Obersturmführer Sergei Krotov (far left) among the servicemen of the SS division "Charlemagne" and the French Legion before being shot on May 8, 1945 (fragment, full photo by click)
While being treated in a German hospital in Bavaria after being wounded in the Battle of Berlin, 12 French volunteers were captured by the Americans on May 6 and were placed by them, along with other prisoners, in the barracks of the Alpine shooters in the city of Bad Reichenhall. Upon learning that the Americans were going to hand over the city to the French, they tried to escape, but were detained by an American patrol and issued to the 2nd Free French Armored Division of General Leclerc. To the question of the general about why they, being French, wear someone else's uniform, there was a well-known answer that he himself was wearing an American uniform. By order of Leclerc, all 12 prisoners were shot on May 8 without trial.
The moment of extradition - General Leclerc with his famous cane and an American sergeant
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9GMXndOo9c&feature=pla...
SS Standarten Oberjunker Sergei Protopopov (1923-1945)
Photo taken in February 1943 at the military school of the French Legion
Sergei Protopopov was born into a family of Russian white émigrés in France. In 1943, at the age of twenty, like many other Russians, he joined the French Anti-Bolshevik Legion and was trained at its military school in Montargis near Orleans. In September 1944, the French Anti-Bolshevik Legion was included in the SS, first as a brigade, and from February 1945 as a division, called Charlemagne (Charlemagne). In December 1944, Sergei Protopopov graduated from the SS officer school in Kinschlag.
In February-March 1945, the Charlemagne division lost most of its personnel in heavy fighting with the advancing Red Army in Pomerania. In early April, only 700 people remained in its ranks, of which about 300 volunteered to go to the defense of Berlin. The assault battalion formed from them under the command of Hauptsturmführer Henri-Joseph Fene arrived in the besieged German capital on April 24, 1945. Sergei Protopopov was also part of it.
The Charlemagne battalion, attached to the SS Nordland division, was entrusted with the defense of Sector C. The French volunteers entered the first battle with the advancing Reds on April 26 near the Tempelhof airfield. On April 27, the fighting became especially fierce. During them, Sergei Protopopov personally knocked out five Soviet tanks with faustpatrons and shot down a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft from a MG 42 machine gun. On April 29, the detachment, which included the standard-oberjunker Protopopov, was covered by fire from Soviet mortars on Gendarmenmarkt Square. The Russian volunteer died from multiple shrapnel wounds and was posthumously awarded the Iron Cross First Class for his courage. His comrades-in-arms in the Charlemagne battalion turned out to be the last defenders of the Reich Chancellery bunker, the defense of which they held until May 2.
Interview with Christian de La Mazière and Henri-Joseph Fene and footage from Charlemagne photo chronicle
There was no more hope, there was nothing. Ultimately, life no longer made sense and we no longer cared about life. Absolutely. Only fight. Keep fighting. Loyalty to the end. Loyal to the end...
On the night of April 23-24, 1945, the commander of the SS Charlemagne division Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg received an urgent telegram from the Berlin Reich Chancellery in Neustrelitz with an order to immediately come to the defense of the Reich capital. In the ranks French division, which numbered about seven and a half thousand fighters at the beginning of 1945, by that time no more than 1100 remained. Of those who wished to stop the fight, a labor battalion was created, and of those who decided to fight until the end of three hundred, Krukenberg formed an assault battalion, with which on April 24, nine trucks went to Berlin. In the capital of the Reich, they managed to break through the northwestern suburbs in Nauen a few hours before the Soviet troops completely closed the blockade around the city.
SS-Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg (1888 - 1980)
Upon reaching the Olympic Stadium in Charlottenburg, the French regrouped and replenished their supplies of ammunition from an abandoned Lustwaffe warehouse. The battalion was divided into 4 rifle companies of 60-70 people each and transferred to the command of Hauptsturmführer Henri-Joseph Fene to replace Krukenberg, who was placed at the head of the SS Nordland division, which received the French in its tactical subordination. Following that, the Charlemagne assault battalion, under constant Soviet bombardment, advanced to the east of Berlin in the Neuköln area, where it entered into battle with the advancing Red Army.
After several fierce counterattacks on Hasenheide and the Tempelhof airfield, the French moved west across the Landwehr canal on April 26 and, fighting heavily outnumbered enemy forces in the Kreuzberg area in the following days, gradually retreated to the city center. Last command post The division was located next to the Reich Chancellery in the underground pavilion of the Stadtmitte metro station in a broken carriage lit by candles. On May 1, the French continued to fight at Leipzigerstraße, around the Air Ministry and at Potsdamerplatz. On the morning of May 2, following the announcement of the surrender of the German capital, the last 30 Charlemagne fighters out of 300 who arrived in Berlin left the Reich Chancellery bunker, where no one was left alive except for them.
It is authentically known about the fate of two Russian volunteers from the Charlemagne assault battalion. SS-Standartenoberjunker Sergei Protopopov, grandson of the last Minister of the Interior Russian Empire, died on April 29, defending the approaches to the Reich Chancellery, and was posthumously awarded the Iron Cross for courage at the last award ceremony for distinguished SS men, held at the division headquarters at the Stadtmitte station on the night of April 29-30. SS-Obersturmführer Sergei Krotov, the son of the former Russian consul in Madagascar, after being wounded in a Bavarian hospital, was captured by the Americans, was handed over to the French and shot on May 8 on the orders of General Leclerc, along with 11 other French SS volunteers.
SS-Standartenoberjunker Sergey Protopopov
SS-Obersturmführer Sergei Krotov
So Belle France was trampled on by a Teutonic boot, but some of the locals found this boot to their liking and even taste. It is about such Frenchmen (let's call them collaborators) that we will talk about ...
I want to briefly tell someparts and organizations , Gde French citizens with weapons or with working tools in their hands. They served the Reich. Again, I do not draw any conclusions, but I present the material purely informative.
1. Legion of French Volunteers - Fighters against Bolshevism
On June 22, 1941, the leader of the French fascist party PPF - Parti Populaire Francais, Jacques Doriot (Jacques Doriot, announced the creation of the Legion of French Volunteers to participate in the war against the USSR, and already on July 5, Ribbentrop approved this idea in telegram No. 3555. The leaders of pro-Nazi French organizations created the Central Committee of the Legion of French Volunteers (LVF), under which a recruiting center was founded, once located in the former office of the Soviet travel agency Intourist. More than 13,000 volunteers applied to the committee starting in July 1941. The first combat French unit formed in Poland in September 1941 was called the Franzosischer Infantry-Regiment 638 (French Infantry Regiment 638).2500 legionnaires wore German uniforms with a French tricolor on the right sleeve. I was tricolor French and orders were also given to French. But all volunteers had to take an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Marshal Petain sent a pompous message to the legtoners: “Before you go into battle, I am glad to know that you do not forget that you own part of our military honor”(the old man turned abruptly). On November 6, 1941, the Fuhrer's French from Smolensk went on foot to Moscow, the villages of Dyukovo and Borodino were waiting for them. The battle near Moscow took a heavy toll on legtoners. The total loss of personnel reached 1000 people. German military inspectors reported to the Wehrmacht OKW about the French allies: "People showed, in general, good fighting spirit, but the level of their combat training is low. The sergeants, in general, are not bad, but they do not show activity, since the senior staff does not show efficiency. The officers are not capable of anything and were clearly recruited on a purely political basis. The conclusion was as follows: “The Legion is not combat-ready. Improvement can only be achieved through renewal officers and forced learning. In 1942, the legion was reorganized, brought to the strength of 2700 bayonets and was used only for anti-partisan actions. The descendants of the sans-culottes and the Marquis de La Fayette became ordinary punishers. On June 22, 1944, the legion was sent to the front to cover the German retreat along the Minsk highway, where it suffered heavy losses. The rest of the personnel were poured into the 8th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade France.
2. 8th French Brigade Waffen SS.(SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade France)
Within a month after the battle on the Beaver River, the recruitment of volunteers was activated due to heavy losses in the French units on Eastern Front, in Vichy France, from the collaborationist Militia and university students, about 3,000 more people were recruited. From the remnants of the Legion, these reinforcements created the 8th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade France, the brigade was led by a former officer of the Foreign Legion, Obersturmbannführer Paul Marie Gamory-Dubourdeau (Paul Marie Gamory-Dubourdeau). The brigade was included in the SS division Horst Wessel and sent to Galicia. In the battles against the advancing Red Army, the French suffered heavy losses.
3. Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS Charlemagne. (SS Division Charlemagne)
In September 1944, a new French military unit was created - Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS Charlemagne (französische Nr.1, also known as "Franzosische Brigade der SS") from the remnants of the LVF and the French Sturmbrigade, which had by then been disbanded. The unit was joined by collaborators who fled from the Allied forces advancing from the west, former volunteers from the Kriegsmarine, NSKK, Todt, etc. Some sources claim that the unit included volunteers from the French colonies and Switzerland. In February 1945, the status of the unit was officially raised to the level of a division, which received the name 33. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne", its strength was 7340 people. The division was sent to Poland on the Soviet-German front and on February 25 entered into battle with the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front near the town of Hammerstein (now Czarne, Poland). Then the remnants of the division, which lost 4800 people, were sent to the city of Neustrelitz for reorganization. In early April 1945, about 700 people remained from the division, the division commander Krukenberg seconded 400 people to the construction battalion, and the rest - about 300 people - chose to participate in the defense of Berlin. On April 23, Krukenberg received an order from the clerk's office to arrive with his people in the capital. 320-330 French, bypassing Soviet checkpoints, arrived in Berlin on 24 April. The French unit, called Sturmbataillon "Charlemagne", was seconded to the command of the 11th SS Division Nordland, in which many Scandinavians served. After the removal of the previous commander Joachim Ziegler (Joachim Ziegler), Brigadeführer Krukenberg was appointed Sector Commander. On the first day of fighting, the regiment lost half of its personnel. On April 27, the remnants of the Nordland division were pushed back to the area of government buildings (defense sector Z). Ironically, the French were among last defenders Hitler's bunker ... In total, after the last battles, about 30 French remained alive. Some of them managed to escape from defeated Berlin and return to France, where they ended up in prisoner of war camps controlled by the Allies. They were expected by the court, the death penalty or long prison terms. Many were shot simply without much delay. According to one version of these events, the Free French General Leclerc, faced with a group of 10-12 French SS prisoners of war, asked them why they were wearing German military uniforms. According to some testimonies, they answered him: “Why are you wearing an American one?” The witty SS men were shot on the spot. However, they shared the fate of many SS-Waffen soldiers and officers who suffered this fate on the Soviet-German and Western fronts, where they were often not treated with ceremony. soviet soldiers, nor the Anglo-Americans or, even more so, the Poles. The SS was seen primarily as punishers. Regardless of the color of the uniforms.
4. Bretonishe Waffenverband der SS "Bezzen Perrot"
The nationalist party PNB (Parti National Breton), seeking independence from "colonial France", was favorably received by the Germans. Under the SD, the Bezen Perrot (Perrot Group) division was created, registered by the Germans under the name Bretonishe Waffenverband der SS. 80 volunteers were recruited there. They began to wear the SS uniform and the Celtic cross as a patch. The unit took part in operations against French partisans starting in March 1944. Subsequently, they were included in the special detachments of the SD.
5. 21st Panzer Division (21 Panzer Division)
In the technical park of the 21st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, there were about 50 French trucks and a number of Somua and Hotchkiss armored vehicles. For their maintenance, French mechanics were required. The 2nd company of the Werkstattkompanie (supply, repairs) consisted of 230 French volunteers who did not have any patches on their German uniforms indicating their nationality.
6. Division Brandenburg
Division Brandenbourg (formerly regiment) - was a special reconnaissance and sabotage unit of the Abwehr.
In 1943, the 8th company of the 3rd regiment was formed from 180 French, stationed in Eaux-Bonnes at the foot of the Pyrenees (Southwestern France). Operating in southern France, the company imitated resistance units using captured radio stations and intercepted many transports of weapons and war materials, which led to numerous arrests. The company also took part in the battles against the forces of the Resistance, which went down in history under the name Battle of the Vercors (June-July 1944). According to the historian Vladimir Krupnik, in these battles, significant forces of Germans and collaborators (more than 10,000 people) suppressed a major partisan action on the isolated Vercors mountain plateau, responding to de Gaulle's call to support the Allied landing in Normandy. Of the 4,000 partisans who took part in the fighting, 600 were killed).
7. German Navy (Kriegsmarine)
In 1943, the Kriegsmarine opened recruitment centers in several major French ports. Volunteers were enrolled in German units and wore German military uniform no extra patches.
The German report of February 4, 1944 on the number of Frenchmen working in the ports of Brest, Cherbourg, Lorient and Toulon at the bases of the Kriegsmarine, gives the following figures: 93 officers, 3,000 non-commissioned officers, 160 engineers, 680 technicians and 25,000 civilians. In January 1943, the Germans began to recruit 200 volunteers for guard duty at the naval base in La Rochelle. The unit was called Kriegsmarinewerftpolizei "La Pallice" and was commanded by Lieutenant Rene Lanz, a World War I and LVF veteran. On June 30, 1944, the German command of the La Rochelle base gave the French volunteers a choice: to remain guarding the base or join the SS-Waffen. A similar offer was made to other Frenchmen who were serving in the Kriegsmarine at the time. About 1,500 of them were transferred to Greifenberg, where they joined the SS division Charlemagne.
8. Organization Todt (OT)
In France, OT was busy building submarine bases and coastal fortifications. 112,000 Germans, 152,000 French and 170,000 North Africans participated in the work. Approximately 2,500 French volunteers served in the armed protection of construction sites after training in the town of Celle Saint Cloud near Paris. At the end of 1944, a certain number of the French were transferred to the construction of coastal facilities in Norway. Several hundred of them were sent to Greifenberg, where they joined the SS division Charlemagne.
9. NSKK (Nationalsocialistische Kraftfahrkorps) Motorgruppe Luftwaffe (Luftwaffe logistics unit).
The NSKK had about 2,500 Frenchmen who served with the 4th NSKK Regiment in Vilvorde, Belgium. The non-commissioned officers of the regiment were represented by the Alsatian Germans. In early 1943, the regiment took part in the fighting near Rostov. In 1944, a battle group was formed from among the French who served in the NSKK, which took part in anti-partisan operations in northern Italy and Croatia. In July 1943, 30 French NSKK soldiers, led by a man named Jean-Marie Balestre, deserted and joined the SS-Waffen. Most of them fought in the SS-Waffen until the end of the war.
10. African Phalanx (Phalange Africaine)
On November 14, the idea of creating a unit of Africans (African Phalange) was proclaimed in Paris. In December, the German occupation authorities approved the plan and scheme material support divisions. 330 volunteers were recruited, from which, after training, they formed a company of 210 people called Franzosische Freiwilligen Legion, which was included in the 2nd battalion of the 754th regiment of the 334th Panzer-Grenadier Division (5 Panzerarmee). On April 7, 1943, the company entered the battle against the British (78th Infantry Division) in the Medjez-El-Bab area. The Africans showed themselves well, and the German General Weber presented Iron Crosses to several servicemen. After 9 days, the allies launched a general offensive in this sector. Under artillery fire, the Phalanx lost half of the people killed and wounded in one hour ... 150 surviving Africans were captured after the fall of Tunisia, while ten of those captured by the Gaullists were shot, the rest were sentenced to long prison terms. About 40 Falangists, who were lucky enough to be captured by the Anglo-Americans, were later enrolled in Free French units and ended the war victorious in Germany ...
Materials used in the article frombooksJ . Lee Ready . World War II. Nation by Nation. 1995
Wolfgang Akunov
Oleg Cherkassky - as a sign of deep respect
"My beloved wife,
Sergei Krotov.
(From the last letter of Sergei Krotov to his wife).
After the attack of the German Wehrmacht on the USSR in June 1941, calls were made in France to take part in the deadly struggle that flared up in the east of Europe, which, according to French anti-communists, did not concern only Germany. On August 5, 1941, with the consent of the French government, the "Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism" was formed, also known as the "French Volunteer Legion against Bolshevism" or the "French Anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Legion" (Legion des Volontaires Francais contre le Bolchevisme), abbr.: LVF. Enrolled in the ranks of the German Wehrmacht, this one consisted exclusively of the French (or rather, of French citizens, including numerous Russian white émigrés, including veterans civil war 1917-1922 in Russia) the volunteer corps received the name of the "638th Regiment of the Ground Forces" (German: Infanterieregiment 638 des Heeres) as part of the Wehrmacht.
Young people predominated among the LVF volunteers (as an exception, even 15-year-olds were taken into the Legion - see the photo in the title of this military-historical miniature), but there were also older people who had the experience of the First World War (and some also the experience of the Civil War of 1918-1922 in Russia, the French colonial wars in Syria and Morocco, and even the short "strange war" of France with Germany 1939-1940 gg.).
The French LVF volunteers wore the German army uniform in grey-green "feldgrau". Their only difference from other military personnel of the German Wehrmacht was a sleeve shield with three vertical stripes in the colors of the French national (state) flag - the "Tricolor" (blue, white and red). The only soldier of the French Volunteer Legion who did not want to wear this stripe of the colors of the French Republic and the Bonapartist Empire was the confessor of the legion, Cardinal Monsignor Count Jean Mayol de Lupe, who adhered to strong royalist convictions and hated the French Republican blue-white-red flag no less than the hammer and sickle red flag of world communism. The royalist prelate managed to obtain from the High Command of the Wehrmacht (and later, after joining the Waffen SS, from the Main Office of the SS) the right to wear on the sleeve a special patch with gold lilies of the French royal dynasties of Capet, Valois and Bourbon on a blue field. However, this was a special case.
Having joined the ranks of the German Wehrmacht, the "Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism" received the name "638th Infantry Regiment (French)". In November 1941, the regiment, also referred to as the "Tricolor Regiment" (French: Regiment Tricolore), as part of the 7th Wehrmacht Infantry Division, took part in the battle near Moscow. The author of these lines, while still a student, back in 1972, being sent for autumn agricultural work ("labor semester", and colloquially - "for potatoes") in the village of Vaulino, for the first time heard from a local old collective farmer about how in the forty-first they had a French unit german army, in which ... Russians also served. One of the Russian officers of the French part of the German army, according to the old man, lodged in his parents' hut and often told them about his life in tsarist Russia, "under the old regime". However, this is so, by the way ...
Already on March 3, 1943, the recruitment of French volunteers into the ranks of the Waffen SS began. It should be emphasized that (as before - service in the German Wehrmacht) service in the Waffen SS was completely officially allowed to the French by a special decree of the French government of July 22, 1943. On September 18, 1943, the formation of the French SS volunteer regiment / 1 / began, which later grew to the size of the "French SS Volunteer Assault Brigade". The field of participation of the 1st battalion of the French SS brigade in battles with Soviet troops on the Sanok sector of the Carpathian Front in August 1944, the French brigade was replenished with new volunteer contingents, including the personnel of the German Wehrmacht disbanded by that time "French Volunteer Legion" (included in the brigade on August 10, 1944), as well as the French ranks of the Waffen SS (who had previously served in the SS individually), French volunteers of the German navy("Kriegsmarine"), Organization Todt (OT), French militia. After replenishment, the French SS brigade was reorganized into the 33rd Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS "Charlemagne" / 3 / (as it was officially called from February 10, 1945).
French Waffen SS volunteers wore the usual SS field uniform. Their only difference was the shield of the colors of the French state (national) flag - "Tricolor" (three vertical stripes - blue-white-red) sewn on the left sleeve. Unlike the armored shield of LVF volunteers, in the black “chapter” (that is, in the black vertical strip in the upper part of the coat of arms) of the heraldic shield of the French SS men (they usually “inhabitants”, on the left sleeve - unlike volunteers of the Wehrmacht who wore their national shields on the right sleeve) in most cases (although not always) were made by white printed literal mi inscription "France". On black SS buttonholes, the "Charlemagne" wore either the common SS double rune "Sig" ("Sovulo", "Sovelu", "Sol"), or the image of the "solar (Celtic) cross" (a cross inscribed in a circle), also white. The ranks of the SS division "Charlemagne", who previously served in the French militia, wore a special sign on their buttonholes - "the sword of St. Joan (Joan of Arc)" framed by two oak leaves.
The king of the Germanic tribe of the Franks, who took possession at the end of the 5th century. n. R.H. the Roman province of Gaul, Charlemagne, in 800 was crowned by the pope with the crown of the Roman emperor and founded the so-called "Holy Roman Empire" (Sacrum Imperium Romanum), covering the territory of later France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, parts of Italy and some other states medieval Europe. Since Charlemagne - in French Charlemagne (Charlemagne from the Latin Carolus Magnus) was considered a great sovereign (comparable to our Vladimir the Red Sun) in both German and French historical traditions, the emblem of the SS division "Charlemagne" (French No. in the town hall of Frankfurt am Main, a portrait of Charlemagne by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer).
In February 1945, the Charlemagne division entered into battle with units of the Red Army on the territory of the German region of Pomerania. Its units fought with the Soviet troops until the end of the war. The SS assault battalion "Charlemagne" defended Berlin to the last drop of blood. During the battles for Berlin, the French SS commander of the assault battalion of the 33rd SS Grenadier Division "Charlemagne" (French No. 1), Hauptsturmführer Henri Fene (who managed to knock out eight tanks from the Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade launcher), Untersturmführer Eugene Volo (who also destroyed eight tanks) and about Berscharführer Francois Appollo (who had six enemy tanks on his account). The total number of Soviet tanks destroyed in the battles for Berlin by the fighters of the assault battalion "Charlemagne" was, according to some sources, 62, and according to others - "more than 60").
May 8, 1945, after the signing of the act of unconditional surrender Nazi Germany, in the area of the German resort town of Bad Reichengall, thirteen young French volunteers from the Gershe regiment / 4 / (former SS Charlemagne division) were shot without trial or investigation, by order of the French General Leclerc, commander of the 2nd Panzer Division of "Fighting (de Gaulle - V.A.) France". French volunteers of the Waffen SS (including one of our compatriots - the Russian Waffen-Standartenunker SS Sergei Krotov, commander of a battery of anti-tank guns; he was not the only Russian in the ranks of the French volunteers - history has preserved the names of the Waffen-Scharführer SS Nikolai Shumilin, a veteran of the LVF and commander of the 4th platoon of the 1st battalion of the 58th Waffen-Grenadier Regiment of the SS "Shar Leman", LVF veteran and commander of the 4th company of the SS assault battalion "Charlemagne" of the SS Waffen-Standartenführer Sergei Protopopov, Alexei Pronin, SS Waffen-Obersturmführer Yevgeny Pikarev, SS Waffen-Untersturmführer Nikolai Samosudov and others) / 5 /, who fought mainly on the Eastern Front and did not shed a drop of their blood French fellow citizens, having laid down their arms on the day of surrender, surrendered to the Americans, but were handed over by the warriors of "Uncle Sam" to the Leclerc division that had pulled itself up (equipped, like all the troops of General de Gaulle, in American military uniform).
General Leclerc, leaning on a stick, walked in front of the French SS, after which he asked one of them: "Why are you wearing German uniforms?" The answer of the prisoner of war was in no way inferior to the question: "My general, why are you wearing an American uniform"?
As you can see, Leclerc (unlike other Frenchmen) had absolutely no sense of humor. Not appreciating the comedy of the situation, the brave de Gaulle general immediately ordered the execution of not only the impudent prisoner, but also twelve of his comrades in arms. The bodies of the executed lay unburied at the place of execution for three days. The French military priest who was present at the conversation and execution did not take care not only of the spiritual consolation of the young men before the execution, but also of their not only Christian, but even more or less human burial. Finally, after three days, the dead were "buried in the earth's globe" by order of the American military authorities.
The author of the book happened to visit Bad Reichenhall. In the vicinity of the town, many years after the war, a modest memorial was erected in honor of those killed. To date, it has been possible to establish the names and surnames of only 5 of these victims of the bloodthirsty French military justice. These are the names:
Paul Briffaut, Robert Doffa, Sergei (Serge) Krotov, Jean Robert, Raymond Payra, and eight unknown soldiers.
According to the memoirs of Lieutenant of the Armed Forces of the "Free French" Ferrano, who commanded the execution, the convicts behaved courageously.
True, just before the execution, Sergei Krotov lost his nerve and said: "You have no right to shoot me! I'm married! After all, I'm not even a Frenchman!" However, then he pulled himself together and held on courageously to the end, having managed to shout before his death: "Long live France!" (Vive la France!)
In a last letter to his wife Simone (the mother of his five children), Krotov wrote:
"My beloved wife,
I did my duty by fighting the Bolsheviks and the atheists. This morning I surrendered to the Americans, the French soldiers are leading me to be shot. My dear wife, forgive me, take care that our children remember that their father was always just and loved them very much. My dear wife, my dear Simone, I kiss you with all my heart, kiss my poor mother and children. Always believe in God and forgive the evil that is unjustly done to us. Goodbye,
Sergei Krotov.
Soon after the execution, the burial place of the "Charlemagne" was consecrated by Monsignor Jean Count Mayol de Lupe.
The surviving French Waffen SS volunteers were sentenced in France to lengthy prison terms, and many death penalty for treason. Those who were even less fortunate fell victims of extrajudicial reprisals. Some veterans of the "Charlemagne" managed to atone for their guilt before their homeland, fighting in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion against the national liberation movements of the former French colonies, in vain attempts to suppress the legitimate desire of the oppressed peoples of Indochina, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, which enjoys the support of the countries of victorious socialism, the international communist movement and all progressive mankind, to free themselves from French colonial rule.
Their names are not forgotten - including by Russian poets. The fate of the French volunteers inspired, for example, our contemporary skald Yevgeny Bobolovich to make the Charlemagne rondelle, which we present below:
RONDEL CHARLEMAGNE
Storms sweep away Charlemagne
But their glory flies above the mountains.
The Celtic oak grove also sings
That it is not a pity to fall in battle,
Beyond the horizon and vertical.
Aryan sagas lava hardens ...
Storms sweep away Charlemagne
But their glory flies above the mountains.
Christ is with you companion - stand up!
And the death of the path is only the beginning
But sorrow is as light as a veil...
And embraced sadness like ice
Storms sweep away Charlemagne
Evgeny Bobolovich.
