Edgar Puaud

Edgar Joseph Alexandre Puaud (29 October 1889 – March 1945), was a French army officer, who, in 1945, briefly became commander of the Charlemagne Division, a French unit of the Waffen SS which fought alongside the German Army against the Soviet Union.

World War I
Puaud was born in Orléans, and joined the French Army as a private soldier in 1909. By 1914 he was a sergeant, and was selected to attend the military academy at Saint-Maixent for officer training. On the outbreak of World War I, however, he and fellow "aspirants" were immediately given commissions. During the course of the war he was promoted from Sub-Lieutenant to Captain, and won the Croix de guerre and the Legion of Honour. After 1918 he served with the French army of occupation in the Rhineland, then with the French Foreign Legion in Morocco, Syria and French Indo-China.

World War II
By 1939 he was a Major, based at Septfonds in the south-west of France, and as a result did not see action during the German invasion of 1940. Following the French defeat in 1940, he served in the much-reduced "Armistice Army" in Vichy France.

Although Puaud was initially hostile to French collaboration with the German occupiers, his attitude changed following the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in June 1941. He accepted the collaborationist argument that "Bolshevism" was a greater threat to French interests than the Germans. In October 1941, he joined the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (Legion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchevisme, LVF), which was fighting on the eastern front, as a battalion commander.

It should be noted that the LVF was not a unit of the French Army, and was not under the control of the Vichy French government. It was part of the German Army and was officially known as Infantry Regiment 638. The LVF, which had about 5,000 effective members at its peak, took part in the Battle of Moscow in December 1941, where it sustained severe losses. Thereafter it was not considered by the Germans to be fit for front-line service, and it was used for anti-partisan services, first around Bryansk and then in Ukraine.

Appointed commander
In September 1943 Puaud, promoted to Général de Brigade (Brigadier), was appointed commander of the LVF. In July 1944 the Germans decided that all foreign volunteers fighting in the German Army should be transferred to the Waffen SS. The LVF was therefore merged with the Sturmbrigade SS Frankreich (a French Waffen SS unit formed in July 1943), and renamed the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade Charlemagne (after the Frankish king and German Emperor Charlemagne). Puaud was given the SS rank Oberführer (Brigadier). Although Puaud was the official commander, actual control was exercised by SS Brigadeführer Dr Gustav Krukenberg, who spoke good French.

As well as survivors of the LVF, the Charlemagne Brigade incorporated former members of the Milice française, Vichy fascist paramilitaries, who had escaped to Germany following the Allied liberation of France. Puaud and other former French Army officers were unhappy at the incorporation of the Milice members, who had a reputation for undisciplined violence but little military training.

After spending late 1944 training, the Charlemagne Brigade was upgraded to a division, with the title 33 Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" (französische Nr 1), in February 1945. Because the Germans would not have a foreigner commanding a division, Krukenberg became the official commander with Puaud as the senior French officer.

On the Russian front
In February 1945 the division was sent into action against the advancing Red Army in Pomerania, in eastern Germany. It saw action around Köslin (Koszalin) and Kolberg (Kołobrzeg) on the Baltic coast, but it was not an effective fighting unit and suffered heavy casualties while proving completely unable to delay the Soviet advance.

On 4 March, Puaud was commanding the approximately 3,000 surviving members of the Charlemagne Division near Belgard (Białogard). The division was attacked by Soviet forces who heavily outnumbered them. Puaud, who was on horseback, was severely wounded. He was taken to Greifenberg (Gryfice), where he was left in an inn with other wounded soldiers. There he either died of his wounds or was executed by the Soviets when they captured the town.