Degrelle does embellish in some places. He was enlivened by his encounters with Hitler, and that’s reflected in this essay. But it is precisely that fact that led me to want to read it. Thanks for your feedback, everyone.
Excellent podcast August,
I am a first time listener and am in the process of listening to your earlier broadcasts. I was recently awoken to these issues by Adolf Hitler’s various speeches on youtube and reading what he said regarding the party’s domestic and foreign policies I honestly shed afew tears from seeing what Germany was becoming in terms of culture being that people from every walk of life joining together to become one society without the conflict of petty things like materialism or status to seeing what our ideologically foreign backed governments forced Germany back into. I thank you for you’re wonderful insight on these issues and keep up the great work.
Johannes
Inspirational! Recently I had purchased Leon Degrelle’s Hitler Democrat from TBR and it has been sitting on top of a pile of books waiting to be read. Encouraged by your reading of Degrelle’s, The Enigma of Hitler, I opened the book and found it difficult to put it down. It was fascinating, factual and well written. Coincidentally, the content of the first chapter was similar to your reading.
However, what I most wanted to draw attention to was the introduction written by TBR which gave the background to the publication and the fact that all Degrelle’s historical books [comprising The Hitler Century] sent to IHR under Mark Weber’s leadership had been suppressed and rejected in the following short callous letter from IHR:
Dear General Degrelle:
It is our difficult task to inform you that an editorial review at IHR has established that, as so far received, the several volumes on the biography of Adolf Hitler you have submitted are unpublishable. The problems include: A fundamental lack of historical objectivity; Numerous errors of fact; Excessive reliance on other texts, either properly cited or with citation omitted; Frequent repetitions.
At this time, supported by our board of directors and on the advice of our attorney, we must ask you to stop work on the Hitler project.
Signed Theodore O’Keefe
I had no idea of this background and can only assume that IHR has an agenda against the truth. The introduction continues,
Although Degrelle was 87, he was still in remarkable health and retained full mental capacity. But the receipt of O’Keefe’s malicious letter coupled with the events at the IHR, coming at such a critical time in the twilight of his long career, hurt the general severely. He immediately sickened and on April 1, 1994 the Angel of Death finally took this man who had cheated him so many times before. Communist bullets, flame-throwers,grenades, shrapnel, tanks, assassination squads, jailers and torturers could
not kill Leon Degrelle, but treason did.
I hope you [Carolyn & August] do not think I am going off subject with this. I just wanted to point out how I would not have discovered all this except for August’s program.
Thanks for the great show.
Thanks Sasha – August reported to us today that he cannot continue with his program on The White Network. Reason: he just can’t get a weekly show accomplished. Sorry to disappoint those who enjoyed it so much. Tan and I are, of course, always on the lookout for program hosts that fit our mission.
Any comments or suggestions concerning this should be communicated in private emails.
Carolyn
Perhaps he could offer an occasional show?
Wonderful insight into Adolf Hitler. Those wishing to further explore the truth about Hitler, read Prof. Stolfi’s brilliant book “Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny.”
I am cutting off comments that are not strictly about the content of this program. If you want to register a suggestion or other comment, please send it to August himself, or to Tanstaafl or I. Email addresses are on our program pages. Thank you.
Don’t bother emailing me about this. Ultimately, whether August produces a podcast or not is up to August.
I had never before heard, nor read, Leon Degrelle’s testimony on Adolf Hitler. It was so refreshing and genuinely inspiring to hear such an honest first-hand account of History’s most cruelly maligned and vilified Man. The account avoids being too worshipful as one might expect from an admirer yet one can still imagine the sneering Marxist haters claiming it is merely the words of an apologist ‘insider’. I intend to acquire the text and print it out for others to read.
Also, I had an argument recently with some workmates about whether Hitler was an egoist or not. The general opinion is that, going by his highly passionate and animated speeches, he was a megalomaniac. I was laughed at when I suggested he was merely channelling the awesome collective power of the Volk Geist of his people and that he was a servant, a ‘vessel’ utterly without pretension.
Was I right or not?
Great show August. I had no idea of this side of Hitler. I have listen to this several times now, as I do with all of your podcasts as there is so much information to take in. He is truly a great man and we need a revision of history so we can talk freely about AH. I live in Australia so I can discuss this, cautiously, with colleagues. Thank you!!!!
Peter Campbell are spot on.
So there will be future shows – thats good to hear.
Herr Degrelle brings up an interesting point. To wit, why didn’t other persecuted Nazis like Eichmann and Mengele expatriate to the friendly country of Spain? Recently, while watching the movie “The Battle of Britain”, I reflected on the fact that the “Heinkel” bombers and “Messerschmitt” fighters featured in the movie had recently been retired from the Spanish Air Force. Ironically as there were no Daimler Benz DB605 engines available, these “Messerschmitts” had been fitted with the opposite rotational, 1,600hp, Rolls-Royce Merlin engines of Spitfire and P-51 fame. This installation, coupled with the aircraft’s small rudder offset in the wrong direction, made the Spanish-built HA-1112 a real bear to fly. In any event, the fact that the Spanish Government under Franco still flew German WWII aircraft designs until 1965 should have made it pretty clear which way to head on the way out of a ruined Germany.