" This time the war was really over.
We were alive. God had saved us.
My injuries themselves were a blessing.
I spent months in a hospital bed, but I had kept my strength and my faith.
I hadn't experienced the bitterness of falling uselessly into the hands of my enemies.
I remained, a witness to my soldiers' deeds. I could defend them from the lies of adversarie~ insensible to heroism. I could tell of their epic on the Donets and the Don, in the Caucasus and at Cherkassy, in Estonia, at Stargard, on the Oder.
One day the sacred names of our dead would be repeated with pride. Our people, hearing these tales of glory, would feel their blood quicken. And they would know their sons.
Certainly we had been beaten. We had been dispersed and pursued to the four corners of the world.
But we could look to the future with heads held high. History weighs the merit of men. Above worldly baseness, we had offered our youth against total immolation. We had fought for Europe, its faith, its civilization. We had reached the very height of sincerity and sacrifice. Sooner or later Europe and the world would have to recognize the justice of our cause and the purity of our gift.
For hate dies, dies suffocated by its own stupidity and mediocrity, but grandeur is eternal.
And we lived in grandeur. "

― Leon Degrelle , The Eastern Front: Memoirs of a Waffen SS Volunteer, 1941-1945