French General Leclerc with a group of captured Waffen-SS Frenchmen
French General Leclerc, canne in hand, with a group of captured Waffen-SS Frenchmen of the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS “Charlemagne” May 1945. The unit, made up largely of anti-Bolshevik French collaborationists, many of whom were already serving in various other German units, was all but annihilated in Berlin in April 1945. A dozen surviors, captured by the Soviets, were handed over to the Free French. “How could you wear someone else’s uniform?” One of them replied by asking why Leclerc wore an American one. The prisoners were executed the next day without trial.