Lucien Alphonse Joseph Streel (commonly known as José Streel) (1911 in Seraing

Seraing

Seraing is a Walloon municipality of Belgium in Province of Liege. The municipality of Seraing includes the old communes of Boncelles, Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, and Ougrée. With Liège, Herstal, Saint-Nicolas, Ans, and Flémalle it forms the greater Liège agglomeration...

 - 1946 in Sint-Gillis

Saint-Gilles, Belgium

Saint-Gilles or Sint-Gillis is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium.Saint-Gilles has a multicultural identity stemming from its diverse population...

) was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 journalist and supporter of Rexism

Rexism

Rexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the 20th century in Belgium.It was the ideology of the Rexist Party , officially called Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon...

.

Background and political activities

From a Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 background, Streel became an associate of Léon Degrelle

Léon Degrelle

Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...

 after meeting him in 1930. His 1932 work, Les Jeunes Gens et la Politique, underlined his distaste for the modern world and soon Streel had been appointed editor-in-chief of all the Rexist publications.

He had reservations about Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 due to his strong Catholic faith, although he was ultimately reconciled to collaboration

Collaboration

Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...

.

Differences with Degrelle

A strong advocate of Belgian independence, he called for joint action between the Rexists and the Flemish National Union

Flemish National Union

The Flemish National Union was a Nationalist Flemish political party in Belgium, founded by Staf de Clercq on October 8, 1933. De Clercq became known as den Leider .-Creation:...

 but when Degrelle rejected this policy he resigned from Rex in 1943.

Exile and death

He eventually fled to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in 1944, although he took no political role here and instead worked in a factory. He returned to Belgium after the war and surrendered to the authorities. Having already been sentenced to death in absentia

In absentia

In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...

he was killed by a firing squad on 21 February 1946.

Books of José Streel

• Streel José, La révolution du XXème siècle (new edition of the book which was published in 1942 by the la NSE in Bruxelles), preface of Lionel Baland, Déterna, Paris, 2010.