SS Charlemagne: The 33rd Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS

More French volunteers continued to arrive to swell the numbers at Carpin, as well as returning wounded and various trainees and specialists that had been detached on various courses, and by early April the Charlemagne could muster about 1,000 men. However, there were some serious problems of morale, with contentions between the factions within the ranks, and some lapses in discipline that led to several men being executed by firing squad for offences such as desertion and looting.

Orders for the men of the Charlemagne to work on the constructions of field fortifications and anti-tank ditches brought a wave of discontent and the newly promoted Captain Fenet was only able to get his men’s cooperation in this matter by setting a personal example.

Then Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, in consultation with SS-Major-General Krukenberg, decided that the Division should be reorganised and split into combatant and non-combatant elements. Those who did not wish to fight to the very end would be disarmed and formed into a Construction Battalion. When Krukenberg put this to the troops with words: ‘I only want volunteers. You may abandon the armed fight. You will remain in the SS, but as workers. I only want to have combatants with me now.’

One officer and around 400 men, mainly former Miliciens, opted for the Construction Battalion, while all of the 80-strong Compagnie d’Honneur, some three-quarters of Captain Fenet’s Batallion 57, chose to fight on, as did about half of Géromini’s Batallion 58. Much against his will, Captain Roy was appointed commander of the Construction Battalion. Géromini, a contentious Corsican character, became a company commander in the Construction Battalion, which was then quartered in the village of Drewin away from the combatant element.

On 10 April the 100 survivors of the Battalion Martin rejoined the Charlemagne following their adventures at Gotenhafen. Another 1,200 troops under SS-Lieutenant-Colonel Hersche were expected from Wildflecken, which they had left on foot on the night of the 30/31 March. Also expected were the men of the Assault Gun Company that had been training in Bohemia-Moravia, now without their Hetzers that had been appropriated by Army Group Schörner en route, so they would have to fight as infantry.

Meanwhile, back in France a provisional government had been established under General de Gaulle on 30 August 1944, while Marshal Pétain’s Vichy Government had been forcibly removed to Sigmaringen by the Germans, who forbade all contact with the Charlemagne. These factors could not be other than a source of constant concern and unrest among the troops with regard to their status and future.

Chapter Seven Berlin–Neukölln

The story of the Charlemagne‘s battalion in Berlin is told mainly in the words of their commander and their divisional commander recorded individually several years after the events described.

SS-Major-General Krukenberg recalled:

During the night of Monday 23rd to Tuesday 24th April 1945 at about 0400 hours in the morning I received two telephone calls coming respectively from the Waffen-SS Personnel Office near Fürstenberg and Headquarters Army Group Weichsel near Prenzlau, ordering me on behalf of the OKW to go quickly to Berlin and take over command of the 11th SS Panzer Division Nordland as a replacement for General Ziegler, who had been relieved on health grounds.

As soon as I arrived in Berlin I was to present myself to General Krebs, the Army Chief of Staff, and to SS-General Fegelein, the Waffen-SS liaison officer, both in the Chancellery.

Because of previous experience, I asked authority to bring with me part of my normal staff and an accompanying detachment of about 90 men. These two requests were agreed by Army Group who laid down the route via Oranienburg and Frohnau as the best way, being still free of the enemy.

I set up the accompanying detachment with volunteers, preferably those with anti-tank experience and gave command of it to Captain Fenet, who had been decorated with the EK I [Iron Cross First Class] and promoted for his conduct in Pomerania. The place and time of departure of the column, two buses and three trucks, was fixed by me for 0830 hours on the 24th April at the southern exit of Alt Steglitz.

This was the same time that Marshal Rokossovsky’s army group (2nd Byelorussian Front) launched a new and powerful attack, gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Oder held by Army Group Weichsel, to which the Division belonged, pressing a new and last engagement for the Charlemagne. Berlin was three-quarters surrounded by the Russian army groups of Zhukov and Koniev, and its impending complete investment boded no delay.