The French in the service of the Third Reich. French Legion SS Russians in the Foreign Legion
see also Occupation of France33rd SS Grenadier Division "Charlemagne"
The predecessor of the Charlemagne division was the Volunteer French Legion, created in 1941 under the control of the German army. Initially, it was called the 638th Army Infantry Regiment and first entered combat on the Eastern Front during the winter 1941/42 offensive against Moscow as part of the 1st Infantry Division. The French unit suffered heavy losses and was withdrawn from the front from the spring of 1942 to the autumn of 1943, after which it was used mainly for anti-partisan operations. At this stage, it was divided to conduct operations in the rear against partisans and was used in the form of units, in terms of their quantitative composition equal to a battalion.
In January 1944, another reorganization of the battalion took place, but it was still used to fight partisans.
In June 1944, the battalion returned to the central sector of the Eastern Front to take part in offensive operations against the Red Army. His actions were so impressive that the Soviet command considered that they were dealing with not one, but two French battalions, although in fact the number of legionnaires corresponded to about half a battalion. In September 1944, French volunteers joined the Waffen-SS.
In France, recruitment into the SS began in earnest only in 1943, in Paris. In August 1944, the first 300 volunteers were sent to Alsace for training as part of the French SS Volunteer Assault Brigade. In September 1943, about 30 French officers were sent to the SS military school in the Bavarian city of Bad Tölze, and about a hundred non-commissioned officers were sent to various junior officer schools in order to improve their training to the level of Waffen-SS standard requirements.
At this time, a group of French volunteers was on the Eastern Front as part of the 18th SS Volunteer Panzer-Grenadier Division Horst Wessel. After fierce battles with units of the Red Army, they were recalled to the rear for rest and reorganization. At this time, a decision was made - given the combat track record of the French, to combine them with the remnants of the legion and French militia units to create a new Waffen-SS division.
This most unusual of all divisions also included a number of soldiers from the French colonies, including from French Indochina and even one Japanese. Eyewitnesses claim that several French Jews managed to escape Nazi persecution by hiding in the ranks of the Charlemagne division.
The division was formed in the winter of 1944/45 and sent to the front in Pomerania at the very beginning of 1945. Constant fierce battles against the numerically superior units of the Red Army badly battered the French division and split it into three parts. One of the groups, numbering a battalion, retreated to the Baltic states and evacuated to Denmark, after which it ended up in Neustrelitz, not far from Berlin. The second group was completely exterminated by the furious volleys of Soviet artillery. The third managed to retreat to the west, where it was destroyed - its soldiers either died or were taken prisoner by the Russians.
Those who remained in Neustrelitz were rounded up by the divisional commander, SS Brigadenführer Gustav Krukenberg, who released from the oath those who no longer wished to serve in the SS. Nevertheless, about 500 men voluntarily followed their commander to defend Berlin. Approximately 700 people remained in Neustrelitz. The 500 volunteers who participated in the defense of Berlin fought with exceptional integrity, despite the fact that they knew that the battle was lost.
Their courage was awarded with three Knight's Crosses. One of them was awarded to SS Obersturmführer Wilhelm Weber, a German division officer, and two to French soldiers Unterscharführer Eugène Vallot and Oberscharführer Francois Apollo. All awards were honors for personal bravery shown in the destruction of several Soviet tanks alone. Three days later, Vallo and Apollo were killed. Weber was lucky to survive the war.
Those members of the Charlemagne division who chose not to go to the front made their way to the west, where they voluntarily surrendered. They undoubtedly believed that the Western Allies would treat them better than the Russians. Those of them who surrendered to their compatriots from the Free French army had to be very disappointed in their illusion. It is known that when they encountered the Free French soldiers, when asked by the latter why they wished to wear German uniforms, the French SS soldiers inquired about the uniforms of the American troops worn by the de Gaulles. Enraged by such a question, the commander of the de Gaulle troops on the spot, without any trial or investigation, shot his fellow SS men.
As for the Free French, it is itself guilty of the most terrible war crimes. It makes no sense to say that the murderers of the French SS went unpunished. Ironically, the French SS men who took part in the brutal destruction of Oradour in 1944 were treated much more leniently. They were considered people subjected to forced mobilization and thus "victims". The French court acquitted them. The reason for this surprising verdict seems to be purely political.
The French SS men who appeared before the court were from Alsace, which over the years of its history has repeatedly passed either to France or to Germany. There was an opinion that a guilty verdict against the perpetrators of the tragedy that broke out in Oradour could cause unrest in Alsace. Thus, a situation arose in which the French SS men, who took part in the execution of a large number of French citizens, went unpunished, while members of the Charlemagne division, who fought with detachments of communist partisans in the East and against units of the Red Army, lost their lives after were taken prisoner.
Based on the book by G. Williamson "SS - an instrument of terror"
Military unit name = 33rd SS Grenadier Division "Charlemagne" (French No. 1) 33. Waffen Grenadier Division der SS "Charlemagne" (französische Nr. 1) image = signature = Symbols of the division years = 1944 May 9, 1945 country = ... ... Wikipedia
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In the USSR and the Russian Federation, it was generally accepted that the French people, France were occupied and participated in the war on the side of the Anti-Hitler coalition, were our allies. But this is not the whole truth - indeed, some French went underground, the French Resistance (poppies), some participated in the battles on the Eastern Front on the side of the USSR in the French Normandie-Niemen fighter aviation regiment or in de Gaulle's Free France.
But even more Frenchmen calmly accepted the Nazis and even supported his plans, including with weapons in their hands - the French crossed weapons in North Africa with the Anglo-American forces, participated in the battles on the Eastern Front in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Third Reich. In London and Washington, they were even going to rank France among the territories to be occupied after the Second World War, which were in the same camp with Germany. Suffice it to recall the sad fate of the French fleet attacked by the Grand Fleet in the harbors.
Only Stalin's firm position saved France from the occupation regime and, at his insistence, she was included in the Anti-Hitler camp.
Stalin also insisted on giving France a special French zone of occupation in Germany. To the credit of Charles de Gaulle, he remembered this even after the death of the Soviet leader, retaining respect for him after the “de-Stalinization” arranged by Khrushchev.
After the occupation of Northern France in 1940 and the creation of the Vichy regime in the south of the country, until May 1945, many French volunteers under the banner of dozens of units and formations of the armed forces and auxiliary organizations of the Third Reich. There were tens of thousands of such French volunteers (at least 80 thousand Frenchmen passed through the SS alone), and as a result, the citizens of France made up the largest Western European nation in terms of numbers, who fought on the side of Nazi Germany in World War II. 
The French destroyer Mogador burns in the harbor of Mers-el-Kebir, French Algeria, July 3, 1940. When France signed the act of surrender, the British government gave the order to destroy the French warships so that they would not fall into the hands of Hitler. Several ships were heavily damaged and one sank. During the attack, 1,297 French sailors were killed. (Jacques Mulard/CC-BY-SA)
On June 22, 1941, the leader of one of the French Nazi groups PPF - Parti Populaire Francais ("National People's Party") Jacques Doriot put forward the idea of creating a Legion of French volunteers in order to take part in the war against the Soviet Union. The Reich ambassador to France, Otto Abetz, reported this to Berlin and received a telegram on 5 July in which Ribbentrop approved of the idea. Already on July 6, the 1st meeting of French and German representatives took place at the German Embassy in Paris, on July 7 - the 2nd meeting - at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht in France.
From the French militia.
Representatives of all French Nazi and collaborationist groups were present - Marcel Boucard Marseille ("French Movement"), Jacques Doriot ("People's National Party"), Eugene Delonxle ("Social Revolutionary Movement"), Pierre Clementi ("French Party of National Unity") and Pierre Constantini ("French League"), at the same time the Central Committee of the Legion of French Volunteers (LVF) and a recruiting center were created. An interesting fact is that it was placed in the building where the office of the Soviet "Intourist" was previously located. The slogan " Anti-Bolshevik Crusade".
From July 1941 to June 1944, 13 thousand people applied to join the Legion of French Volunteers, but no more than half were accepted into the Legion: the rest were weeded out by German doctors. The LVF also included those former French prisoners of war who preferred the war on the Eastern Front to camps and forced labor. The first batch of the French arrived in Poland in September 1941 - out of 2.5 thousand people, a two-battalion French infantry regiment 638 was formed under the command of Colonel Roger Labon. The French wore a Wehrmacht uniform with a blue-white-red patch on the right sleeve. The banner of the regiment was also tricolor, orders were given in French.
On November 5, 1941, Marshal Petain sent a message to the French volunteers: "Before you go into battle, I am glad to know that you do not forget that part of our military honor belongs to you." The battalions left Deboux on October 28 and 30, 1941, the first battalion was commanded by Captain Leclerc, then Commandant de Planard, the second battalion was commanded by Commandant Girardot. The battalions arrived in Smolensk, from where on November 6 they set off on foot to the capital of the USSR.
The French suffered the first losses even before the battles - their uniforms did not match the weather conditions, as a result, 400 people turned out to be sick and missing before the front line. Another interesting fact: the French entered the battle on the Borodino field, memorable to their ancestors - they were ordered to attack the 32nd Rifle Division of the Red Army. After a week of fighting, the 1st battalion suffered heavy losses in battle, the 2nd suffered heavy losses from frostbite. On December 6-9, the French 638th regiment was completely withdrawn. The regiment lost 65 men killed, 120 wounded, and more than 300 sick and frostbitten.
The Germans made disappointing conclusions for the Legion: “People showed, in general, good morale, but their level of combat training is low. The sergeants, in general, are not bad, but they do not show activity, since the senior staff does not show efficiency. The officers are not capable of much and were clearly recruited on a purely political basis. And they summed up a disappointing result: “The Legion is not combat-ready. Improvement can only be achieved through the renewal of the officer corps and forced training.
The Legion was withdrawn from the Eastern Front, most of it, including officers, was sent to France. By 1942, it was possible to create a more monolithic and combat-ready unit, it already had three battalions of 900 people each. The Legion began to be used in the fight against partisans in Ukraine and Belarus. In 1943, it was led by Colonel Edgar Puo, a former officer of the Foreign Legion, who received the rank of brigadier general, and was awarded two Iron Crosses for success in the counterguerrilla struggle.
In 1944, the Legion again entered the battle at the front, in Belarus, after which its remnants were poured into the French 8th assault brigade of the SS troops. This brigade was mainly formed from the volunteers of the French collaborationist Militia students, in total about 3 thousand people were recruited.
The most famous unit of the French volunteers was the 33rd SS Grenadier Brigade (then division) "Charlemagne" - named after "Charlemagne" (fr. Charle Magne).
Its formation began back in 1944 - two regiments were created (57th and 58th), the core of the 57th regiment was made up of veterans of the French assault brigade, and the 58th - veterans of the Legion. At the beginning of 1945, Himmler promised the French commanders that they would not be sent to the Western Front, where they could clash with their compatriots, they were promised to leave the French army priests, the national flag and preserve the independence of France after the war. In February 1945, the unit was reorganized into a division, although the number could not be brought up to full-time - it had only 7.3 thousand people.
At the end of February 1945, the Wehrmacht command sent the division to plug a gap in the area of the city of Charne in Poland; on February 25, it entered the battle with units of the 1st Belorussian Front. On March 4, the remnants of the division were transferred to Berlin, where they ended their combat path in May 1945. The French took part in the most important operation of the war - the defense of Berlin. At the same time, according to the memoirs of the Germans, they fought to the last, defending the Reich Chancellery together with volunteers from the Scandinavian countries from the SS division "Nordland" (in the same division, several dozen Englishmen from the SS defended Berlin). After the fighting in Berlin, only a few dozen French survived, almost all were put on trial, receiving the death penalty or a prison term as a "reward" for serving France - as they understood it.
The French were also in other units of the German Armed Forces, making a feasible contribution to the "common cause". So, in French Brittany, the so-called. Perrault's group, 80 people were recruited into it, since March 1944 she participated in the fight against French partisans. After the liberation of France, a part went with the Germans to Germany. In the 21st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, where there were French trucks and armored vehicles, in the 2nd maintenance company, there were 230 French volunteers. In the Brandenburg division in 1943, the French formed the 8th company of the 3rd regiment, it was located at the foot of the Pyrenees in Southwestern France.
Participated in the anti-partisan struggle. Operating in southern France, the 8th Company imitated the French Resistance by using captured radio stations and was able to intercept many transports with weapons and other military materials. With its help, they were able to identify and arrest many underground workers. The company also participated in battles against the forces of the Resistance, in the so-called. Battle for the Vercors. In this battle in June-July 1944, significant forces of Germans and French collaborators (more than 10 thousand people) were able to suppress a major action of the French Resistance on the isolated Vercors mountain plateau, which began after de Gaulle's call to support the Allied landing in Normandy. Several hundred partisans were destroyed.
A significant number of Frenchmen also served in the Reich Navy (Kriegsmarine) - moreover, recruiting offices were opened only in 1943, when there was no longer any talk of a quick victory over the USSR. The French were enrolled in German units and wore German military uniforms without special additional stripes. In February 1944, in the French ports of Brest, Cherbourg, Lorient, Toulon, there were about a hundred officers, 3 thousand non-commissioned officers, 160 engineers, almost 700 technicians and 25 thousand civilians in the German service. Approximately one and a half thousand of them joined the Charlemagne division in 1944.
The organization Todt, which built fortifications and bases for the submarine fleet in France, consisted of 52,000 French and 170,000 North Africans. Of these, 2.5 thousand served in the armed protection of those facilities that this organization cost. Some were transferred to the construction of facilities in Norway, several hundred then joined the Charlemagne division. Up to 500 Frenchmen served in the Speer legion, which performed construction functions in France, then was engaged in supplying the Reich Air Force as part of the NSKK (Nationalsocialistische Kraftfahrkorps) Motorgruppe Luftwaffe (this is the German Luftwaffe unit engaged in material support). In addition, another 2,500 French served in the NSKK.
Only data on French prisoners - there were 23,136 French citizens in Soviet captivity.
Therefore, remembering de Gaulle and the French pilots of the Normandie-Niemen regiment, we should also know about the French in the Wehrmacht, about the French Legion, which repeated the fate of Napoleon's "Great Army", about the thousands of French who fought in various units of the armed forces of the Reich against the Anti-Hitler coalitions.
Sources:
Mukhin Y. Crusade to the East. M., 2006.
Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Ed. G. Krivosheeva. M., 2001.
The French from the SS units before being shot by the French from the Free French. From left to right: Obersturmführer Sergei Krotoff (10/11/1911-05/08/1945, Russian by birth, born in a French colony on the island of Madagascar), Untershurmführer Paul Briffaut (08/08/1918-05/08/1945, in the foreground, in the form of a Wehrmacht lieutenant) and Obersturmführer Robert Doffat (looks at the photographer).
12 Frenchmen who served in the SS troops were executed by Free French soldiers. 11 of them were from the 33rd SS Infantry Division "Charlemagne" (1st French) (33.Waffen-Gren.Div. der SS "Charlemagne" / Franzusische Nr 1) and one (Paul Briffaut) - from the 58th (until August 1944 - the reinforced 638th Grenadier Regiment) of the SS Grenadier Regiment (as part of the SS Charlemagne division).
They were recovering in a German hospital when the Americans occupied it in early May 1945. The hospital patients were placed with other prisoners in a temporary camp in the barracks of the Alpine Riflemen in the city of Bad Reichenhall. There was a rumor that the Americans were handing over the city to the French units of General Leclerc, and these 12 people tried to escape, but were detained by patrols and handed over to the French. They ended up in the hands of soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division of the Free French.
The prisoners behaved with dignity and even defiantly. When the division commander, General Leclerc, called them traitors and said: "How could you Frenchmen wear someone else's uniform?" one of them answered: “You yourself wear someone else’s uniform - American!” (the division was equipped by the Americans). They say this angered Leclerc, and he ordered the prisoners to be shot.
On May 8, 1945, these 12 prisoners were executed. The bodies were thrown on the spot and only three days later they were buried by the Americans.
Paul Briffaut and Robert Doffat in November, Sergei Krotov in December 1947, and Raymond Payras (another of the executed) in 1950 were convicted in absentia and sentenced to death by the Seine Department Court for treason.
The photo was added by the user, but the description was replaced by the project editor.
Photo source:
Thanks to user Pazifist for valuable additions to the description of the photo.
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THIRTY-THIRD SS GREAT DIVISION "CHARLEMAGN" The predecessor of this division was the "Volunteer French Legion", created in 1941 under the control of the German army. Initially, it was called the 638th Army Infantry Regiment and first entered combat on the Eastern Front during the winter 1941/42 offensive against Moscow as part of the 7th Infantry Division. The French unit suffered heavy losses and was withdrawn from the front from the spring of 1942 to the autumn of 1943, after which it was used mainly for anti-partisan operations. At this stage, it was divided to conduct operations in the rear against partisans and was used in the form of units, in terms of their quantitative composition equal to a battalion. In January 1944, another reorganization of the battalion took place, but it was still used to fight partisans. In June 1944, the battalion returned to the central sector of the Eastern Front to take part in offensive operations against the Red Army. His actions were so impressive that the Soviet command considered that they were dealing with not one, but two French battalions, although in fact the number of legionnaires corresponded to about half a battalion. In September 1944, French volunteers joined the Waffen-SS. In France, recruitment into the SS began in earnest only in 1943, in Paris. In August 1944, the first 300 volunteers were sent to Alsace for training as part of the French SS Volunteer Assault Brigade. In September 1943, about 30 French officers were sent to the SS military school in the Bavarian city of Bad Tölze, and about a hundred non-commissioned officers were sent to various junior officer schools in order to improve their training to the level of Waffen-SS standard requirements. At this time, a group of French volunteers was on the Eastern Front as part of the 18th SS Volunteer Panzer-Grenadier Division Horst Wessel. After fierce battles with units of the Red Army, they were recalled to the rear for rest and reorganization. At this time, a decision was made - given the combat track record of the French, to combine them with the remnants of the legion and French militia units to create a new Waffen-SS division. This most unusual of all divisions also included a number of soldiers from the French colonies, including from French Indochina and even one Japanese. Eyewitnesses claim that several French Jews managed to escape Nazi persecution by hiding in the ranks of the Charlemagne division. The division was formed in the winter of 1944/45 and sent to the front in Pomerania at the very beginning of 1945. Constant fierce battles against the numerically superior units of the Red Army badly battered the French division and split it into three parts. One of the groups, numbering a battalion, retreated to the Baltic states and evacuated to Denmark, after which it ended up in Neustrelitz, not far from Berlin. The second group was completely exterminated by the furious volleys of Soviet artillery. The third managed to retreat to the west, where it was destroyed - its soldiers either died or were taken prisoner by the Russians. Those who remained in Neustrelitz were rounded up by the divisional commander, SS Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg, who released from the oath those who no longer wished to serve in the SS. Nevertheless, about 500 men voluntarily followed their commander to defend Berlin. Approximately 700 people remained in Neustrelitz. The 500 volunteers who participated in the defense of Berlin fought with exceptional integrity, despite the fact that they knew that the battle was lost. Their courage was awarded with three Knight's Crosses. One of them was handed over to SS-Obersturmführer Wilhelm Weber, a German division officer, and two to French soldiers, Unterscharführer Eugène Vallot and Oberscharführer Francois Apollo. All three awards were distinctions for personal bravery shown in the destruction of several Soviet tanks alone. Three days later, Vallo and Apollo were killed. Weber was lucky to survive the war. Those members of the Charlemagne division who chose not to go to the front made their way to the west, where they voluntarily surrendered. They no doubt expected the Western Allies to treat them better than the Russians. Those of them who surrendered to their compatriots from the Free French army had to be very disappointed in their illusion. It is known that when they encountered the Free French soldiers, when asked by the latter why they wished to wear German uniforms, the French SS soldiers inquired about the uniforms of the American troops worn by the de Gaulles. Enraged by such a question, the commander of the de Gaulle troops on the spot, without any trial or investigation, shot his fellow SS men. As for the Free French, it is itself guilty of the most terrible war crimes. It makes no sense to say that the murderers of the French SS went unpunished. Ironically, the French SS men who took part in the massacre of Oradour in 1944 were far more leniently treated. They were considered people subjected to forced mobilization and thus "victims". The French court acquitted them. The reason for this surprising verdict seems to be purely political. The French SS men who appeared before the court were from Alsace, which over the years of its history has repeatedly passed either to France or to Germany. There was an opinion that a guilty verdict against the perpetrators of the tragedy that broke out in Oradour could cause unrest in Alsace.
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