The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (French: Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme, or simply Légion des Volontaires Français, LVF) was a collaborationist French militia founded on July 8, 1941.Ultimately, the remainder of the French collaborationist forces were combined into the SS Charlemagne Division. After the war, most of the officers were hanged by the French government.
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It volunteered to fight against the USSR on the Eastern Front. It was officially known to the Germans as Infantry Regiment (Infanterieregiment) 638.
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In October 1941, a French infantry regiment (638th), 2,452 men strong, crossed the frontier of the Soviet Union as part of the foreign contingent of the German invasion force. They were sent to combat in december 41 around Moscow. They suffered heavy losses and were soon retired from the front, while a third battalion were created in France to compensate the losses.
Weird. Now France had been home to a bunch of fascist movements from the late 1800s. Action Francaise was perhaps the biggest, but was by no means the only one. So I guess it wasn't surprising that you'd find enthusiastic Nazis there during the war; that they'd don the uniforms of les bosches is what kind of floored me.
8 comments:
National Socialists are all a bunch of liars. If they were really against Bolshevism they wouldn't have forgiven Hitler for his 1939-1941 alliance with Stalin. (After all, the American right have never forgiven Roosevelt for his alliance with Stalin; why should Hitler get all the beneficial lacunae?)
Then again, if National Socialists had any dignity or integrity they would still be mad at Hitler for having given all of central Europe to Stalin just by losing. And they'd also be mad at Hitler for having provided the race Marxists such excellent anti-White propaganda.
But if they had any dignity or integrity, they never would have become socialists in the first place. All socialists should don the stahlhelm, pack a Walther pistol, and figure out how to get more Muslims to fight for their foreign-born (yet very very "nationalist"!) Fuhrer.
Collaborators are a strange breed. Sometimes they're just going along to get along, but I'm sure there are other times when they consider the current government the enemy and welcome the invaders. But it sounds like this bunch really didn't like Communists if they were willing to take on another country's uniform and travel over 1500 miles to fight them.
Don't forget that many so-called 'French' citizens in the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had been German citizens between 1870 and 1919. Those provinces had been captured and annexed by Prussia in its war with France, and they were re-annexed by France at the Peace of Versailles after World War I. As a result, when Germany re-re-annexed them after the fall of France in 1940, it regarded all male citizens of Alsace and Lorraine as 'liberated Germans', and conscripted them.
(Guy Sajer was perhaps the best-known of these men: see his remarkable autobiography, 'The Forgotten Soldier'. It's worth reading.)
There were, of course, collaborators in the rest of France, some of whom volunteered for service. The same occurred in Norway (the Panzergrenadier Division Nordland), Holland (Panzergrenadier Division Nederland), Belgium (Panzergrenadier Division Wallonien), and other occupied nations.
Why would you be surprised? There are plenty of Really, Really Smart(tm) people that just know better. They understand how stupid the masses are and how important selecting the right dictator. To them it was clear that Stalin was the wrong dictator and Hitler the right one.
Ask around. I'm sure you'll find quite a few super intelligent people who are convinced that we should become China or something. How's that any different?
The Left are all the same. Nazis, Communists, they're just two sides of the same coin. They only hate each other because they can't agree on who is going to be in charge once freedom is destroyed.
A lot of people from ALL countries fought with the Axis including from the USA. This doesn't surprise me at all and it's been common knowledge for years.
However ask yourself was the American Eagle Squadron hero's or collaborators with the British empire. While the USA remained neutral.
Peter @ 11:39 beat me to the Guy Sajer reference. With him, it was partly a case of a 17-year-old admiring the macho, victorious Germans and wanting to be one of them.
And, as mentioned, he lived in a border area that had more German influence than the rest of France.
But the Nazis were able to recruit many soldiers from Norway (SS Wiking), the Netherlands, and France with the line of "Stop Bolshevism, Save European Civilization."
Wonderful, isn't it: "Stop Bolshevism, become a National Socialist!"
It makes more sense than the modern equivalent, which is
"remember those dirty Nazis? The guys who we crushed into powder all those years ago? You can prove how much you hate people who slaughtered millions of Jews by becoming a Communist. Try not to trip on that Kulak/Hoarder/Wrecker/Counterrevolutionary's body on your way to the sign up table."
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