The Piper

The Barnes Review
A Journal of Nationalist Thought & History

Volume XI Number 5.....September/October 2005.....www.barnesreview.org

TBR VIDEO REVIEW

New Video Features Never-Before-Seen
Eyewitness Commentary Describing

Hitler's BLITZKRIEG

By Michael Collins Piper

After THE BARNES REVIEW ran dozens of written articles (1994-2004) by General Leon Degrelle, he gained solid renown as a writer, and a loyal following from many TBR readers, with his dramatic and personal style making the true history of the era come alive. His writings reflected well his expertise from highly successful electoral politicking, knowing personally great WWII leaders like Churchill, Hitler, Franco and Mussolini, and leading a regiment of Waffen-SS volunteers in four years of bloody combat on WWII's Russian Front.

Illustration of cover of video Authentic Revisionist History Hitler's BLITZKRIEG Part I Volume 1 of the Degrelle Video Series With General Leon Degrelle In this volume, hear Gen. Leon Degrelle describe Hitler's Blitzkrieg, as the fast-moving Nazi armies blitz Poland, Denmark, and Norway in 1939-40, rewriting the rules of modern warfare — against the opposition of Hitler's tradition-bound generals, mired in WWI trench-warfare thinking.

Now (and many readers will say "finally") a new video by LIFE & LIBERTY PRODUCTIONS (L&L) — being sold by TBR BOOKS — gives us Gen. Degrelle himself, speaking directly to the viewer with all his prodigious knowledge, his suave French flourish and his inspiring charisma. In his 80s when this film was first shot, just how many men can speak extemporaneously, fluidly and with such a steel-trap for details of events that occurred almost 50 years ago? Well, as you well know, Degrelle is unique. It is as if you are having a conversation with the general himself-a personal audience-in your own living room about some of the most momentous happenings of the era.

We do not see the general speaking to his many friends and admirers in Spain from some distant podium. Instead he is talking — speaking to you and me — directly facing the viewer, seated comfortably and confidently in an armchair in his Spanish home with its vibrant Mediterranean colors. It is as if the last of the WWII-era leaders comes alive again in your own home. It is never a dry-as-bones lecture; it is always a conversation where he is trying to motivate, convince and inspire us as he did millions in Belgium as well as the men in his regiment of the Waffen-SS.

For viewers who barely remember the skilled oratory of a John Fitzgerald Kennedy or Ronald Reagan, and groan over the clumsiness of the two Bushes or the high pitch of Bill Clinton's voice, it is refreshing to see a man who has an expressive voice with a full vocal range of tenor and baritone. This is a man who does not just sit there, but instead uses all the flourishes of oratory and gesture — a man of real conviction — that marked great political speechmaking in the 1930s.

The 1930s were in fact Degrelle's formative years as the youthful founder and leader of the Rexist Party in Belgium. His new party, boosted onward and upward by Degrellian fire, his ideas of social justice and his passion, immediately gained — in its first campaign — 39 seats in the Belgian Parliament, and that on a shoestring budget funded by sales of his newspaper Rex and by charging $5 admission to thousands of eager listeners to his visionary and fiery oratory. Degrelle, in his own first political outing, gained more votes than any other member of the Belgian Parliament.

Seeing this new Degrelle video, Hitler's Blitzkrieg: Part 1, is enough to render comprehensible Degrelle's meteoric rise, and demonstrates the kind of leader who can touch the gut, heart and mind of his listeners.

No wonder Degrelle, after a falling-out with disloyal members of his Rexist party, followed his ideals in a new way and with a new personal challenge. He called forth from the public his own Waffen-SS regiment of Walloon (French-speaking Belgian) volunteers, starting out himself as a lowly private. Before long the private was a colonel, sending many Bolshevik army soldiers in the steppes and snows of the USSR straight to the worker's paradise in the sky.

Degrelle explains just what Hitler's blitzkrieg or "lightning war" was all about. And he reveals to us just how very hostile specific members of the German General Staff were to such newfangled ideas as using tanks — disciplined masses of tanks moving in precise coordination — plus dive-bombing Stukas, and elite shock troops to finish off what the tanks and dive-bombers had missed. He also describes the grand pincer or encircling movements which bewildered the enemy army which suddenly found lightning-like Germans directly behind its back and closing in.

He reveals on the other hand the ineffable and unjustified arrogance of the Polish, English and French generals, who, bursting with over-confidence based on WWI, were still riding on horses trying to stop Hitler's rampaging mechanized panzers.

Hitler's Blitzkrieg — Part 1 By Leon Degrelle. Available on VHS or DVD, 90 minutes $29.95 minus 10% for TBR subscribers. DVD: #421A; VHS: Item #421B. Call TBR BOOK CLUB toll-free at 1-877-773-9077 to charge to Visa or MasterCard or order from THE BARNES REVIEW BOOK CLUB, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, D.C. 20003 with the coupon on page 80 of this issue. Expect Part 2 in September.

The account by Degrelle of the Norwegian portion of the campaign is a great story. It impresses the viewer not only with German heroics, beating the Norwegians, English and French despite their 5-to-1 advantage, but also by Hitler's charismatic way of individually inspiring his many low-ranking lieutenants and captains for the landings in Norway's mighty fjords, using charm, a cordial meal together, and his astonishing knowledge of Norway's coasts. The "Austrian corporal" personally confided this to a Leon Degrelle barely in his 30s. Hitler's protege, a natural political and military leader himself, explains how he came to understand Hitler's genius, unlike the chancellor's own Prussian officers who ended up trying to murder their leader just as the Bolshevik steamroller advanced dangerously close to the borders of the Third Reich.

Technically, this video from Degrelle's Spanish exile was not shot with one of those $50,000 Sony movie cameras which the controlled news media or Hollywood can afford. However, LIFE & LIBERTY PRODUCTIONS has improved the video to a professionally high standard using today's state-of-the-art computerized color film technology, performed by an experienced film restorer.

The American English voiceover (which agreeably does not interfere with Degrelle's unforgettable voice) is top-notch, ensuring an enjoyable and enlightening listening experience for English-speaking viewers. LIFE & LIBERTY PRODUCTIONS hired a French linguist who had spent several years in the U.S. Marine Corps so that a knowledgeable military man would be translating Degrelle's battle terms and also could act out the great drama in the general's "voice," matching him dramatic pause for pause.

Additionally, TBR's staff supplied dozens and dozens of pertinent period stills and maps — black and white and full color — that are artfully and meaningfully interspersed into this must-see video, increasing the value and "flow" of the tape immensely. We've also included a beautiful video case so you'll be proud to display the video with the others in your personal collection.

At $29.95 the viewer gets a true history-maker, the last WWII historical figure, telling what he knows, how he knows it, what he saw, how he was inspired by Hitler's triumphal years of 1940-41, as the blitzkrieg raced through Poland, Denmark and Norway, filling the world's headlines and shaking up the world's sleeping generals. Degrelle also imparts to us his own personal suffering.

Available nowhere else, we urge all TBR readers to get or give a copy of Hitler's Blitzkrieg: Part 1 by Gen. Leon Degrelle in DVD or VHS so the video memoirs of one of the great leaders of the WWII-era may live on — and inspire us — forever. •

MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER is a frequent contributor to THE BARNES REVIEW and the author of Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy ($25), called the definitive work on the JFK execution. He is also the author of The New Jerusalem: Zionist Power in America ($19.95) and The High Priests of War ($19.95). Order any of these books from TBR BOOK CLUB by calling 1-877-773-9077 toll free and charging to Visa or MasterCard. TBR'subscribers take 10% off book prices. Add $3 per book S&H.