Hitler's Gauls: The History of the 33rd Waffen Division Charlemagne (Hitler's Legions)

The divisions of the Waffen-SS were among the elite of Hitler’s armies in World War II, alongside the Germans in the Waffen-SS fought an astonishingly high number of volunteers from other countries. By the end of World War II, these foreign volunteers comprised half of all Hitler’s Waffen-SS, and filled the ranks of more than 24 of the nominal 38 Waffen-SS divisions. So during the most brutal war that mankind has ever known hundreds of thousands of men flocked to fight for a country that was not theirs, and for a cause that was one of the most monstrous and barbaric in history. This examination explores one of these legions of volunteers, the Charlemagne division, who were recruited entirely from conquered France. The men in Charlemagne fought hard on the Eastern Front, often motivated by an extreme anticommunist zeal. This book is an authoritative record of this unit and the men who fought in it.