Utterly beyond belief the French SS volunteers..madness!

I really find the thought of the French in SS uniforms fighting on the side of the Germans pretty unsavoury whether they believed it was to save Europe from the communist menace or not. I remember watching an Ex French SS volunteer on a TV programme talking about the feeling of having a purpose,belonging to a group and all kinds of rubbish..there he sat with one eye missing and an arm blown off..He said it was to stop the evil of communism sweeping across Europe..didn't it occur to him just how utterly treacherous such an act was to his own people being rounded up by the very same SS? Isn't this where it all really becomes totally unbelievable??!! This man still thinks there was nothing wrong with what he did..even now when the facts are known for all to see and hear.The way he was behaving I would think given the chance he'd don the same uniform and do it again..Don't people ever learn??!!
I can understand to a degree most of the other countries joining in because they were basically not a lot better than the dregs of the SS,but France?! If anyone had a reason to have nothing to do with the SS the French did,but no it appears they answered the call and not just a few either from what I've read..don't get me wrong the majority of French had had enough of the Germans the moment they marched in unwelcome,but the disgraceful amount of French who willingly..not forced..willingly helped the Nazis is appalling in everything from denouncing their own people to rounding up the Jews for the death camps..No amount of decades,centuries or millennium will hide that shameful record from history. As for Marshall Petain..least said about him and his cronies the better.

 

It's not a matter of nationality but a matter of ideology and education. similar volunteers were found in every occupied country.

This may help you to understand why some joined:

"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."

33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I am well aware there had to be those who felt disgusted when they realized the full extent of there involvement with the vile scum in the SS,but a few idiotically carried on with the idea it was righteous and they did nothing wrong..in fact they even believe they were doing their country a favour and the whole of Europe! I'm also aware of other countries even more involved with the Nazis to an even more disgusting degree,but they were aligned with the Nazis in their ideologies..they were just looking for an excuse to start killing on a massive scale..Italy refused to join the genocide from what I heard and due to their intransigence and prevarication many jews were saved,but too many other free loaders,opportunists,criminals and psychotics saw the chance to feed their passions on a grand scale from all over Europe to greater and lesser degrees. I don't want to sound like I'm having a go at just the French,but they of all the European powers to my mind had more reason than most to despise everything Nazism stood for.

 

Sign of the times.....back then. Nationalism was the new order. Many were impressed with Nazi Germany's rise from the ashes. Even more so after defeating what was continental Europe's finest army. Young and impressionable men....can see how being a part of the German Elite would attract them

 

I was thinking of one aspect of this that was of some use..these volunteers served a purpose I suppose apart from obvious cannon fodder for the dying Nazi War machine,they helped slow down in some small degree the progress of the Russians to help the invasion when it came from the Allies.
I'd be interested to know if these volunteers had the idea they were not just saving Europe from a communist menace,but helping her allied friends over turn the Nazi Regime in the long run..by the idea they are saving Europe they are saving their own necks as well as their Nazi masters? Or was it a case of they couldn't care less and whether it helped the Nazis or not wasn't the issue.
When you have no choice,but to sink the fleet of your closest ally because you can't be sure if it'll fall into enemy hands you have to think very carefully about how far you can actual do business with these people..Wasn't it the Vichy French forces we had to subdue invading French North Africa as well not that it was too much of a problem more an annoyance from what I read?

 

Many of the volunteers actually disliked the Germans, but they hated the Russians even more and thought fighting the Bolsheviks would be the only alternative for them.

 

It's still mind boggling to think they hated their oppressors so much they joined them to fight an enemy they hated even worse!
I guess if you consider the fact they saw no alternative it makes some kind of sense.

 

After the war, were they treated the same as the collaborators? I wonder.

 

I believe from a quick scan on the internet Fenet was jailed as a collaborator for 20 years in 1949 and was released in 1959..He died in 2002. It would be interesting to see how many of his fellow SS colleagues got the same treatment if they survived. By all accounts Mr Fenet was highly decorated during his stint with the SS..no slouch on the battlefield and definitely not scared of fighting...I understand most of the division died in the battle of Berlin protecting the Reich Chancellery. None the less he was still marked out as a traitor to his country after the war which to my mind he fully deserved. Under the circumstances and the passion of revenge he's lucky he got only 10 years and not hanged.

 

Sdkfz251, you are looking at things from a 2012 perspective, and not one from the early 1940s. The death camps and Nazi atrocities were not common knowledge then as they are now, and your benefit of hindsight is clouding your view of things when they were living it. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a minute if you can and then maybe you can begin to see things as they did in their time.

 

some were executed without when captured by the Free French at Bad Reichenhall in May 1945.

















Aventures de l'histoire: Le crime de guerre oublié du maréchal Leclerc

the article relates the story in a rahter biased way, but it's quite detailed and the pictures are worth seeing!

 

I remember reading where some Free French officers were interrogating some captured French SS men at the end of the war. The FF officer asked why the captured men were wearing German uniforms. They replied by asking why he was wearing an American uniform. They were shot shortly thereafter.

 

This is happened at Bad Reichenhall A-58.

 

Collaborators or traitors to their country..in days gone by it was the noose or firing squad..I would have much preferred a trial in a just way,you can understand the attitude of the Free French who shot them though..It's strange that these French SS would have no grievance with their home country if they were allowed to go home..they would never have been a threat the only thing they did was fight the Russians they saw as a serious threat to European peace..on behalf of the Germans they hated..it was enough they wore the uniforms of the hated SS though..What a weird situation.
The real craziness to my mind is that a large part of the SS/Gestapo etc found it's way into allied intelligence after the war in an attempt to stop the very communist threat these French SS were fighting against.

 

When called traitors they claimed they had no French blood on their hands and that they only fought the Russians. It is a distinction they wanted to be made with those who betrayed their own fellow countrymen. Also things are not all black and white, some joined for the money, some for the ideology. Some hated the Russians, others liked the Nazis, some both .....


more pics and info here and what about this French Flak soldier in colour ?



deutsch.militaria :: LVF - Charlemagne

 

Not all French necessarily saw the Germans as oppressors. For many, day-to-day life under the occupation was not particularly onerous. There was extensive collaboration, and a lot of people who might not "qualify" as collaborators still got along all right with the Germans.

In France, as in most of Europe, there was considerable bitterness between left and right political parties. Many people had been disillusioned over the past few decades, and many saw strong government as the solution, hence the rise in fascist regimes across the continent. French rightists blamed the left for society's ills in general and for the defeat in 1940. In the 1930s a lot of people, not just in France, thought Hitler was on the right track.

 

In the same way many young left wing volunteers joined the Spanish Republican troops in the 1930s. it was to be expected that some extreme right wing supporters from Europe joined the Germans. Even Spain sent the Legion Azul troops. This being said those who eventually decided to join were a very small minority. For France, Figures for the Charlemagne Legion do not exceed 7.900 men in 1944 (source from wiki link above) ( compared to a population of 38.000.000). It would be interesting to compare these figures with other foreign volunteers (Nederland , Flandern , Viking etc....) or even SS Divisions with Volksdeutsche like the Galicien one.

 

Again sdkfz251, put your mind in 1940 and see things as they did. It's sort of like putting on beer goggles and seeing an oogly b1tch and thinking she's a queen at closing time. It was the thing to do at the time!

 

If you, somehow, think the French were superior - in any way - to other countries then you need to read some more history!
I think the “Majority or French” were ambivalent, as is the case with most people. They just wanted to live their lives and didn’t actively oppose the Germans, nor did they actively support them.
As to French SS there were US Citizens in the SS.

 

I think you misunderstood sdkfz . I think his surprise comes from the fact that the French and Germans had been enemies for such a long time, that any alliance would seem absolutely unnatural and impossible. No-one claims any people is superior to another, neither the Germans, nor the French and certainly not the SS, regardless their nationality .