When everything came to an end in Berlin in 1945 most people imagine the typical crowd defending Hitler’s bunker to the last. The reality is however that most of these men were actually French. What on earth were these Frenchmen doing here? What is the SS-Charlemagne? Why did Frenchmen choose to fight for Germany? Why fight a doomed cause? What happened to them? This is the full story of the Charlemagne Division.
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Sources:
Tony Le Tissier – SS Charlemagne: The 33rd Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS
Robert Forbes – For Europe
Henri Fenet’s accounts
24 Comments
Couple things!
1) Yes there will be mispronunciations, I am an Englishman covering both French and German history here and we aren't known for our foreign language ability, my apologies.
2) The author I used as a source was using the English equivalent of SS ranks and I didn't even catch on until later on. So some are in German and are SS ranks, other are British. Annoying, I know, will keep my eyes peeled in future! Every book I've used covering the SS before had used the SS ranks so I didn't even think about it.
Merci de redonner la vérité sur la place de la France 🇨🇵🙏
Frightened of Bolshevism. Perfectly understandable.
A VERY, VERY, anoying duck voice ! 🦆
One only needs to know Communism to understand how even fighting for Hitler would be preferred…
Wow. You really, really don’t like Churchill do you ?
I feel like this guy is a closeted nazi/wheraboo
Outstanding information. Awesome
Amazing work!
I thought Leon Degrelle was in the Charlemagne SS until I looked it up today but apparently he was in another unit known as the Walloon.
Crazy how them and the Spanish kept fighting for Berlin instead of trying to cut and run to the American lines
What a superb narration. The story, history itself Is far more than compelling. This is one of the best channels that goes really deep into certain subjects that are told more in passing in other videos except for the ones considered more relevant. But these stories are harrowing and insane how must it have been for everyone involved. Real soldiers shooting each other with a life being extinguished in a second. I must say being killed by a sword must've been horrific suffering and then very hard to even be imagined but knowing a single bullet may instantly send you where we all will go one day and not even see it coming in many cases it's just not only physical but mental torture. Gives me the chills. Great channel really enjoyable
Historical background is a little incomplete: France had been expanding to the cost of Germany over centuries before, starting around 1600… About this time, Academie Francaise had started to bundle all Latin dialects spoken in French kingdom, slowly creating modern French language. An important aspect of nation building according to masonic philosophies of that time, also demanding for domination on neighbouring countries… 😵💫😵💫😵💫
I can only imagine the months of research it must have taken to make a video of this quality on a topic as obscure as this. Your near complete lack of bias really shows and is greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work!
28:16 holy shit
Who remembers the line in the movie "Fury" where a company leader or some such minor officer is giving orders to Brad Pitts character to block a crossroads. The officer asks; why are they still fighting? They have to know they're beat. Pitt asks in return; would you stop fighting? Both give the look saying no, as long as there's an objective and someone giving orders they'd keep fighting. I can't imagine how narrow a focus a soldier has. You probably don't even know the situation of another company in your battalion let alone how the other fronts and theaters fair
People always talk about what if Hitler didn't invade Russia? He would have won. That's like saying what if I don't bring my tennis racket to a match and instead play kickball with 9 year olds on the next court. Russia, the defeat of communism and living space were the reason for war for Hitler. My what if is what if Hitler treated the people in Eastern Europe and all of Europe well. I'd imagine large numbers of the Baltic states, Ukraine even Poland would join the Nazis. Anyone occupied by the Soviets didn't want to go back to that
Your videos truely are a treasure. A rare brilliant gem of thorough informative objective historical documentaries in a sea of biased propaganda. I really really hope they are all saved in totality with multiple back ups in case something happens, they shoukd be reposted on multiple/every site that still allows free speech and thought… the value of these as a true historical record cannot be overstated! Thanks again for what you do! Please keep up the amazing work and please please make sure these are preserved for both future and current generations to watch and learn from…
The French get a lot of shit about being wimps, but they are historically vicious fighters.
Dude we are in 2023. Stop with this "so called crusade against communism". It was a crusade against communism.
Who wrote this tripe Goebbels? The level of empathy for these Nazis in this video is quite appalling.
Hmm…interesting. I subscribe and investigate in a second time.
Full crap
The ww2 consecuencia de tratado de Versalles