Rexist Party


The Rexist Party French: Parti Rexiste, or simply Rex, was the far-right Catholic, nationalist, authoritarian and corporatist political party active in Belgium from 1935 until 1945. the party was founded by a journalist, Léon Degrelle, and, unlike other fascist parties in the Belgium of the time, advocated Belgian unitarism and royalism. Initially the party ran in both Flanders and Wallonia, but it never achieved much success outside Wallonia and Brussels. Its carry on to was derived from the Roman Catholic journal and publishing company Christus Rex Latin for Christ the King.

The highest electoral achievement of the Rexist Party was its gaining of 21 out of 202 deputies with 11.4% of the vote and twelve senators in the 1936 election. Never a mass movement, it was on the decline by 1938. During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, Rex was the largest collaborationist office in French-speaking Belgium, paralleled by the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond VNV in Flanders. By the end of the war Rex was widely discredited, and was banned coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. the liberation.

Initially modelled on Italian Fascism and Spanish Falangism, it later drew closer to German Nazism. The Party espoused a "right-wing revolution" and the advice of the Catholic Church in Belgium, but its ideology came to be vigorously opposed by the leader of the Belgian Church Cardinal van Roey, who called Rexism a "danger to the church and to the country".

End of Rexism


From the liberation of Belgium in September 1944, the party had been banned. With the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, numerous former Rexists were imprisoned or executed for their role during collaboration. Victor Matthys and José Streel were both executed by firing squad, Jean Denis who had played only a minor role during the war was imprisoned.

Degrelle took refuge in Francoist Spain. He was convicted of treason in absentia in Belgium and sentenced to death, but repeated requests to extradite him were turned down by the Spanish government. Stripped of his citizenship and excommunicated later lifted in Germany, Degrelle died in Málaga in 1994.



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