Then Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, in consultation with SS-Major-General Krukenberg, decided that the Division should be reorganised and split into combatant and non-combatant elements. Those who did not wish to fight to the very end would be disarmed and formed into a Construction Battalion. When Krukenberg put this to the troops with words: ‘I only want volunteers. You may abandon the armed fight. You will remain in the SS, but as workers. I only want to have combatants with me now.’
One officer and around 400 men, mainly former Miliciens, opted for the Construction Battalion, while all of the 80-strong Compagnie d’Honneur, some three-quarters of Captain Fenet’s Batallion 57, chose to fight on, as did about half of Géromini’s Batallion 58. Much against his will, Captain Roy was appointed commander of the Construction Battalion. Géromini, a contentious Corsican character, became a company commander in the Construction Battalion, which was then quartered in the village of Drewin away from the combatant element.
On 10 April the 100 survivors of the Battalion Martin rejoined the Charlemagne following their adventures at Gotenhafen. Another 1,200 troops under SS-Lieutenant-Colonel Hersche were expected from Wildflecken, which they had left on foot on the night of the 30/31 March. Also expected were the men of the Assault Gun Company that had been training in Bohemia-Moravia, now without their Hetzers that had been appropriated by Army Group Schörner en route, so they would have to fight as infantry.
Meanwhile, back in France a provisional government had been established under General de Gaulle on 30 August 1944, while Marshal Pétain’s Vichy Government had been forcibly removed to Sigmaringen by the Germans, who forbade all contact with the Charlemagne. These factors could not be other than a source of constant concern and unrest among the troops with regard to their status and future.
Chapter Seven
Berlin–Neukölln
The story of the Charlemagne‘s battalion in Berlin is told mainly in the words of their commander and their divisional commander recorded individually several years after the events described.
SS-Major-General Krukenberg recalled:
During the night of Monday 23rd to Tuesday 24th April 1945 at about 0400 hours in the morning I received two telephone calls coming respectively from the Waffen-SS Personnel Office near Fürstenberg and Headquarters Army Group Weichsel near Prenzlau, ordering me on behalf of the OKW to go quickly to Berlin and take over command of the 11th SS Panzer Division Nordland as a replacement for General Ziegler, who had been relieved on health grounds.
As soon as I arrived in Berlin I was to present myself to General Krebs, the Army Chief of Staff, and to SS-General Fegelein, the Waffen-SS liaison officer, both in the Chancellery.
Because of previous experience, I asked authority to bring with me part of my normal staff and an accompanying detachment of about 90 men. These two requests were agreed by Army Group who laid down the route via Oranienburg and Frohnau as the best way, being still free of the enemy.
I set up the accompanying detachment with volunteers, preferably those with anti-tank experience and gave command of it to Captain Fenet, who had been decorated with the EK I [Iron Cross First Class] and promoted for his conduct in Pomerania. The place and time of departure of the column, two buses and three trucks, was fixed by me for 0830 hours on the 24th April at the southern exit of Alt Steglitz.
This was the same time that Marshal Rokossovsky’s army group (2nd Byelorussian Front) launched a new and powerful attack, gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Oder held by Army Group Weichsel, to which the Division belonged, pressing a new and last engagement for the Charlemagne. Berlin was three-quarters surrounded by the Russian army groups of Zhukov and Koniev, and its impending complete investment boded no delay.
At 0030 hours on the 24th April, I received the order by telegram to form an assault battalion with the remains of the Division and to direct this unit urgently upon Berlin, where I was to present myself at the Chancellery.
This Storm Battalion was formed from three companies of Battalion 57 (plus one from Battalion 58) and reinforced by the divisional combat school (Compagnie d’Honneur). The majority of the divisional headquarters also left with the battalion. To counter a lack of heavy weapons, the battalion was mainly equipped with automatic weapons (MG-42 or the assault rifle MP-44) as well as individual anti-tank weapons (Panzerfausts). In all probability, the remainder of the battalion would follow next day in second echelon if one could still get through.
The structure of the Storm Battalion was as follows:
Comd: Capt Fenet
Adjt: SS-Lt von Wallenrodt
001: O/Cdt Frantz
002: O/Cdt Deuraux
IVb: Lt Dr Herpe
IVd: 2/Lt Abbé Verney
Combat Schooclass="underline" SS-Lt Weber
1 Coy/Bn 57: 2/Lt Labourdette
2 Coy/Bn 57: Lt Michel
3 Coy/Bn 57: Lt Fatin
4 Coy/Bn 57: Ssgt Ollivier
6 Coy/Bn 58: Sgt-Maj Rostaing
Apart from this, I took with me my adjutant, liaison officer, chief medical officer, headquarters commander and several other officers.
At 0500 hours that morning the battalion, about 500 strong, left Carpin by truck for the rendezvous at the southern exit of Neustrelitz.
On its way the column passed an increasing number of vehicles and trucks, whose occupants said that Soviet tanks had been seen not far from Oranienburg. Once could not expect to enter Berlin via Frohnau for much longer. I knew Berlin and its surroundings well from civilian life. I therefore left the north-south route near Löwenberg to head for Neuruppin, reaching the Berlin-Hamburg highway near Friesack. The tracks and roads were crowded with columns of all kinds coming from Berlin.
After coming under air attack at Nauen, we then came under enemy artillery fire near Wustermark. Quitting the main road, we took a lesser road leading to Ketzin. After some six kilometres, we established that isolated enemy groups completing the encirclement of Berlin, and advancing with extreme caution, some coming from the southwest from the direction of Paretz, others from the northeast from the direction of Priort (south of Wustermark), were about to meet up with each other at the exact spot where we were!
We still had to cross the canal near the farms of Falkenrehde, just behind us on the road to Marquardt. If we didn’t, the two arrowheads would join up and lose the trap behind us.
As the Charlemagne column was about to cross the heavy sandstone bridge, three Vokssturm men mistook us for the enemy and blew the bridge. The vehicles could go no farther and would have to turn back. They managed to reach Neustrelitz, but several trucks were lost on the way and three of them returned to Carpin with 90 men, Lieutenants Fatin and Herpe, and Second-Lieutenant Verney.
At 1500 hours on the 24th April, the column that had crossed the canal, now about 300 strong, carried on, having carried across their baggage, mainly ammunition, and reached Pichelsdorf via Marquardt, Glienicke and Gatow without encountering any of the Berlin defence apart from three Hitler Youth armed with Panzerfausts and patrolling on their bicycles. The big bridges across the Havel on the strategic Berlin-Spandau road were barricaded but unguarded!
After a long and fatiguing march on foot of over 20 kilometres, the detachment reached the vicinity of the Reichs Sports Field and camped in the Grunewald Forest not far from the Pichelsdorf Bridge (Freybrücke), which the Soviet artillery was trying to hit. The exhausted men took a rest.