Archives of the rex movement

• Access and consultation: The fonds Rex can be accessed during the opening hours of the reading room. Its content is freely accessible. Reservation.
• Reproduction:  The content of the fonds can be reproduced freely in our reading room. For any information about requests for a document reproduction carried out by CegeSoma staff can be found here.
• Research instruments: Inventory AA166

Archives fonds description:

Rex Archives: Letters, reports, notes, circulars, lists, 1933-1938 (mainly 1937-1944)  

The fonds Rex contains documents about the rexist movement before and during the war, and about Walloon collaboration movements who had close ties with Rex (Comité National Wallon, Mouvement National Populaire Wallon, Association des Etudiants Wallons, Cercles Wallons - Maisons Wallonnes, Deutsch-Wallonischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft, le Mouvement Nationaliste Populaire, la Wallonie).

The inventory authored by Henri Masson was published in 1981 and complements the one produced earlier by J.-M. Étienne that was centered around the movement until 1940. Masson closely examines the structure of Rex and its evolution in the course of the war. The fonds holds various types of documents (press clippings, facsimiles, manuscripts, photographs, etc.) and is chronologically and thematically sorted. It is sub-divided into the pre-war period, the war period and the post-war period. Each part is then classified by topic according to the different bodies and personalities of the movement.

The authoritarian rightwing movement Rex founded by Léon Degrelle achieved an electoral breakthrough in May 1936 and obtained almost 12 percent of votes. Backed by a solid Walloon catholic base, the movement spread across the south of Belgium. Once in parliament, Rex lost its political weight but would profit from the German occupation to re-establish within the Belgian political landscape. The movement did not manage to get the support of the German military authorities and started to increasingly radicalise in the course of 1941. It thereby got marginalised further, lost supporters and members, and became a target of the Resistance. Rex disappeared with the end of Nazi Germany.

For more information :

• Martin Conway, “Rex”, Belgium World War II, https://www.belgiumwwii.be/belgique-en-guerre/articles/rex.html (consulted on 16/07/2019).