History 06/02/20 Which foreign Hitler’s troops defending Berlin from the red Army
In recent years, with television increasingly heard mention of that on the side of Nazi Germany fought the representatives of all European countries, and voluntarily. It is emphasized that Berlin and the Reichstag, defended the SS division “Charlemagne”, which consisted of French volunteers. Similar statements apply to all kinds of opposition politicians representing the Communist party, or consider themselves Patriotic wing.
this is nothing new, and, in fact, they just repeat the position of Soviet ideologues of the “cold war” in the early 60-ies. It was then decided to blame USA, UK, France that they are to blame for the outbreak of the Second World war, even more than Hitler himself. This is well illustrated and written at a time literary works, such as, for example, the famous novel by V. Kozhevnikov, “Shield and sword”.
The one who defended Berlin? Guess it is not necessary, as all necessary documents are available to the General public. According to the combat schedule of the troops of the Wehrmacht in Berlin, which you can see in the “Collection of materials on the composition, grouping and regrouping of the ground forces of Nazi Germany and armies of its former satellites” of other nationalities connections there fought the SS division: the 11th “Norland”, 23rd “Netherlands”, 27 “Langemark”. In a popular book by G. Ullambana “the SS — instrument of terror” is mentioned directly in Berlin was the division “Norland”, part of the division “Charlemagne” and 15th (Latvian). All the other foreign SS division acted on other fronts.
These troops fought directly in the center of Berlin, defending key objects such as the Reichstag and the Reich Chancellery. However, the mention of the name so loved by our policiesAMI division “Charlemagne” needs more detailed consideration. According to the historian Lucas Dworzecka, who studied in detail the history of the division “Charlemagne”, the situation was as follows.
the 33rd French SS division “Charlemagne” was formed at the end of the war, and were mostly equipped with French citizens, although it was a lot of international rabble. The command structure was mainly German, and among the representatives of France were mostly carskie the Germans. The division fought a little and at the end of the war he was in Pomerania. After the first battles of the seven thousand people of the original structure, it remains no more than a thousand people. Then the division commander, SS brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg, invited all to go home. Himself with a group of volunteers went to Berlin.
commonly referred to about three hundred people, but this number includes and other SS men were there of their parts. This consolidated unit was called assault battalion “Charlemagne” and became part of SS division “Norland”. Among those names that is known, very much not French, but Italian, Spanish, Dutch. However, French names prove to be very interesting. So the prisoner was Lieutenant of the SS division “Charlemagne”, Serge Krotoff. Actually his name is Sergey Krotov, and he was the son of the former Russian Consul in Madagascar. In the division “Charlemagne” fought Sergei Protopopov, the grandson of the last interior Minister of the Russian Empire. So it’s safe to say that the Waffen-SS who fought in the German capital, was represented by many different nationalities, and the French among them were not in the first place.
She 11th SS division “Norland” was a quite varied composition. Technically it was supposed to be the representatives of Norway, Denmark and Finland, but even in the formation of the division had accumulated enough. So there were a lot of Germans and Volksdeutsche, that is, ethnic Germans from other countries. In the firstYoo all, they were citizens of the countries of Eastern Europe: Poland and Czechoslovakia. However, after losses on the Eastern front, the division joined in Croatia by the local Volksdeutsche, who had been carried and persons of mixed German-Croatian origin. After all these events, to speak with confidence about the ethnic composition of the division “Norland” to the beginning of the fighting in Berlin is impossible. And it is also poured many different composite SS parts. Referred to 15th SS division manned by Latvians fought in the end of the war in West Prussia and Pomerania. Initially, the division recruited Latvians, first volunteers, then introduced universal conscription for all Latvians male. However, after the departure of the Baltic division has added a wide variety of people, many of whom were prisoners of war or deported to work in Germany. Reconnaissance battalion of the division was in Berlin and were assigned to the division “Norland”.
For the defense of Berlin was strapped a lot of remnants of different units, which had a very mixed composition. Among them were many representatives of different nationalities, both from Western and Eastern Europe. Many of them were citizens of the USSR: Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Russian. All of them went along with the Germans, stay on Soviet territory reason for them was no.
Hence we can safely draw two conclusions.
the first Conclusion is that the number of soldiers of the Wehrmacht, defending Berlin could be the practitioners of any of the peoples of Europe.
the Second conclusion is that to determine exactly what percentage of which nationalities were represented in the German army in Berlin can not even approximately.
Cyril Shishkin
Source:
© Russian Seven
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