The French SS are the last defenders of the Reichstag. Defense of Berlin: French SS and Dutch military
From April 28 to May 2, 1945, forces The 150th and 171st rifle divisions of the 79th rifle corps of the 3rd shock army of the 1st Belorussian Front carried out an operation to capture the Reichstag. To this event, my friends, I dedicate this photo collection.
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1. View of the Reichstag after the end of hostilities.
2. Fireworks in honor of the Victory on the roof of the Reichstag. Soldiers of the battalion under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union S. Neustroyev.
3. Soviet trucks and cars on a destroyed street in Berlin. The Reichstag building can be seen behind the ruins.
4. The head of the River Emergency Rescue Department of the USSR Navy, Rear Admiral Fotiy Ivanovich Krylov (1896-1948), awards a diver with an order for clearing mines from the Spree River in Berlin. In the background is the Reichstag building.
6. View of the Reichstag after the end of hostilities.
7. A group of Soviet officers inside the Reichstag.
8. Soviet soldiers with a banner on the roof of the Reichstag.
9. The Soviet assault group with a banner is moving towards the Reichstag.
10. The Soviet assault group with a banner is moving towards the Reichstag.
11. Commander of the 23rd Guards Rifle Division, Major General P.M. Shafarenko in the Reichstag with colleagues.
12. Heavy tank IS-2 against the backdrop of the Reichstag
13. Soldiers of the 150th Idritsko-Berlin Rifle, Order of Kutuzov 2nd degree division on the steps of the Reichstag (among those depicted are scouts M. Kantaria, M. Egorov and the division’s Komsomol organizer Captain M. Zholudev). In the foreground is the 14-year-old son of the regiment, Zhora Artemenkov.
14. The Reichstag building in July 1945.
15. Interior of the Reichstag building after Germany’s defeat in the war. On the walls and columns are inscriptions left by Soviet soldiers.
16. Interior of the Reichstag building after Germany's defeat in the war. On the walls and columns are inscriptions left by Soviet soldiers. The photo shows the southern entrance of the building.
17. Soviet photojournalists and cameramen near the Reichstag building.
18. The wreckage of an inverted German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter with the Reichstag in the background.
19. Autograph of Soviet soldiers on the Reichstag column: “We are in Berlin! Nikolai, Peter, Nina and Sashka. 11.05.45.”
20. A group of political workers of the 385th Infantry Division, led by the head of the political department, Colonel Mikhailov, at the Reichstag.
21. German anti-aircraft guns and a dead German soldier at the Reichstag.
23. Soviet soldiers on the square near the Reichstag.
24. Red Army signalman Mikhail Usachev leaves his autograph on the wall of the Reichstag.
25. A British soldier leaves his autograph among the autographs of Soviet soldiers inside the Reichstag.
26. Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria come out with a banner onto the roof of the Reichstag.
27. Soviet soldiers hoist the banner over the Reichstag on May 2, 1945. This is one of the banners installed on the Reistag in addition to the official hoisting of the banner by Egorov and Kantaria.
28. The famous Soviet singer Lydia Ruslanova performs “Katyusha” against the backdrop of the destroyed Reichstag.
29. The son of the regiment, Volodya Tarnovsky, signs an autograph on a Reichstag column.
30. Heavy tank IS-2 against the backdrop of the Reichstag.
31. Captured German soldier at the Reichstag. A famous photograph, often published in books and on posters in the USSR under the title "Ende" (German: "The End").
32. Fellow soldiers of the 88th Separate Guards Heavy Tank Regiment near the Reichstag wall, in the assault of which the regiment took part.
33. Banner of Victory over the Reichstag.
34. Two Soviet officers on the steps of the Reichstag.
I. S. Konev
Storm of Berlin- the final part of the Berlin offensive operation of 1945, during which the Red Army captured the capital of Nazi Germany and victoriously ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. The operation lasted from April 25 to May 2.
Storm of Berlin
The “Zoobunker” - a huge reinforced concrete fortress with anti-aircraft batteries on the towers and extensive underground shelter - also served as the largest bomb shelter in the city.
Early in the morning of May 2, the Berlin metro was flooded - a group of sappers from the SS Nordland division blew up a tunnel passing under the Landwehr Canal in the Trebbiner Strasse area. The explosion led to the destruction of the tunnel and filling it with water along a 25-km section. Water rushed into the tunnels, where a large number of civilians and wounded were taking refuge. The number of victims is still unknown.
Information about the number of victims... varies - from fifty to fifteen thousand people... The data that about a hundred people died under water seems more reliable. Of course, there were many thousands of people in the tunnels, including the wounded, children, women and old people, but the water did not spread through the underground communications too quickly. Moreover, it spread underground in various directions. Of course, the picture of advancing water caused genuine horror in people. And some of the wounded, as well as drunken soldiers, as well as civilians, became its inevitable victims. But talking about thousands of deaths would be a gross exaggeration. In most places the water barely reached a depth of one and a half meters, and the inhabitants of the tunnels had enough time to evacuate themselves and save the numerous wounded who were in the “hospital cars” near the Stadtmitte station. It is likely that many of the dead, whose bodies were subsequently brought to the surface, actually died not from water, but from wounds and illnesses even before the destruction of the tunnel.
At one o'clock in the morning on May 2, the radio stations of the 1st Belorussian Front received a message in Russian: “We ask you to cease fire. We are sending envoys to the Potsdam Bridge.” A German officer who arrived at the appointed place, on behalf of the commander of the defense of Berlin, General Weidling, announced the readiness of the Berlin garrison to stop resistance. At 6 a.m. on May 2, Artillery General Weidling, accompanied by three German generals, crossed the front line and surrendered. An hour later, while at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army, he wrote a surrender order, which was duplicated and, with the help of loudspeaker installations and radio, delivered to enemy units defending in the center of Berlin. As this order was communicated to the defenders, resistance in the city ceased. By the end of the day, the troops of the 8th Guards Army cleared the central part of the city from the enemy. Individual units that did not want to surrender tried to break through to the west, but were destroyed or scattered.
On May 2 at 10 o'clock in the morning everything suddenly became quiet, the fire stopped. And everyone realized that something had happened. We saw white sheets that had been “thrown away” in the Reichstag, the Chancellery building and the Royal Opera House and cellars that had not yet been taken. Entire columns fell from there. A column passed ahead of us, where there were generals, colonels, then soldiers behind them. We walked for probably three hours.
Alexander Bessarab, participant in the Battle of Berlin and the capture of the Reichstag
Results of the operation
Soviet troops defeated the Berlin group of enemy troops and stormed the capital of Germany, Berlin. Developing a further offensive, they reached the Elbe River, where they linked up with American and British troops. With the fall of Berlin and the loss of vital areas, Germany lost the opportunity for organized resistance and soon capitulated. With the completion of the Berlin operation, favorable conditions were created for encircling and destroying the last large enemy groups on the territory of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
The losses of the German armed forces in killed and wounded are unknown. Of the approximately 2 million Berliners, about 125 thousand died. The city was heavily destroyed by bombing even before the arrival of Soviet troops. The bombing continued during the battles near Berlin - the last American bombing on April 20 (Adolph Hitler's birthday) led to food problems. The destruction intensified as a result of Soviet artillery attacks.
Indeed, it is unthinkable that such a huge fortified city could be taken so quickly. We know of no other such examples in the history of World War II.
Alexander Orlov, Doctor of Historical Sciences.
Two Guards IS-2 heavy tank brigades and at least nine Guards heavy self-propelled artillery self-propelled artillery regiments took part in the battles in Berlin, including:
- 1st Belorussian Front
- 7th Guards Ttbr - 69th Army
- 11th Guards ttbr - front-line subordination
- 334 Guards tsap - 47th Army
- 351 Guards tsap - 3rd shock army, front-line subordination
- 396 Guards tsap - 5th shock army
- 394 Guards tsap - 8th Guards Army
- 362, 399 guards tsap - 1st Guards Tank Army
- 347 Guards tsap - 2nd Guards Tank Army
- 1st Ukrainian Front
- 383, 384 guards tsap - 3rd Guards Tank Army
Situation of the civilian population
Fear and despair
A significant part of Berlin, even before the assault, was destroyed as a result of Anglo-American air raids, from which the population hid in basements and bomb shelters. There were not enough bomb shelters and therefore they were constantly overcrowded. In Berlin by that time, in addition to the three million local population (consisting mainly of women, old people and children), there were up to three hundred thousand foreign workers, including “ostarbeiters”, most of whom were forcibly taken to Germany. Entry into bomb shelters and basements was prohibited for them.
Although the war had long been lost for Germany, Hitler ordered resistance to the last. Thousands of teenagers and old men were conscripted into the Volkssturm. From the beginning of March, on the orders of Reichskommissar Goebbels, responsible for the defense of Berlin, tens of thousands of civilians, mostly women, were sent to dig anti-tank ditches around the German capital.
Civilians who violated government orders even in the last days of the war faced execution.
There is no exact information about the number of civilian casualties. Different sources indicate different numbers of people who died directly during the Battle of Berlin. Even decades after the war, previously unknown mass graves are found during construction work.
Violence against civilians
In Western sources, especially recently, a significant number of materials have appeared concerning mass violence by Soviet troops against the civilian population of Berlin and Germany in general - a topic that was practically not raised for many decades after the end of the war.
There are two opposing approaches to this extremely painful problem. On the one hand, there are artistic and documentary works by two English-speaking researchers - “The Last Battle” by Cornelius Ryan and “The Fall of Berlin. 1945" by Anthony Beevor, which are more or less a reconstruction of the events of half a century ago based on the testimony of participants in the events (overwhelmingly representatives of the German side) and memoirs of Soviet commanders. The claims made by Ryan and Beevor are regularly reproduced by the Western press, which presents them as scientifically proven truth.
On the other hand, there are the opinions of Russian representatives (officials and historians), who acknowledge numerous facts of violence, but question the validity of statements about its extreme mass character, as well as the possibility, after so many years, of verifying the shocking digital data provided in the West . Russian authors also draw attention to the fact that such publications, which focus on hyper-emotional descriptions of scenes of violence that were allegedly committed by Soviet troops on German territory, follow the standards of Goebbels propaganda of the beginning of 1945 and are aimed at belittling the role of the Red Army as the liberator of Eastern and Central Europe from fascism and denigrate the image of the Soviet soldier. In addition, the materials distributed in the West provide virtually no information about the measures taken by the Soviet command to combat violence and looting - crimes against civilians, which, as has been repeatedly pointed out, not only lead to tougher resistance of the defending enemy, but also undermine the combat effectiveness and discipline of the advancing army.
A few traces of that deadly mistake have been preserved - they have been carefully restored and are under special protective glass. Today, 159 graffiti in Cyrillic can be seen in the Berlin Reichstag building - mainly in the northern and eastern corridors, as well as in the southwestern stairwell. In addition to inscriptions like “We lived to see the ruins of Berlin and are very happy,” there are also obscene phrases like “I fucked Hitler in the ass!”
But much more important are those few inscriptions that explain why the last battle of the Third Reich unfolded around the Reichstag building. “We were in the Reichstag, Hitler’s cave!” Captain Kokyushkin and Senior Lieutenant Krasnikov scrawled on May 15, 1945 on the wall next to the stairs. Captain Katnikov was even more succinct, leaving an inscription in the eastern corridor: “Shameful death. Hitler's hideout."
The Red Army soldiers probably considered the neo-Baroque parliament building to be the heart of the Third Reich, so they rushed to conquer it, without looking back at the possible casualties in their ranks. “The Reichstag has practically become a place of pilgrimage,” noted Soviet war writer Konstantin Simonov on May 2, 1945, about the appeal of the smoking ruins to his comrades.
Already on April 29, 1945, the first Soviet troops made their way from the northwest to the Reichstag building. On the afternoon of April 30, after hours of artillery shelling, soldiers of the 380th, 756th and 674th Soviet infantry regiments began an assault on the smoking ruins. The Red Army received an order to take the parliament building as a symbol of victory, and this was supposed to happen before May 1, the second most important Soviet holiday.
Colonel Zhinchenko, one of the regimental commanders, later described those days in his memoirs with a propaganda touch: “For me there is only one order - the flag must fly over the Reichstag!”
However, although it was heavily damaged, thanks to the massive construction inside it was still a solid building, which was defended by Wehrmacht and SS units. They desperately and tactically competently resisted the Red Army soldiers storming the building, then retreated to the basement. It is unknown how many people died during the militaryly senseless storming of the Reichstag. At least 2,000 Soviet soldiers and several hundred Germans.
For the first time, red moisture was hung on April 30, 1945, at about 11 pm, from a window on the second floor of the building - but the fighting still continued, people continued to die. Only in the afternoon of May 1st did the last defenders emerge from the basements, apparently along the heating tunnel to the Spree. In the first half of the day on May 2, war photojournalist Evgeniy Khaldey took the very photograph that became a symbol of the Battle of Berlin - two Red Army soldiers hoisted a fluttering red banner on the roof of the Reichstag.
The huge amount of blood shed during the capture of the Reichstag building was especially senseless, since the Reichstag never served as a shelter for the German dictator, was not his “cave.” Hitler's bunker was located in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, about a kilometer to the southeast. Until the very last moment its location was unknown to the Red Army soldiers. Only on May 2, Soviet nurses, in search of trophies, stumbled upon an underground structure, and only a week later the location of the Fuhrer’s bunker became known.
The Reichstag was never Hitler's refuge; the leader of the NSDAP appeared in this building only a few times throughout his life. Although he was close to the architecture of Paul Wallot, he despised this building as a symbol of parliamentarism and the Weimar Republic.
According to the history of the party, the Fuhrer never appeared in the building built in 1894 before his appointment as Chancellor - but this was not true. It is known that on March 13, 1925, the party leader, together with seven deputies of the People's Party, visited a restaurant located in the Reichstag. But this was his only visit until January 30, 1933.
Hitler never spoke in the Reichstag. He became an elected deputy on March 5, 1933, and during the existence of the Third Reich, meetings of the German parliament were held in a hall “decorated” with swastikas in the nearby Kroll Opera - where today there is a lawn with sparsely planted trees to the south of the Chancellor’s office.
Why did the call of the Soviet conquerors of Berlin sound exactly like this - “To the Reichstag!”? Why did the Red Army receive the order to hoist the red flag here? How did it mistakenly become a symbol of victory over Nazi Germany?
The answers to these questions can be found in Zhinchenko’s memoirs. He recorded what the military commissar told his soldiers before the assault: “From here in 1933, the fascists began their bloody campaign against communism in front of the whole world. Here we must confirm the fall of fascism. This has political and military significance."
This refers, apparently, to the arson of the Reichstag on the evening of February 27, 1933. Then only four weeks in power, Hitler interpreted the fire in the plenary hall as a harbinger of the upcoming uprising of the German communists. A good reason to attack all supporters of the Communist Party and Social Democrats with all cruelty. Thousands of political opponents of the NSDAP were detained within 48 hours, most of them were tortured in the following weeks, and dozens were killed.
However, the communists had nothing to do with the arson. Following fresh leads, the mentally unstable Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe was detained. He confessed to the crime during interrogation and in court. Van der Lubbe had no SS collaborators, as many later believed and as conspiracy theorists have maintained for over 80 years.
The first destruction of the Reichstag by arson indirectly led to the second destruction in the final battle for Berlin. Because only the trial of the Dutchman, which caused a wide international resonance, and four innocently convicted communists made the Reichstag building known throughout the world. Stalin also learned about it in Moscow.
Everyone has heard about the capture of the Reichstag by Soviet soldiers. But what do we really know about him? We will talk about who was sent against the Red Army, how they searched for the Reichstag and how many banners there were.
Who's going to Berlin
There were more than enough people who wanted to take Berlin to the Red Army. Moreover, if for the commanders - Zhukov, Konev, Rokossovsky, this was also a matter of prestige, then for ordinary soldiers who already had “one foot at home” this was another terrible battle. Participants in the assault will remember it as one of the most difficult battles of the war.
Nevertheless, the thought that their detachment would be sent to Berlin in April 1944 could cause nothing but jubilation among the soldiers. The author of the book: “Who took the Reichstag: heroes by default,” N. Yamskoy talks about how they were waiting for a decision on the composition of the offensive army in the 756th regiment:
“Officers gathered at the headquarters dugout. Neustroev burned with impatience, offering to send someone for Major Kazakov, who was supposed to arrive with the results of the decision. One of the officers joked: “Why are you, Stepan, spinning around in place? I should have taken off my boots and let’s go! In the time that you’ve been running back and forth, you’d probably already be near Berlin!”
Soon the cheerful and smiling Major Kazakov returned. And it became clear to everyone: we are going to Berlin!”
Attitude
Why was it so important to take the Reichstag and plant a banner on it? This building, where the highest legislative body of Germany met since 1919, did not play any role during the Third Reich, de facto. All legislative functions were performed in the Krol Opera, the building opposite. However, for the Nazis this is not just a building, not just a fortress. For them, this was the last hope, the capture of which would demoralize the army. Therefore, during the assault on Berlin, the command placed emphasis on the Reichstag. Hence Zhukov’s order to the 171st and 150th divisions, which promised gratitude and government awards to those who planted a red flag over the gray, unsightly and half-destroyed building.
Moreover, its installation was a top priority.
“If our people are not in the Reichstag and the banner is not installed there, then take all measures at any cost to hoist a flag or flag at least on the column of the front entrance. At any cost!"
- there was an order from Zinchenko. That is, the banner of victory had to be installed even before the actual capture of the Reichstag. According to eyewitnesses, while trying to carry out the order and plant a banner on a building still defended by the Germans, many “single volunteers, the bravest people” died, but this is precisely what made the act of Kantaria and Egorov heroic.
"Sailors of the SS Special Forces Detachment"
Even as the Red Army advanced towards Berlin, when the outcome of the war became obvious, Hitler was either seized by panic, or wounded pride played a role, but he issued several orders, the essence of which was that all of Germany should perish along with the defeat of the Reich. The “Nero” plan was carried out, which implied the destruction of all cultural property on the territory of the state, making the evacuation of residents difficult. Subsequently, the high command will utter the key phrase: “Berlin will defend to the last German.”
This means that, for the most part, it didn’t matter who was sent to death. So, in order to detain the Red Army at the Moltke Bridge, Hitler transferred “sailors of the SS special forces detachment” to Berlin, who were ordered to delay the advance of our troops to government buildings at any cost.
They turned out to be sixteen-year-old boys, yesterday's cadets of a naval school from the city of Rostock. Hitler spoke to them, calling them heroes and the hope of the nation. His order itself is interesting: “throw back the small group of Russians that broke through to this bank of the Spree and prevent it from approaching the Reichstag. You only need to hold out for a little while. Soon you will receive new weapons of enormous power and new planes. Wenck's army is approaching from the south. The Russians will not only be driven out of Berlin, but also driven back to Moscow.”
Did Hitler know about the real number of the "small group of Russians" and the state of affairs when he gave the order? What did he expect? At that time, it was obvious that for an effective battle with Soviet soldiers, a whole army was needed, and not 500 young boys who did not know how to fight. Perhaps Hitler expected positive results from separate negotiations with the allies of the USSR. But the question of what secret weapon they were talking about remained in the air. One way or another, hopes were not justified, and many young fanatics died without bringing any benefit to their homeland.
Where is the Reichstag?
During the assault, incidents also occurred. On the eve of the offensive, at night, it turned out that the attackers did not know what the Reichstag looked like, much less where it was located.
This is how the battalion commander, Neustroyev, who was ordered to storm the Reichstag, described this situation: “The Colonel orders:
“Come out to the Reichstag quickly!” I hang up. Zinchenko’s voice still rings in my ears. Where is it, the Reichstag? The devil knows! It’s dark and deserted ahead.”
Zinchenko, in turn, reported to General Shatilov: “Neustroyev’s battalion took its starting position in the basement of the south-eastern part of the building. Only now some house is bothering him - the Reichstag is closing. We'll go around it on the right." He answers in bewilderment: "What other house? Rabbit opera? But it should be to the right of “Himmler’s house”. There cannot be any building in front of the Reichstag...”
However, the building was there. Squat, two and a half stories high, with towers and a dome on top. Behind him, two hundred meters away, the outlines of a huge, twelve-story building could be seen, which Neustovev took as the final goal. But the gray building, which they decided to bypass, was unexpectedly met with advancing continuous fire.
They say correctly, one head is good, but two are better. The mystery of the location of the Reichstag was resolved upon Zinchenko’s arrival at Neustroev. As the battalion commander himself describes:
“Zinchenko looked at the square and at the hidden gray building. And then, without turning around, he asked: “So what’s stopping you from going to the Reichstag?” “This is a low building,” I answered. “So this is the Reichstag!”
Fights for rooms
How was the Reichstag taken? The usual reference literature does not go into detail, describing the assault as a one-day “assault” of Soviet soldiers on a building, which, under this pressure, was just as quickly surrendered by its garrison. However, this was not the case. The building was defended by selected SS units, who had nothing else to lose. And they had an advantage. They knew full well about his plan and the layout of all his 500 rooms. Unlike the Soviet soldiers, who had no idea what the Reichstag looked like. As private third company I.V. Mayorov said: “We knew practically nothing about the internal layout. And this made the battle with the enemy very difficult. In addition, from the continuous automatic and machine-gun fire, the explosions of grenades and faust cartridges in the Reichstag, such smoke and dust rose from the plaster that, mixing, they obscured everything, hung in the rooms like an impenetrable veil - nothing was visible, as if in the dark.” How difficult the assault was can be judged by the fact that the Soviet command set the task of capturing at least 15-10 rooms out of the mentioned 500 on the first day.
How many flags were there
The historical banner hoisted on the roof of the Reichstag was the assault flag of the 150th Infantry Division of the Third Shock Army, installed by Sergeant Egorov and Kantaria. But this was far from the only red flag over the German parliament. Many people dreamed of the desire to reach Berlin and plant the Soviet flag over the destroyed enemy lair of the Nazis, regardless of the order of the command and the promise of the title “Hero of the USSR.” However, the latter was another useful incentive.
According to eyewitnesses, there were neither two, nor three, or even five victory banners on the Reichstag. The entire building was literally “blushing” with Soviet flags, both homemade and official. According to experts, there were about 20 of them, some were shot down during the bombing. The first was installed by senior sergeant Ivan Lysenko, whose squad built a banner from a mattress of red material. Ivan Lysenko's award sheet reads:
“On April 30, 1945 at 2 p.m. Comrade. Lysenko was the first to break into the Reichstag building, destroy more than 20 German soldiers with grenade fire, reach the second floor and hoist the victory banner. For his heroism and courage in battle, he is worthy of being awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.”
Moreover, his detachment fulfilled its main task - to cover the standard bearers, who were tasked with hoisting the victorious banners on the Reichstag.
In general, each detachment dreamed of planting its own flag on the Reichstag. With this dream, the soldiers walked all the way to Berlin, every kilometer of which cost lives. Therefore, is it really so important whose banner was the first and whose was the “official” one? They were all equally important.
The fate of autographs
Those who failed to hoist the banner left reminders of themselves on the walls of the captured building. As eyewitnesses describe: all the columns and walls at the entrance to the Reichstag were covered with inscriptions in which the soldiers expressed feelings of joy of victory. They wrote to everyone - with paints, charcoal, a bayonet, a nail, a knife:
“The shortest way to Moscow is through Berlin!”
“And we girls were here. Glory to the Soviet warrior!”; “We are from Leningrad, Petrov, Kryuchkov”; “Know ours. Siberians Pushchin, Petlin"; "We are in the Reichstag"; “I walked with the name of Lenin”; "From Stalingrad to Berlin"; “Moscow - Stalingrad - Orel - Warsaw - Berlin”; “I reached Berlin.”
Some of the autographs have survived to this day - their preservation was one of the main requirements during the restoration of the Reichstag. However, today their fate is often called into question. So, in 2002, conservative representatives Johannes Singhammer and Horst Günther proposed to destroy them, arguing that the inscriptions “burden modern Russian-German relations.”
18.05 13:28 website Germany, already at the limit of its capabilities at the beginning of 1942, was forced, contrary to the dominant ideology of National Socialism and xenophobia, to arm and send military formations consisting of almost all the peoples of Europe to the Eastern Front.
The French especially distinguished themselves. The first French Nazi unit was formed in 1941 and was called the French Volunteer Anti-Bolshevik Legion. The Legion was formed from volunteers who adhered to far-right and racist ideology, who believed that they had an honorable mission - to free the world from Bolshevism. The legion fought near Moscow and distinguished itself in punitive operations against Belarusian partisans in 1942. The Legion was later merged with another volunteer formation, the Tricolor Legion.
This unit became famous for preventing the defeat of Army Group Center on June 25, 1944, stopping a tank breakthrough of Soviet troops on the Beaver River. Some historians believe that this operation was the most successful operation of the French collaborators during the war. In 48 hours of fighting, they managed to destroy at least 40 Soviet tanks.
In September 1944, on the basis of the “tricolor legion”, the SS division “Charlemagne” was created, which was to literally lead the Third Reich on its final journey.
Himmler personally assured the division's leadership that it would not be sent to the Western Front to fight with its compatriots from the Free French units advancing in France.
French thugs were sent to Poland in February 1945 to resist the advance of the Red Army. However, during its unloading in Pomerania, it was attacked by units of the 1st Belorussian Front. In the battles in the Koerlin area, the division lost more than half of its personnel and was withdrawn to regroup in the West.
The division commander, Krukenberg, told his soldiers that they were released from the oath and could go home. However, about 700 people volunteered to participate in the defense of Berlin. Created from the remnants of the division, the Charlemagne assault battalion became the last regular German formation to enter Berlin on the eve of the assault.
During the last, senseless and merciless battle around the bunker of the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag, the French once again proved their now useless efficiency. During the day of fighting on April 28 in Berlin, 108 Soviet tanks were destroyed, 62 of them by three hundred Charlemagne soldiers. Four members of the battalion were awarded the Knight's Iron Cross on April 29 at one of the last awards ceremonies in the now defunct Reich.
The remnants of the battalion in small groups tried to infiltrate from Berlin. About 30 people were captured by the Red Army and handed over to the French authorities. A group of 11 people was arrested by the French army already on French territory. The hero of the liberation of France, General Leclerc asked the prisoners why they were wearing Nazi uniforms. One of them asked in response: “Why are you dressed in American clothes, general?” This group was immediately shot on the spot without trial or investigation. Most of the surviving soldiers of the division were shot by military tribunals or sentenced by the French authorities to 20 years of hard labor.
