33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of The SS Charlemagne (1st French) - Defence of Berlin

Defence of Berlin

In early April 1945, Krukenberg now commanded only about 700 men organized into a single infantry regiment with two battalions (Battalions 57 and 58) and one heavy support battalion, without equipment. He released about 400 men to serve in a construction battalion; the remainder, numbering about 350, had chosen to go to Berlin and conduct a delaying action against the approaching Soviet Army.

On 23 April the Reich Chancellery in Berlin ordered Krukenberg to proceed to the capital with his men, who were reorganized as Sturmbataillon ("assault battalion") "Charlemagne". Between 320 and 330 French troops arrived in Berlin on 24 April after a long detour to avoid Soviet advance columns. (The French SS men had been attempting to cross the Falkenrehde canal bridge which was blown up under them by men of the Volkssturm who thought they were a Soviet column). Sturmbataillon Charlemagne was attached to the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the Nordland Division whose "Norge" and "Danmark" Panzergrenadier regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Both equaled roughly a battalion. Brigadeführer Krukenberg was appointed the commander of (Berlin) Defence Sector C on 25 April. This command included the Nordland Division, following the dismissal of its previous commander, SS-Brigadeführer Joachim Ziegler on the same day.

The soldiers noted that the first night in Berlin was unnaturally quiet. They heard people dancing and laughing, but no sounds of fighting were audible except for the occasional distant sound of Soviet artillery. They walked from West to East Berlin, to a brewery near the Hermannplatz. Here the fighting began, with Hitler Youth firing Panzerfausts at Soviet tanks belonging to advance guards near the Tempelhof Aerodrome. Soon some members of the Sturmbataillon joined the Hitler Youth in tank hunting sorties.

Supported by Tiger II tanks and the 11th SS Panzer-Regiment 'Hermann von Salza', the Sturmbataillon took part in a counterattack on the morning of 26 April in Neukölln, a district in southeastern Berlin near the Sonnenallee. The counterattack ran into an ambush by Soviet troops using a captured German Panther tank, although this may have been a 'friendly-fire' incident. The regiment lost half of the available troops in Neukölln on the first day. They later defended Neukölln's Town Hall. Given that Neukölln was heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups, Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermannplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. As the Nordland Division fell back towards Hermannplatz the French SS and one-hundred Hitler Youth attached to their group destroyed 14 Soviet tanks with panzerfausts, and one machine gun position by the Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for 48 hours.

The Soviet advance into Berlin followed a pattern of massive shelling followed by assaults using battle groups of about 80 men each, with tank escorts and close artillery support. On 27 April, after a spirited but futile defence, the remnants of Nordland were pushed back into the centre government district (Zitadelle sector) in Defence sector Z. There Krukenberg's Nordland headquarters was a carriage in the Stadtmitte U-Bahn station. Fighting was very heavy and by 28 April, approximately 108 Soviet tanks had been destroyed in the southeast of Berlin within the S-Bahn. Sixty-two of those were destroyed by the efforts of the Charlemagne Sturmbataillon alone, which was now under the commanded of Henri Joseph Fenet. Fenet and his battalion were given the area of Neukölln, Belle Alliance Platz, Wilhelmstrasse and the Friedrichstrasse to defend.

Fenet, who was now wounded in the foot, remained with his battalion as they withdrew to the vicinity of the Reich Aviation Ministry in the centre government district under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Mohnke. For the success of the battalion during the Battle in Berlin Fenet was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 29 April 1945 by Brigadeführer Mohnke.

On 28 April, the Red Army started a full-scale offensive into the centre sector. Fighting was intense and the Sturmbataillon Charlemagne was in the center of the battle zone around the Reich Chancellery. Unterscharführer Eugene Vaulot, who had destroyed two tanks in Neukölln, used his Panzerfausts to claim six more Soviet tanks near the Führerbunker. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Krukenberg during a candlelight ceremony on a subway platform on 29 April. Vaulot did not survive the battle.

The French Charlemagne SS were the last defenders of Hitler's Führerbunker, remaining at the bunker until 2 May to prevent the Soviets from capturing it on May Day.

Reduced to approximately thirty able men, most members of the Sturmbataillon had been captured or escaped Berlin on their own, or in groups. Most of those who made it to France were denounced and sent to Allied prisons and camps. For example, Hauptsturmführer Henri Joseph Fenet (1919 in Ceyzériat - 2002), one of the last recipients of the Knight's Cross, was sentenced to 20 years of forced labour, and was released from prison in 1959. Others were shot upon capture by French authorities. General Leclerc was presented with a defiant group of 11-12 captured Charlemagne Division men. The Free French General immediately asked them why they wore a German uniform, to which one of them replied by asking the General why he wore an American one (the Free French wore modified US army uniforms). The group of French Waffen-SS men was later executed without any form of military tribunal procedure. For their grave site see Third Reich in Ruins: Memorial Sites.

Not all the survivors of the Division were as unrepentant as post-war Nazi apologists like Fénêt. In Marcel Ophüls' documentary The Sorrow and the Pity Christian de la Mazière, a surviving Charlemagne Sturmbataillon volunteer, was interviewed and asked why he joined the Waffen SS, and whether he regretted having done so. He replied that he was raised in a rightist family before the war, and read right-wing dailies full of alarming news about communist atrocities in the Soviet Union and Spain, and that he fell victim to the racial intolerance prevalent at the time. He openly expressed regret for his actions and acknowledged the shortcomings of the cause for which he had fought.