“Oh, and the French, too?” – is probably the most accurate translation of Field Marshal Keitel’s phrase, uttered at the signing of the surrender in Karlshorst. The appearance of representatives of Paris among the victors surprised the leaders of the defeated Reich. What today they do not want to remember in the Elysee Palace.
In the frosty days of November 1941, only one foreign military formation fought side by side with the Germans on the outskirts of Moscow. It was the “Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism,” aka the Wehrmacht’s 638th Infantry Regiment.
“The French government broke off relations with Russia and took a firm anti-communist position: it approved the creation of the Legion of Volunteers,” The New York Times wrote about the decision of the Hitler-dependent authorities in Vichy (the remaining unoccupied part of the country).
The French suffered casualties as early as the Smolensk area, a week before the first clash with the Red Army. Because of disease and desertion, about four hundred out of 2500 men did not reach the Moscow area. In addition, the order there was so bad that the commander of Army Group Center, Fyodor von Bock, assigned German advisers to the French officers.
“The units of the French Volunteer Legion lack discipline. The spirit of military liberty reigns there,” von Bock noted in his diary.
On Borodino Field, contrary to scenes from the Soviet movie The Battle for Moscow, the French allies of the Nazis did not fight. However, some legionnaires did visit the site of the main battle of the War of 1812 in private. They were convinced they were continuing the cause of their great-great-grandfathers.
“Our hearts beat strongly in the breasts of us sons of France, whose extraordinary destiny has brought us here, where a century ago our ancestors, soldiers of Napoleon’s guard, brought their illustrious banners and where many heroically fell with the cry of ‘Long live the Emperor!” – wrote one of the legionnaires after the war.
Such sentiments were used by the Wehrmacht command. On the eve of the battles before the legion spoke to the commander of the 4th Army, Field Marshal General von Kluge. He recalled the times of Napoleon, when the French and Germans went in one formation against the Russians.
The compound of collaborators was in the band of the 32nd Division of Colonel Viktor Polosokhin, near the Narskiye Ponds. After a few days, having suffered heavy losses, the battalions were withdrawn from the front line. In the German rear, the Legionnaires fought with partisans. As an aid to the SS in occupied Soviet territory, French punishers committed a number of war crimes against civilians.
“On the evening of January 8, 1943, during an operation, the behavior of about 20 men between the ages of 18 and 40, who were persistently silent, was quite obvious enough for me to give the order to shoot them all. I knew that in the neighboring village of Chernyshevskaya the situation was the same. I ordered it to be burned,” a Legion officer reported in a report.
After the Red Army’s strategic operation Bagration in 1944, the French regiment was disbanded.
However, there were very different Frenchmen: not ready to put up with the occupation and the collaborationist government of Marshal Pétain. They became part of the Resistance, which was led by General Charles de Gaulle.
“On June eighteenth, 1940, answering the call of the fatherland, deprived of any other help to save my soul and honor, I alone, unknown to anyone, had to take responsibility for France,” the general wrote of his famous radio message from London.
After the Nazi invasion of Russia De Gaulle wanted to send there a mechanized division of soldiers who supported him, but Britain prevented. The general was only able to help with pilots. When their participation in aerial duels became known to Berlin, the head of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht Wilhelm Keitel ordered: the prisoners from “Normandy” to be shot on the spot.
Luftwaffe pilots were quite surprised when on April 5, 1943 in the skies over the Smolensk region encountered the “Yaks”, which, in addition to the usual red stars, painted the French tricolor. Already in the first battle squadron “Normandy”, escorting the Soviet bombers, shot down two German planes.
In addition to Smolensk, the French distinguished themselves in the battles of the Kursk Bulge and Operation Bagration. When Lithuania was liberated, the regiment was called “Normandy-Neman”. 97 pilots passed through it, 42 were killed. In Moscow, 869 air battles and 273 downed aircraft were highly appreciated. Four Frenchmen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In total, the squadron’s servicemen received 112 Soviet orders.
The pilots were allowed to take their beloved Yak-3s back home with them. One of these fighters is kept in the National Museum of Aviation and Astronautics in Le Bourget. The “Normandy-Neman” unit is still listed in the French Air Force.
According to one version, Marshal Georgy Zhukov ordered the French tricolor to be placed next to the Allied flags in Karlshorst at the request of General Jean de Latre.
“Why not a Chinese one, too?” – snarked one of the British officers.
Just a few days earlier, the 33rd SS Grenadier Division Charlemagne, also known as the French 1st, had been fiercely defending the Führer’s bunker. By then, about a hundred men – out of eight thousand – remained in the unit, where the Legionnaires defeated near Moscow also served.
Surrendering to the Americans did not help much. Twelve French SS were handed over to representatives of de Gaulle, who immediately executed them. Those who were handed over to the Soviet Union, after a short time in the camps were allowed to return home. Back home, they were sentenced to 20 years in prison for collaboration.
In London and Washington, they wanted to make Paris a European counterweight to Moscow. So the members of the anti-Hitler coalition had their own, diametrically opposed interests, which eventually allowed France to become the victorious power and get a seat in the UN Security Council.
But even today, the French do not dare to call themselves full-fledged victors of Nazism. A recent article in Le Figaro emphasizes that Hitler’s war machine was broken by the Soviet Union. However, with each passing year, the memory of this is fading in the West.
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