Christian de la Mazière (22 August 1922 in Tours – 15 February 2006 in Paris) was a journalist and member of the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen-SS. [1] He is known for discussing his role in the documentary The Sorrow and the Pity and also wrote a book titled The Captive Dreamer. [2] At the start of the war, he served in the French Army and remained in the military of Vichy France until 1942. After being discharged, he worked for the fascist newspaper Le Pays Libre , joining the Charlemagne Division just before the Liberation of Paris in 1944. He was taken prisoner in Pomerania by Polish forces in the Red Army.
Despite pretending to have served as a forced labourer, he was revealed as a member of the Waffen-SS and after the war was sentenced to prison in 1946. He received a pardon in 1948. He became a talent manager and later worked for the magazine version of Le Figaro and served as an advisor to Togolese military ruler Gnassingbé Eyadéma. [3]
He is believed to be the basis for the character of the same name in Rachel Kushner's novel Telex from Cuba. [4]
The Waffen-SS was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. It was disbanded in May 1945.
The Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne was a Waffen-SS unit formed in September 1944 from French collaborationists, many of whom were already serving in various other German units.
Paul Hausser also known as Paul Falk after taking his birth name post war was a German general and then a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS who played a key role in the post-war efforts by former members of the Waffen-SS to achieve historical and legal rehabilitation.
The National Socialist Motor Corps was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that officially existed from May 1931 to 1945. The group was a successor organisation to the older National Socialist Automobile Corps, which had existed since April 1930.
Marcel Bucard was a French Fascist politician.
Maximilian Karl Otto von Herff was a German senior SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as head of the SS Personnel Main Office from 1942 to 1945.
SS blood group tattoos were worn by members of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany during World War II to identify the individual's blood type. After the war, the tattoo was taken to be prima facie evidence of being part of the Waffen-SS, leading to potential arrest and prosecution.
The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism was a unit of the German Army during World War II consisting of collaborationist volunteers from France. Officially designated the 638th Infantry Regiment, it was one of several foreign volunteer units formed in German-occupied Western Europe to participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Robert Bonnaud was a French anti-colonialist historian and professor of history at the Paris Diderot University.
René Binet was a French fascist political activist. Initially a Trotskyist in the 1930s, he espoused fascism during World War II and joined the SS Charlemagne Division. Soon after the end of the war, Binet became involved in numerous neo-fascist and white supremacist publications and parties. He wrote the 1950 book Théorie du racisme, deemed influential on the European far-right at large. Binet died in a car accident in 1957, aged 44.
Henri Joseph Fenet was a French collaborator who served in the Milice française before joining the Waffen-SS during World War II. As the surviving battalion commander of SS Charlemagne, Fenet was part of the last defenders in the area of the Reich Chancellery and Hitler's Führerbunker in April-May 1945. After the war, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labour in 1949. He was released in 1959 and died on 14 September 2002.
Eugène Vaulot was a Frenchman with the rank of Unterscharführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II, who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
Gustav Krukenberg was a high-ranking member of the Waffen-SS and commander of the SS Charlemagne Division and the remains of the SS Division Nordland during the Battle of Berlin in April 1945. After Krukenberg surrendered to Soviet Red Army troops, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to prison by a Soviet court. He was released from prison after serving 11 years and died on 23 October 1980 in Germany.
Edgar Joseph Alexandre Puaud was a French army officer, who, in 1945, briefly became commander of the Charlemagne Division, a French unit of the Waffen-SS in the service of Nazi Germany.
The Overseas Light Infantry Battalion was an obscure and little known French formation of German prisoners of war and French collaborationists drawn from the French penal system and prisoner-of-war camps after World War II for colonial service. BILOM comprised a demi-brigade of three battalions, the first of which entered service on July 6, 1948 as the "1re Bataillon d'Infanterie légère d'Outre-Mer".
Jean Mabire was a French journalist and essayist. A neo-pagan and nordicist, Mabire is known for the regionalist and euronationalist ideas that he developed in both Europe-Action and GRECE, as well as his controversial books on the Waffen-SS.
Pierre Bousquet was a French journalist and far-right politician. A former section leader (Rottenführer) in the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division, Bousquet was the first treasurer and a founding member of the National Front in 1972.
Paul Gamory-Dubourdeau was a French collaborator during World War II. A decorated army officer in the French army, Gamory-Dubourdeau volunteered in the Waffen SS, becoming commander of the French SS Volunteer Assault Brigade before transferring to the SS headquarter in Berlin. After the war he was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment.