French SS in Berlin 4.45-5.45

I'd like to thank Russ Folsum for providing permission to post this article.

As there are more than a few publications available concerning the battle for the capture of the Reichshauptstadt of Nazi Germany, Berlin - some more well known than others; some more detailed and accurate than others; it is inevitable that some discrepancy between units and their actual strengths and organizations might exist, even 54 years after the fact.The confusion of the time, the destruction of official documents, and the disinclination to open old wounds, can all contribute to innacuracies. Another way is of course for authors to pass along, unquestioned, facts and figures from second or third hand sources that were inaccurate from the start. Recently going through what resources I have at hand on the French SS volunteers, I discovered that there are at least three differing accounts as to the exact number of Frenchmen which accompanied Gen.Dr.Krukenberg into Berlin on 24 April 1945. David Littlejohn's section on the French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and W-SS includes a number of 1200 men at Neustrelitz after the debacle in Pomerania, with 500 agreeing to continue on after Division-Inspektor Krukenberg released the remainder from their vows of allegiance. Erich Kuby's "Berlin and the Russians, 1945" relates that Krukenberg and "his staff" of ninety (90) from the former "Charlemagne" division travelled from Strelitz to the capital under orders to report to the Reichskanzlei on April 24, 1945. They made their way through a narrow corridor of the near complete Soviet encirclement at Nauen, (NW of city), and eventually reached the Olympic Stadium, directly to the west of the Berlin city center. Krukenberg went on to the Reichkanzlei to recieve his orders, leaving his staff behind to rest until needed. [Read & Fisher's recent, "The Fall of Berlin" quote Kuby's work in every respect to this point, leaving the full total at 90 men.] The third, and most detailed account, [though brief], gives a number of some 300 or so Frenchmen that went into Berlin on April 24. This is from an article in the publication "Militaria" (No.17, July 1995). In brief: An order from SS-FHA (SS-Fuhrungshauptamt), AMTII/Org., reads that the German Inspectorate of the French SS Units was to assume the role of Divisional headquarters, based at Carpin (bei Gru(e)nower See). Reduced support units were to be formed (1 signals platoon, 1 engineer, 1 supply, 1 workshop platoon) The bulk of the combat units, some 700 men - to make up a single infantry regiment (Waffen-Grenadier-Rgt. der SS "Charlemagne"), with two 1945 type battalions (numbered 57. & 58.), and one heavy support battalion (which would have comprised 1 anti-tank company, 1 jagdpanzer company, and 1 light anti-aircraft company, had the necessary equipment been available.) The 400 men no longer willing to fight were regrouped into a non-combatant construction battalion (Baubataillon) employed digging fortifications. During the night of April 23/24, 1945, a telegram was sent directly from the Reichskanzlei in Berlin ordering SS-Brif.Krukenberg to make haste for the capital with, (as an advance party), a "Sturmbataillon" to be made up from the one regiment he had. This battalion was quickly put together from combat elements of the 57.Bataillon and from the 6.Kompanie of the 58.Bataillon, (commanded by Waffen-Hauptscharfuhrer Rostaing), to which were added the divisional Kampfschule (battle school) element. These troops set off for Berlin in two light cars and 9 trucks. Because of difficulties along the way, two of the trucks never reached their destination - in the end, between 320 and 330 French officers, NCO's, and grenadiers arrived at their destination on April 24th. On the next day, the Sturmbataillon was reorganized into a reduced headquarters staff under Waffen-Hauptsturmfuhrer Henri Joseph Fenet, and four rifle companies (no.1-4), each comprised of between 60 and 70 men (as well as SS-Obersturmfuhrer Weber's Kampfschule). These units were then tactically attached to the 11.SS-Freiwilligen Pz.Gren.Div."Nordland", which SS-Brif. Krukenberg had just taken command of. Supported by Tiger II's and Sturmgeschutz (assault guns) of the SS-Pz.Rgt.11 "Hermann von Salza" (former schwere[heavy] SS-Pz.Abt.503 ), on the morning of April 26, the bulk of the French Sturmbataillon took part in a counter-attack at Neuko(e)lln, a district S/SE of Berlin city center, in sub-sector C of the so-called "Berlin defense ring". For the French volunteers, rearguard fighting would continue until May 2nd, when the last thirty volunteers were captured near the Potsdamer station. Up to this point, they had destroyed some 60 Soviet tanks with their Panzerfaust. -(this info was provided to Militaria by mssrs. Henri F. & Robert Soulat.)*[1]

According to SS-Brigadefuhrer Dr.Gustav Krukenberg's account, "Kampftage in Berlin" [ms.from Erich Kuby's "The Russians and Berlin 1945"] After arriving in the city proper, he went first from the FHQ bunker, where he spoke with Krebs and Burgdorf; on to Weidling's [Kampfkommandant Berlin] LVI.Pz.Kps HQ at the Bendlerstrasse, where he was instructed to take over the Nordland division from SS-Brif.Jurgen Ziegler, who had become a disciplinary problem for Weidling.*[2] General Weidling explained that the he was no longer in communication with Ziegler, and from the last reporting, the Nordland was somewhere north and east of Tempelhof airfield, in the district of Neuko(e)lln. Krukenberg travelled there, and found Ziegler slumped in the corner of his debris strewn HQ, which had just undergone heavy artillery fire. Ziegler was ordered to return to FHQ at the Reichskanzlei. The fresh French volunteers were called up from the Olympiade Stadion, and immediately undertook local counterattacks at the Hasenheide, in Neuko(e)lln, but pulled back NW through Kreuzberg into defense sector Z (zitadelle) in the Stadt-Mitte (city center) district; fighting at the Potsdamerplatz, and in the area of the Leipzigerstrasse, less than a half-mile from Krukenberg's final HQ, and the Reichskanzlei bunker. Read & Fisher describe their final hours in this manner:

"Five hundred yards from the bunker, in the candlelit train carriage in Stadtmitte U-Bahn station, a curious ceremony was taking place. The train was Krukenberg's command post, and the occasion was the last presentation of one of the Reich's highest military awards, the Knight's Cross. The proud recipient was not German but French: Waffen-Unterscharfu(e)hrer Eugene Vaulot of the Charlemagne Battalion. Vaulot, known as 'the Panzerfaust virtuoso', was the Charlemagne Battalion's star performer. This twenty-year-old former plumber's mate had won his first Iron Cross in Russia. Now, single-handed, he had destroyed eight tanks in the course of two days' fighting, to earn a higher decoration. By the light of candles, and in the presence of his staff and some of Vaulot's comrades, Krukenberg made a speech in French. He said that the bearing of this young volunteer was what the SS had come to expect of French soldiers; men who had won their spurs on battlefields throughout the world. He then hung the cross on its' black, white, and red ribbon, around the young man's neck and gave the Hitler salute. Everyone followed suit. A few minutes later the latest holder of the Knight's Cross left the station to go back to his company, and to his death." *[3] (Read & Fisher "The Fall of Berlin" 1993)

So what was the 'exact' number of Frenchmen in sorrounded Berlin at the end of April 1945? Erich Kuby, using Krukenberg's account notes that: "The 'staff' which Krukenberg had brought with him from Neustrelitz - it was really more of a commando - numbered 90 men." David Littlejohn in his FOREIGN LEGIONS OF THE THIRD REICH vol.1, says that around 500 went into the city for the last battle. Also, Henri F. & R.Soulet make a convincing claim for somewhere around 320 men, which would have been perhaps 50 to 100 more, had two of the vehicles transporting the Frenchmen made it through the closing Soviet corridor, at Nauen, on April 24. Kuby notes that: "The German defenders of Berlin, on the other hand, included representatives of nearly all European nations. These were allocated as special units, and comprised Belgians, Dutchmen, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Galicians, Transylvanians, Swiss, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and what have you. *Most numerous among them were the French and Spanish.* The fact that the French out did all the rest in dash and courage was largely the achievement of their commander, Krukenberg. When still in Neustrelitz, he had his Frenchmen parade before him, and announced that General de Gaulle was in the process of building up a new, free-France, and that whoever felt that in the circumstances he no longer wished to fight on the German side, had but to say so; he would immediately be taken out of active service and put to work on fortifications. Two-thirds of the Frenchmen decided to avail themselves of the offer; and the ninety men who elected to go to Berlin with Krukenberg were, so to speak, volunteers among volunteers, men determined to do battle against the Russians not for Hitler but for the sake of Europe. Egging them on was Monsignore Comte Mayel de Lupe', the Padre of the former Charlemagne Division, and thier spiritual guide; though spiritual is perhaps the wrong word for this man's leadership." *[4]

For all of the myths and legends associated with the "Charlemagne" Division, and the French-SS volunteers who fought at Berlin in the last days of the moribund Reich, this much can be accurately ascertained: The Division Charlemagne did not fight at Berlin; it had been effectively destroyed in Pomerania two months earlier. But a hard-core, heavily armed battlegroup of indeterminate size, who were among the cadre remnants of the division, did go into the dying city at the side of their German commander Krukenberg, whom they seem to have felt a personal alliegance to; and willingly fought and died for a grossly nihilistic ideal, that few of them perhaps ever properly understood.

Sources:

• THE RUSSIANS AND BERLIN, 1945 by Erich Kuby
• FOREIGN LEGIONS OF THE THIRD REICH vol.1 by David Littlejohn
• THE FALL OF BERLIN by Anthony Read & David Fisher
• MILITARIA MAGAZINE No.17, July 1995 - article THE FRENCH STURMBATAILLON IN
• BERLIN by Henri F.& R.Soulet
• THE CAPTIVE DREAMER by Christian de La Maziere

Notes:

1. - Henri F.& R.Soulat, in describing the equipment alloted to the French-SS, note that: "The Sturmgewehr 44, [also] supplied in mid-April to the grenadiers of the 'Charlemagne regiment', was the weapon used by all the men in the battalion who did not man an MG42 machine gun, or a Kar98k with grenade launcher. According to the War Tables-of-issue (KStN - Kriegsta(e)rkenachweisung) for a 1945 type Grenadier-Kompanie, and applied to the new French battalions, only six out of nine sections in a small unit were to be issued with the StG44. At the time of their departure for Berlin on the night of 23/24 April, various trades were made so that all the Kompanies in the Sturmbataillon were equipped with the Sturmgewehr."
2. - At the Seelow Heights, Weidling [as CO of LVI.Pz.Kps.] had waited in vain for Ziegler's NORDLAND, [and the 18.Pz.Grenadier-Div.] to arrive from reserve and help him to stem Zhukov's attack. Ziegler arrived late, explaining that his tanks and vehicles had run out of gas. A livid Weidling severely reprimanded him for this oversight, noting his lack of enthusiasm for taking orders from a non-SS commander. Hitler finally allowed Weidling to relieve Ziegler on 24.April, but the damage had been done. [Ryan's, THE LAST BATTLE notes this episode among his one of only *three* very brief mentions of the Nordland division. Incredibly, he doesn't mention General Krukenberg or the French-SS volunteers at all.]
3. - Christian de La Maziere's account from THE CAPTIVE DREAMER notes the proper form of address and reply protocol within the ranks of the "Charlemagne" : It was the habit of SS-Brigadefuhrer Krukenberg, and his German Inspectorate retinue from the former SS-Sturmbrigade, to enter the room, [or face a congregation of troops], and declare to the assembled ranks : "Heil Schutzstaffel!"; to which the volunteers would be expected to reply: "Heil Hitler!" Among themselves, the former members of the LVF would invariably resort to "Mes respects, mon Capitaine", as an address to superiors, while snickering at the automaton like Waffen-SS salutations. De La Maziere maintains that if nothing else was achieved during their brief divisional forming-up at Wildflecken, that a rigorous inculcation of German command language througout the ranks was undoubtedly accomplished.
4. - Unlike the Wehrmacht, unit Chaplins (feldpfarer, feldbischof, et al.) were not an established norm in the Waffen-SS, an officially self-avowed secular formation. Because the LVF had been a Heeres (Army) unit, Padre Lupe' had an official place in their makeup. When the unit was absorbed into the W-SS, the chaplin retained his office as spiritual counsel for the volunteers. For all of this though, Padre Lupe' reportedly held German military virtures in higher esteem than Christian values, and was fond of swaggering about in his SS uniform, replete with crucifix, pistol, and riding crop. De la Maziere recounts: "Monsiegneur Mayol de Lupe' said Christmas mass. I let myself sink into memories of mangers and candles as if, this evening, I could recapture some of these moments from the past, something of their tenderness. In the riding school nearly two thousand of us were crowded together, for the most part, ex-militiamen, those knights of the Cross who came from upright, honest backgrounds, and who mixed Christ with repression. It was an astounding sight, indeed - these members of the Waffen-SS recieving Communion and singing in Latin! Krukenberg sent his observers, who, though somewhat flabbergasted, could not but admire our Monseigneur at his good work."