33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "Charlemagne"

33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "Charlemagne" (French No. 1)
active	1944 to 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Armed SS
Branch of service	Grenadiers
Type	division
structure	See outline
Butcher	Counter-partisan battle for Berlin
commander
list of	Commanders

The 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "Charlemagne" (French No. 1) was an association of the Waffen SS in World War II (1944–1945). It consisted mostly of collaborating French volunteers . The association also included soldiers from French colonies and from Indochina . The division never reached its target strength of 19,000 men. It was named after the Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne .

history

A first armed French volunteer unit was set up in 1940 as the " Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme " to fight on the side of Germany . The first deployment took place in the winter of 1941/42 on the Eastern Front under the designation 638th Infantry Regiment. The regiment was part of the 7th Infantry Division , which was involved in the advance on Moscow as part of Army Group Center . During these battles, the 638th Infantry Regiment suffered heavy losses and was therefore mainly used in so-called partisan combat from 1942 to autumn 1943 . The war crimes committed include numerous massacres in and around the villages of Briansk , Gomel, Mohilev , Orsha and Minsk . From June 1944 it was used again on the front against the Red Army . Meanwhile the strength of the French had been reduced to half a battalion .

Hanged resistance fighter near Minsk in 1942/1943

French SS volunteer 1943

In September 1944 the unit was incorporated into the Waffen SS. Cesarani indicates her strength in February 1945 with about 5000 men, because she was replenished under the "inspection" of a German brigade leader by French collaborators from all possible German formations. At this point the association was given division status . From the turn of the year 1944/45 the division was deployed in Pomerania , where it suffered heavy losses and was broken into three parts. One part suffered heavy losses from artillery fire , the second was worn out as it retreated west. The third part withdrew through the Baltic and settled across the sea to Denmark. This unit formed on March 27, 1945 in Neustrelitz under the inspector of the French volunteer associations SS-Brigadführer Gustav Krukenberg the Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment of the SS "Charlemagne" . Given by Krukenberg the choice of continuing to fight or serving in a construction battalion, 700 of the remaining 1,100 volunteers signed up for the combat battalion. However, the two units were only used for digging work in the rear of the 3rd Panzer Army before they disbanded in the Bad Kleinen area . When Krukenberg received the order on April 24, 1945 to take command of the 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Nordland" , he was accompanied to Berlin by an escort of 90 men. In the battle for Berlin , this French combat group was initially deployed in the Neukölln area, but had to retreat to the Reich Security Main Office on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse via Hermannplatz , Anhalter Bahnhof and Belle-Alliance-Platz under the attacks of the Red Army . Violent attacks by the Soviet troops pushed the French back to the grounds of the Reich Aviation Ministry , where they surrendered on May 2nd.

The last defenders of the inner city of Berlin and thus also of the Reich Chancellery and the headquarters of the SS in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse were members of the French 33rd SS Division "Charlemagne" and the Scandinavian 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Nordland" who fought until the surrender of Berlin on May 2, 1945.

A well-known member of the division was the German neo-Nazi Franz Schönhuber , who in 1990 sat with the French right-wing politician and chairman Jean-Marie Le Pen in the group of the European right in the European Parliament , of which he was vice-president . Others were the literary scholar Hans Robert Jauß or the French volunteer Christian de la Mazière .

education

Volunteer recruits were recruited through the Paris recruiting office. The first volunteers were sent to Alsace for training as SS volunteer assault brigade . The officers were trained in the SS Junker Schools , the NCOs at Unterführer schools, for example in Cernay in Alsace.

coat of arms

The coat of arms of the "Charlemagne" division was the French tricolor . The frequently shown pseudo-medieval coat of arms is a post-war invention by a former soldier of the division that has been widespread since 1967.

structure

• Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment 57 (French No. 1)
• Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment 58 (French No. 2)
• SS Artillery Division 57
• SS Panzerjäger - Division 33
• SS pioneer - Company 33
• SS News Company 33
• SS Field Replacement Company 33
• SS Supply Battalion 33

Commanders

• February 1945: SS-Oberführer Edgar Puaud
• March 1 to April 24, 1945: SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS Gustav Krukenberg
• April 24 to May 8, 1945: SS-Standartenführer Walter Zimmermann

literature

• Robert Forbes : For Europe. The French Volunteers of the Waffen-SS. Helion, Solihull 2006, ISBN 978-1-874622-68-0 .
• Jean Mabire : La division Charlemagne. Editions Jacques Grancher 2005, ISBN 2-7339-0915-0 , ISBN 978-2-7339-0915-7 .
• Jean Mabire: Berlin in agony in 1945. French volunteers of the Waffen-SS as the last defenders of the Reich Chancellery. Nebel Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-87725-087-4 .
• Peter Schöttler : Three kinds of collaboration. Concepts of Europe and Franco-German understanding - using the example of the career of SS Brigade Leader Gustav Krukenberg. In: Contemporary historical research. Studies in Contemporary History. 9, 2012, 3, pp. 365-386. http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/16126041-Schoettler-3-2012 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gordon Williamson: Die SS. Hitler's Instrument of Power, Kaiser, 2005, p. 246.
2. ^ Jens Westemeier: Hans Robert Jauß: Youth, War and Internment. Scientific documentation. University of Konstanz, May 2015, accessed on September 25, 2019 . 
3. ^ Cesarani: Adolf Eichmann. German 2004, 277.
4. ^ Rolf Michaelis : The Waffen SS. Myth and Reality. Michaelis-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-930849-36-9 , p. 290.
5. ↑ Rolf Michaelis: The Grenadier Divisions of the Waffen SS. Part 3. Michaelis, Erlangen 1995, ISBN 3-930849-05-4 , pp. 82-88.
6. ↑ Details in Schöttler 2012, p. 385.